1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide
The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide explores the many and sometimes complicated ways in which religion, faith, doctrine, and practice intersect in societies where mass atrocity and genocide occur.
This volume is intended as an entry point to questions about mass atrocity and genocide that are asked by and of people of faith and is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, historical events, and heated debates in this subject area. The 39 contributions to the handbook, by a team of international contributors, span five continents and cover four millennia. Each explores the intersection of religion, faith, and mainly state-sponsored mass atrocity and genocide, and draws from a variety of disciplines.
This volume is divided into six core sections:
- Genocide in Antiquity and Holy Wars
- The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
- Religion and the State
- The Role of Religion during Genocide
- Post Genocide Considerations
- Memory Culture
Within these sections central issues, historical events, debates, and problems are examined, including the Crusades; Jihad and ISIS, colonialism, the Holocaust, desecration of ritual objects, politics of religion, Shinto nationalism, attacks on Rohingya Muslims; the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, responses to genocide; gender-based atrocities, ritualcide in Cambodia, burial sites and mass graves, transitional justice, forgiveness, documenting genocide, survivor memory narratives, post-conflict healing and memorialization.
The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Genocide is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in religion and genocide, religion and violence, and religion and politics. It will be of great interest to students of theology, philosophy, genocide studies, narrative studies, history, and international relations and those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, sociology, and anthropology.
Section 1: Genocide in Antiquity and Holy Wars
1. Genocide in Antiquity
Shawn J. Kelley
2. The Roots of Antisemitism and Genocide in Christian Antiquity
John T. Pawlikowski
3. Esau and Amalek in the Hebrew Bible and in Second Temple Jewish Apocalyptic Literature: From Propaganda to Genocide
Adam T. Strater
4. Holy Wars, Judaism, Violence, and Genocide: An Unholy Quadrinity?
Steven Leonard Jacobs
5. The Last Crusade: Holy War and Genocidal Practices in the Case of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
Antonio Míguez Macho
6. Alawite Warrior-Sheikhs: Ali Khizam and the Specter of Sectarian Violence in Syria
Uğur Ümit Üngör
Section 2: The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples
7. Renewing the World: Disrupting Settler-Colonial Destruction
Kerri J. Malloy
8. Colonial New England: Genocide and the Negative Myth of the Other
Dennis Cerrotti
9. The Religious Challenges of Linking Holocaust Memory with Colonial Violence
David Tollerton
10. Sexual Violence as Genocide against Indigenous Peoples: the Case of Mayan Women in Guatemala
Elisenda Calvet Martínez
Section 3: Religion and the State
11. Religion: A Driving Force But not a Major Cause of the Turkish Genocide of Armenians
Rubina Peroomian
12. The Christian Churches, the Nazi State, and the Holocaust
Victoria J. Barnett
13. Religion and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda
Freddy Mutanguha & Paul Rukesha
14. The "Nature of Death" in the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition Genocide
Khyati Tripathi
15. Ritualcide Under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia: Animism, Genocide and War Crimes
Peg Levine
16. Race, Religion, and the Genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany
Christopher Probst
17. Catholicism and State Terror in Argentina
Gustavo Morello
18. Religious Communities as Targets of the Khmer Rouge Genocide
B.D. Mowell
19. Dangerous Speech Cloaked in Saffron Robes: Race, Religion, and Anti-Muslim Violence in Myanmar
Nickey Diamond & Ken MacLean
20. The Uyghur People: History Geography, Religion, Language
Azeem Ibrahim & Nury Turkel
Section 4: The Role of Religion During Genocide
21. Religion, Resistance, and Responding to Genocide: The Cham in Cambodia
Rachel Killean
22. Sinners or Saviors: A Personal Perspective on Surviving the Holocaust
Walter Ziffer
23. Rwanda 1994: The Creation of Religious Identities in Genocide Propaganda
Olov Simonsson
24. Faith and Women Rescuers in Rwanda
Sara E. Brown
25. Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘Citizens of the Kingdom of God’
Jolene Chu & Tharcisse Seminega
26. Music, Religion, and Genocide
Badema Pitic
Section 5: Post Genocide Considerations
27. "For Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return": Jewish Law, Forensic Investigation, and Archaeology in the Aftermath of the Holocaust
Caroline Sturdy Colls
28. Forensics and Maya Ceremonies: The Long Journey for Truth in Guatemala
Fredy Peccerelli & Erica Henderson
29. Reforming the Church’s Theology of the Jews: Christian Responses to the Holocaust
William Skiles
30. Mozambique: Religious Practices and Post-conflict Processes
Victor Igreja
31. Iraq and the Halabja ‘Genocide’: The need for Transformative Justice
Isaac Kfir
32. Personal Philosophies of Forgiveness after Genocide
Stephen D. Smith
33. Genocide and the Human Right to Freedom of Religion
Melanie O’Brien
34. Survival: The Case of Yezidi Women
Maria Rita Corticelli
35. An Assessment of the United Nations Plan of Action for Religious Leaders and Actors to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes
Kate Temoney
Section 6: Memory Culture
36. The Power of One: Narrative Analysis and an Iranian Jewish Shoah Survivor
Aria Razfar & Caroline Ezrapour Yona
Katharina von Kellenbach
38. Muslim and Christian Perspectives on the Holocaust and Genocide
Mehnaz Afridi & Stephen D. Smith
39. Analyzing Holocaust Archives Through a Quantitative Lens
Alexis Lerner
Epilogue: What we know and what we still need to know
John K. Roth
Biography
Sara E. Brown is the Executive Director of the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education and served for four years on the Advisory Board for the International Association of Genocide Scholars. She is the author of Gender and the Genocide in Rwanda: Women as Perpetrators and Rescuers (2019).
Stephen D. Smith is the Finci-Viterbi Executive Director of USC Shoah Foundation, Adjunct Professor of Religion, and UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education at the University of Southern California. He is the author of The Holocaust and the Christian World (2019), The Trajectory of Holocaust Memory (Routledge, forthcoming), and Holocaust XR (Routledge, forthcoming).
