Lament, mourning, and the transmissibility of a tradition in the aftermath of destruction are prominent themes in Jewish thought. The corpus of lament literature, building upon and transforming the biblical Book of Lamentations, provides a unique lens for thinking about the relationships between destruction and renewal, mourning and remembrance, loss and redemption, expression and the inexpressible. This anthology features four texts by Gershom Scholem on lament, translated here for the first time into English. The volume also includes original essays (...) by leading scholars, which interpret Scholem's texts and situate them in relation to other Weimar-era Jewish thinkers, including Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, Franz Kafka, and Paul Celan, who drew on the textual traditions of lament to respond to the destruction and upheavals of the early twentieth century. Also included are studies on the textual tradition of lament in Judaism, from biblical, rabbinic, and medieval lamentations to contemporary Yemenite women's laments. This collection, unified by its strong thematic focus on lament, shows the fruitfulness of studying contemporary and modern texts alongside the traditional textual sources that informed them. (shrink)

The 5 lamentations, when read as a single biblical book, outline several interacting bodies in a similar way that dotted lines present the silhouettes and aspects of a total picture. Each also represents action, building into a plot that can be interpreted psychoanalytically to render its depth and colour content. In addition, by focusing on the body and its sensations, this study can facilitate the visceral experience of the suffering of collective and individual bodies by the recipient.

In this reflection, I respond to Anthony Reddie's reflections and assertions about the sacramentality of black flesh in a world shaped by white supremacy. I locate myself as Korean American and refer to my experience of ministering to university students during the rise of Black Lives Matter in the US. Instead of offering cognate claims for the sacramentality of Asian flesh, I ask what theological repentance should look like in light of the historical profaning of the black body. Using the (...) work of two black American artists, jazz musician Robert Glasper and painter Titus Kaphar, I offer beginning reflections on how our liturgies and practices need to change as part of theological repentance—including lament. (shrink)

This article reflects on the nuances and insinuations of a conceptualisation of “lament” as an inability to appropriate any object, or to turn the lost object into a fetish. While mourning, melancholia, and fetishism ultimately remain entangled with the ego (i.e., within a narcissistic configuration), lament goes beyond that, hinting at a loss of ego, a disintegration of the autonomous self. As a sonic expression of the failure of language, lament is a manifestation of the negativity or void at the (...) core of language. However, in lament this negativity is radicalised. This extreme obstruction, which impedes all connection, imparts to lament abstractive powers, ultimately qualifying lament as a political force. The last part of the article argues that the social imaginary of Iran, steeped in numerous failed attempts to rise above domination and subjection (as evident in myriad revolts and two revolutions in the twentieth century), could serve as promising material for the concretisation of such a theory of lament. (shrink)

The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur. By Nili Samet. Mesopotamian Civilizations, vol. 18. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2014. Pp. xii + 286, 29 plts. $89.50.

This essay examines the socio-political and spiritual importance of the Book of Lamentations and lament expressions in Hebraic and early Christian liturgies and public settings, especially with regard to women’s lyrical expressions and to Syrian traditions until late antiquity. Further, this study addresses the current crisis in Syria, locating Syrian women’s and men’s laments today, including those from Muslim background. These laments show both continuity with ancient lament traditions and creative lyrical innovations that speak to the Syrian people’s urgent, (...) devastating situation and their united need for help and justice. (shrink)

This article gives preachers and teachers of scripture an angle on the text that may help communicate its meaning.

Canadians have relatively few binding national myths, but one of the most pervasive and enduring is the conviction that the country is doomed. In 1965 George Grant passionately defended Canadian identity by asking fundamental questions about the meaning and future of Canada’s political existence. In Lament for a Nation he argued that Canada – immense and underpopulated, defined in part by the border, history, and culture it shares with the United States, and torn by conflicting loyalties to Britain, Quebec, and (...) America – had ceased to exist as a sovereign state. Lament for a Nation became the seminal work in Canadian political thought and Grant became known as the father of Canadian nationalism. This edition includes a major introduction by Andrew Potter that explores Grant’s arguments in the context of changes in ethnic diversity, free trade, globalization, post-modernism, and 9/11. Potter discusses the shifting uses of the terms “liberal” and “conservative” and closes with a look at the current state of Canadian nationalism. (shrink)

Works of human rights literature help to ground the formal rights system in an informal rights ethos. Writers have developed four major modes of human rights literature as follows: protest, testimony, lament, and laughter. Through interpretations of poetry in Carolyn Forché’s anthology, Against Forgetting, and novels from Rwanda, the US, and Bosnia, I focus on the mode of lament, the literature of mourning. Lament is a social and ritualized form, the purposes of which are congruent with the aims of transitional (...) justice institutions. Both laments and truth commissions employ grieving narratives to help survivors of human rights trauma bequeath to the ghosts of the past the justice of a monument while renewing the survivors’ capacity for rebuilding civil society in the future. Human rights scholars need a broader, extrajuridical meaning for “transitional justice” if we hope to capture its power. (shrink)

More than in other Hebrew writings, the enigmatic queries for origin, use, and theology of the small Book of Lamentations cannot easily be appeased. There are too many discrepancies in our literary, historical, and theological data of these five chapters of literature. Affinities with ancient Sumerian city laments as well as echoes of analogous experiences in modern experience open up new dimensions in the interpretation of Lamentations.

