Description
Book SynopsisThis book brings together various discourses concerned with violence and punishment, paying special attention to the extreme variations of these phenomena. Starting from a narrow definition of violence as an infliction of physical harm, paired with a broad discussion of its causes and a wide definition of punishment as an authority claim to retribution or reform, the book maps and interprets political-theoretical discourses on the death penalty, historical explanations of the changes of violence and punishment, and comparative differences in punishment. It also puts violence and punishment into perspective with political power, world religions, literature and film, and criminological theory. The final chapter changes the perspective taken in the bulk of the book, dealing with discourses of theodicy in the face of cases of extreme violence and suffering. By juxtaposing many unusual discourses, the book attempts to fulfill three primary functions. First, it skeptically probes numerous di
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Death Penalty: Political Theory of Extreme Punishment Chapter 2 A History of Violence: Changing Conceptions of Punishment in Time and Some Attempts to Explain Them Chapter 3 Comparative Politics of Punishment: Stories from the Penal Peripheries Chapter 4 Punishment and Power: If Power Punishes, Does Absolute Power Punish Absolutely? Chapter 5 Punishment and the Sacred: How Do Great Religions Punish? Chapter 6 Punishment and Fiction: Images of Violence in Literature and Film Chapter 7 Criminology: Politics in the Science of Crime Chapter 8 Dismantling Sorrow
