State of Suffering

State of Suffering
Author: Susanna Trnka
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2008
Genre: East Indians
ISBN: 9780801474989

How do ordinary people respond when their lives are irrevocably altered by terror and violence? Susanna Trnka was residing in an Indo-Fijian village in the year 2000 during the Fijian nationalist coup. The overthrow of the elected multiethnic party led to six months of nationalist aggression, much of which was directed toward Indo-Fijians. In State of Suffering, Trnka shows how Indo-Fijians' lives were overturned as waves of turmoil and destruction swept across Fiji. Describing the myriad social processes through which violence is articulated and ascribed meaning-including expressions of incredulity, circulation of rumors, narratives, and exchanges of laughter and jokes-Trnka reveals the ways in which the community engages in these practices as individuals experience, and try to understand, the consequences of the coup. She then considers different kinds of pain caused by political chaos and social turbulence, including pain resulting from bodily harm, shared terror, and the distress precipitated by economic crisis and social dislocation. Throughout this book, Trnka focuses on the collective social process through which violence is embodied, articulated, and silenced by those it targets. Her sensitive ethnography is a valuable addition to the global conversation about the impact of political violence on community life.

State of Suffering

State of Suffering
Author: Susanna Trnka
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2011-05-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 080146188X

How do ordinary people respond when their lives are irrevocably altered by terror and violence? Susanna Trnka was residing in an Indo-Fijian village in the year 2000 during the Fijian nationalist coup. The overthrow of the elected multiethnic party led to six months of nationalist aggression, much of which was directed toward Indo-Fijians. In State of Suffering, Trnka shows how Indo-Fijians' lives were overturned as waves of turmoil and destruction swept across Fiji. Describing the myriad social processes through which violence is articulated and ascribed meaning-including expressions of incredulity, circulation of rumors, narratives, and exchanges of laughter and jokes-Trnka reveals the ways in which the community engages in these practices as individuals experience, and try to understand, the consequences of the coup. She then considers different kinds of pain caused by political chaos and social turbulence, including pain resulting from bodily harm, shared terror, and the distress precipitated by economic crisis and social dislocation. Throughout this book, Trnka focuses on the collective social process through which violence is embodied, articulated, and silenced by those it targets. Her sensitive ethnography is a valuable addition to the global conversation about the impact of political violence on community life.

This Republic of Suffering

This Republic of Suffering
Author: Drew Gilpin Faust
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2009-01-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0375703837

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • An "extraordinary ... profoundly moving" history (The New York Times Book Review) of the American Civil War that reveals the ways that death on such a scale changed not only individual lives but the life of the nation. An estiated 750,000 soldiers lost their lives in the American Civil War. An equivalent proportion of today's population would be seven and a half million. In This Republic of Suffering, Drew Gilpin Faust describes how the survivors managed on a practical level and how a deeply religious culture struggled to reconcile the unprecedented carnage with its belief in a benevolent God. Throughout, the voices of soldiers and their families, of statesmen, generals, preachers, poets, surgeons, nurses, northerners and southerners come together to give us a vivid understanding of the Civil War's most fundamental and widely shared reality. With a new introduction by the author, and a new foreword by Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Social Suffering in the Neoliberal Age

Social Suffering in the Neoliberal Age
Author: Karen Soldatic
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2022-04-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000580822

This book provides a rich synthesis of research and theory of nascent and emergent critically engaged work examining changing welfare structures, regimes and technologies and the social suffering that is generated in everyday lives. By rigorously examining social security restructuring with the turn to austerity governance and its daily practices of managing, regulating and subordinating individuals, peoples and communities, this collection delineates the machinery of state power and logics designed to manage, contain and control the lives of some of the most poorest and marginalised citizens who are reliant on social welfare income payments. A core strength of the book is, first, its unpacking of austerity governance across diverse communities and, second, the elevation of community resistance and mobilisation against the very measures of austerity. Combined, the work maps out the logics of state power and everyday practices of embedded contestation and confrontation. Using the case study of Australia to discuss sociolegal recategorisations, automation of welfare governance, technologies of policy design and delivery, conditionality and systems of penalisation, this book will be of interest to all scholars and students of sociology, critical theory, social policy, social work and disability studies, Indigenous studies and settler-colonialism.

Making Sense Out of Suffering

Making Sense Out of Suffering
Author: Peter Kreeft
Publisher: Servant Publications
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1986
Genre: Bereavement
ISBN: 9780892832194

Peter Kreeft observes that our world is full of billions of normal lives which have touched by apparently pointless and random suffering. He then records the results of his own wrestling match with God as he struggles to make sense out of this pain.