Slavery in Ancient Greece, Absolutist Monarchy in pre-modern Europe, and the European conquest of the New World strike us, from our contemporary perspective, as injustices on a massive scale. But given the impact of these large-scale historical activities on the particular course taken by Western history, they almost undeniably played an important role in the evolution of modern liberalism. Bernard Williams suggests a startling claim—that liberal universalists cannot condemn past injustices, because those injustices were necessary conditions of the development of (...) the modern liberalism that they affirm. This paper examines this possible objection to liberal universalists who greatly value their liberal way of life, paying particular attention to the lamentable necessities thesis: the claim that modern liberalism would not have come into existence but for the occurrence of past injustices. It motivates the lamentable necessities thesis, and argues that those who accept it, and greatly value modern liberalism, are precluded from regretting all-things-considered certain past injustices. Finally, it makes the case that liberal universalists who greatly value modern liberalism may condemn past injustices necessary to its emergence, even if they are unable to regret them in the relevant sense. (shrink)

Christian peacemakers and ministers of reconciliation serving in contexts of conflict require practices to help them cope with painful situations and formulate constructive responses to them. Lament is one indispensible practice for ministers and their communities, simultaneously directing their pain to God and expanding their theological and social imagination for difficult tasks. The Scriptures provide ample resources for embracing the gift of lament. Here I argue that Psalm 13 offers a model of lament in three movements for ministers of reconciliation. (...) I begin by briefly delineating the nature of lament in Scripture. Next, I analyze Psalm 13 as a representative lament, with special reference to its implications for Christians engaged in the work of reconciliation in challenging contexts. Finally, I conclude with a case study of activist Angelina Atyam in order to illustrate how the movements of Psalm 13 can be expressed in renewed theological imagination and social ministry. (shrink)

Our life in this broken world requires tools to own and express our grief in ways that are connected to our faith in God. We find that the biblical genre of lament is appropriate to the task. However, we do not come to lament without baggage, and we sometimes require additional help in the form of symbolic capital borrowed from stories and songs. In this case, The Chronicles of Narnia provide such capital. As we reflect on these stories, we can (...) see lament in a new way that helps us bring our pain to God. As we engage in the discipline of lament, we are spiritually formed into the image of Jesus. (shrink)

The passing of Nelson Mandela and other figures of contemporary importance may prompt the interesting question of how we might or should understand the psychological, social and moral function of lamentation in human life. This paper aims to show that such responses are not just of emotional and interpersonal significance, but also of serious moral import. To this end, the paper proceeds via exploration of conceptually and morally suggestive correspondences or resonances between the logical grammar of lamentation—which, to be sure, (...) has received almost no latter day analytical attention—and that of gratitude or thankfulness in which there has been an enormous explosion of academic interest in recent years. The paper argues that there is no less case for a moral virtue of lamentation, than for a virtue of gratitude. (shrink)

The confessions of Jeremiah are prayers for people mired in loss and play a major role in the theological and spiritual process of healing. They keep communication with God alive in the midst of destruction and despair.

Marxists are committed to the elimination of exploitation of man by man. But they also believe that, for long stretches of history, exploitation is historically necessary. These two claims are in practical tension. As Engels would have it, this tension causes 'the leader of an extreme party' attempting premature revolution to be 'irrevocably lost'. This brief note argues against a Marxist attempt to alleviate this tension and sketches the moral predicament of revolutionists faced with it. Historical materialism entails a pantragic (...) view of history. (shrink)

The poem gives a voice to many refugees who died crossing borders and many more asylum seekers who will lose their lives crossing international borders.

The subject of lament in the NT has not received as much attention as it deserves. Some scholars have taken note of this fact, even calling on evangelicals to take up the charge. The present article is a response to such a charge and focuses on the book of 2 Corinthians, where one finds several instances that point to a pattern of lament, revealing a true, back-and-forth covenant interaction with God, rather than one that allows only for praise. After a (...) brief introduction to the concept of biblical lament, a few key passages in 2 Corinthians are examined that, while not formal laments, do provide certain glimpses of lament. These examples encourage a move beyond the one-sidedness of a “doxology-only” faith and toward one that is more robust, able to hold both praise and lament in tension. (shrink)

Ratio Juris, Volume 35, Issue 3, Page 290-309, September 2022.

This paper reads Sophocles' " Antigone " contextually, as an exploration of the politics of lamentation and larger conflicts these stand for. Antigone defies Creon's sovereign decree that her brother Polynices, who attacked the city with a foreign army and died in battle, be dishonoured - left unburied. But the play is not about Polynices' treason. It explores the clash in 5th century Athens between Homeric/elite and democratic mourning practices. The former memorialize the unique individuality of the dead, focus on (...) the family's loss and bereavement and call for vengeance. The latter memorialize the dead's contribution to the immortal polis and emphasize the replaceability of those lost. Each economy of mourning sees the other as excessive and politically unstable. The remainders of both, managed by way of exception institutions such as tragedy and the Dionysian Festival, continue to haunt us now. (shrink)

Nicole Loraux, The Mourning Voice: An Essay on Greek Tragedy, Cornell University Press, ISBN - 9780801438301Daniel Adam Mendelsohn, Gender and the City in Euripides’ Political Plays, Oxford University Press, ISBN - 9780199249565.

This article examines the violence inherent to fundamental operations of critical and theoretical thought: to read in order to gain insight into something, and to draw distinctions in spite of experiences contradicting clear dividing lines, notably between what is human and the rest of all beings as “nature,” and between terminological language and other forms of speech, such as lamenting and complaining. Walter Benjamin’s texts both present and reenact this violence. Reading Benjamin, Werner Hamacher expounds these moments of violence as (...) structural necessities. The article focuses on the question of distance as the objective of reading, and of drawing terminological distinctions—an objective, it is argued, that is driven by counteracting dynamics in reading, which follows the dictate of a text, and in excessive modes of speech such as plaintive language, which keeps claiming attention while refusing symbolic substitution in order to insist that it cannot be answered, satisfied, or appeased. (shrink)

This article examines the violence inherent to fundamental operations of critical and theoretical thought: to read in order to gain insight into something, and to draw distinctions in spite of experiences contradicting clear dividing lines, notably between what is human and the rest of all beings as “nature,” and between terminological language and other forms of speech, such as lamenting and complaining. Walter Benjamin’s texts both present and reenact this violence. Reading Benjamin, Werner Hamacher expounds these moments of violence as (...) structural necessities. The article focuses on the question of distance as the objective of reading, and of drawing terminological distinctions—an objective, it is argued, that is driven by counteracting dynamics in reading, which follows the dictate of a text, and in excessive modes of speech such as plaintive language, which keeps claiming attention while refusing symbolic substitution in order to insist that it cannot be answered, satisfied, or appeased. (shrink)

That some animals need to prey on others in order to live is lamentable. While no one wants predators to die of starvation, a world in which no animal needed to prey on others would, in some meaningful sense, be a better world. Predation is lamentable for four primary reasons: predation often inflicts pain on prey animals; it often frustrates prey animals’ desires; anything other than lamentation—which would include relishing predation as well as being indifferent to it—is in tension with (...) sensitivity to many other forms of hardship and suffering; and lamenting is demanded by the virtues of compassion and gentleness. One can lament predation even while acknowledging respects in which predation is genuinely praiseworthy. One can esteem admirable traits developed through and displayed in predation without esteeming the mechanism through which they are developed or the activity in which they are displayed. In addition, appreciating the check on population that predation provides does not preclude lamenting predation. While holding these positions does involve opposing nature itself and failing to appreciate predators for exactly what they are, doing so does not disqualify a person as an environmentalist. Finally, one can lament predation without being logically committed thereby to preventing or disrupting it. (shrink)

This comment responds to an article by Range and Cotton (1995) on reporting of parental permission and child assent procedures in published articles for 4 psychology journals. Issue is taken with the assumptions, methodology, interpretations, and implications of listing researchers in the Range and Cotton article. There is no evidence researchers failed in their ethical obligations or that children were put at risk. Reporting permission/assent in publications is not an ethical requirement. Listing researchers as "failing" to do something not part (...) of an ethical code is lamentable. Too many unfortunate implications and problems can be derived from Range and Cotton's analysis and conclusions. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente artículo pretende analizar el discurso empleado por las voces líricas femeninas de las elegías anglosajonas medievales The Wife’s Lament y Wulf and Eadwacer. Mediante la idea de la conciencia del cuerpo femenino como origen de la écriture féminine propuesta por Luce Irigaray y Hélène Cixous, figuras principales del feminismo de la “diferencia” francés, se determinará que el uso discursivo empleado por las voces elegíacas femeninas diverge en cuanto al utilizado por voces elegíacas masculinas y que, de este (...) modo, supone un medio por el que hallar una identidad femenina propia más allá de los constructos de género patriarcales vigentes en la sociedad anglosajona medieval. Abstract: This article aims to analyse the discourse employed by the female lyrical voices in the medieval Anglo-Saxon elegies The Wife’s Lament and Wulf and Eadwacer. Through the idea of female body self-awareness as the origin of écriture féminine proposed by Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous, leading figures in French feminism of the sexual “difference”, we will determine that the discursive use applied by female elegiac voices diverges from that used by male elegiac voices and that, thus, it provides a means to find a female identity beyond the patriarchal gender constructs of medieval Anglo-Saxon society. (shrink)