States of Denial

States of Denial
Author: Stanley Cohen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 573
Release: 2013-08-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745656781

Blocking out, turning a blind eye, shutting off, not wanting to know, wearing blinkers, seeing what we want to see ... these are all expressions of 'denial'. Alcoholics who refuse to recognize their condition, people who brush aside suspicions of their partner's infidelity, the wife who doesn't notice that her husband is abusing their daughter - are supposedly 'in denial'. Governments deny their responsibility for atrocities, and plan them to achieve 'maximum deniability'. Truth Commissions try to overcome the suppression and denial of past horrors. Bystander nations deny their responsibility to intervene. Do these phenomena have anything in common? When we deny, are we aware of what we are doing or is this an unconscious defence mechanism to protect us from unwelcome truths? Can there be cultures of denial? How do organizations like Amnesty and Oxfam try to overcome the public's apparent indifference to distant suffering and cruelty? Is denial always so bad - or do we need positive illusions to retain our sanity? States of Denial is the first comprehensive study of both the personal and political ways in which uncomfortable realities are avoided and evaded. It ranges from clinical studies of depression, to media images of suffering, to explanations of the 'passive bystander' and 'compassion fatigue'. The book shows how organized atrocities - the Holocaust and other genocides, torture, and political massacres - are denied by perpetrators and by bystanders, those who stand by and do nothing.

Suffering and the Remedy of Art

Suffering and the Remedy of Art
Author: Harold Schweizer
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 240
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780791432631

This book suggests that a listening to suffering may profit from a literary hearing, and vice versa. It is not only that literature tells of suffering but that suffering may tell us something about the nature of literature

The Politics of Suffering

The Politics of Suffering
Author: Nell Gabiam
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2016-05-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253021529

With a focus on the residents of three refugee camps, “Gabiam’s nuanced study of Syria’s Palestinian community is an engaging and informative read” (Journal of Palestine Studies). The Politics of Suffering examines the confluence of international aid, humanitarian relief, and economic development within the space of the Palestinian refugee camp. Nell Gabiam describes the interactions between UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with providing assistance to Palestinians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and residents of three camps in Syria. Over time, UNRWA’s management of the camps reveals a shift from an emphasis on humanitarian aid to promotion of self-sufficiency and integration of refugees within their host society. Gabiam’s analysis captures two forces in tension within the camps: politics of suffering that serves to keep alive the discourse around the Palestinian right of return; and politics of citizenship expressed through development projects that seek to close the divide between the camp and the city. Gabiam also offers compelling insights into the plight of Palestinians before and during the Syrian war, which has led to devastation in the camps and massive displacement of their populations.

Wandering in Darkness

Wandering in Darkness
Author: Eleonore Stump
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2012-09-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191056316

Only the most naïve or tendentious among us would deny the extent and intensity of suffering in the world. Can one hold, consistently with the common view of suffering in the world, that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, perfectly good God? This book argues that one can. Wandering in Darkness first presents the moral psychology and value theory within which one typical traditional theodicy, namely, that of Thomas Aquinas, is embedded. It explicates Aquinas's account of the good for human beings, including the nature of love and union among persons. Eleonore Stump also makes use of developments in neurobiology and developmental psychology to illuminate the nature of such union. Stump then turns to an examination of narratives. In a methodological section focused on epistemological issues, the book uses recent research involving autism spectrum disorder to argue that some philosophical problems are best considered in the context of narratives. Using the methodology argued for, the book gives detailed, innovative exegeses of the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham and Isaac, and Mary of Bethany. In the context of these stories and against the backdrop of Aquinas's other views, Stump presents Aquinas's own theodicy, and shows that Aquinas's theodicy gives a powerful explanation for God's allowing suffering. She concludes by arguing that this explanation constitutes a consistent and cogent defense for the problem of suffering.

No Mud, No Lotus

No Mud, No Lotus
Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
Publisher: Parallax Press
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2014-12-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1937006867

The secret to happiness is to acknowledge and transform suffering, not to run away from it. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh offers practices and inspiration transforming suffering and finding true joy. Thich Nhat Hanh acknowledges that because suffering can feel so bad, we try to run away from it or cover it up by consuming. We find something to eat or turn on the television. But unless we’re able to face our suffering, we can’t be present and available to life, and happiness will continue to elude us. Nhat Hanh shares how the practices of stopping, mindful breathing, and deep concentration can generate the energy of mindfulness within our daily lives. With that energy, we can embrace pain and calm it down, instantly bringing a measure of freedom and a clearer mind. No Mud, No Lotus introduces ways to be in touch with suffering without being overwhelmed by it. "When we know how to suffer," Nhat Hanh says, "we suffer much, much less." With his signature clarity and sense of joy, Thich Nhat Hanh helps us recognize the wonders inside us and around us that we tend to take for granted and teaches us the art of happiness.