Time spent on sabbatical last year as the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, D.C., proved a prolific experience for Professor John K. Roth, who published five books in 2005all dedicated to various facets and implications of the Holocaust, other genocides, and human rights abuses.
"It was just fortunate timing that I had a year of sabbatical and a handful of writing projects in the pipeline that needed attention in a finite period," says Roth, whose volume of pages and book covers last year proved his most productive time in publishing since arriving at CMC in 1966. "The year was fantastic in bringing closure to those projects," he says, somewhat amused, "but I don't expect to repeat the feat."
Roth, the Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, was only the fourth recipient of the Levine award, an honor whose purpose is to provide an opportunity for concentrated research and writing.
The books include Roth's latest, Ethics During and After the Holocaust: In the Shadow of Birkenau (Palgrave Macmillan), released last month and written, almost entirely, during his sabbatical. It explores the thesis that nothing human, natural or divine guarantees respect for the ethical values and commitments that are most needed in contemporary human existence, "but nothing is more important than our commitment to defend them, for they remain as fundamental as they are fragile, as precious as they are endangered."
Michael Berenbaum, former director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and a former Podlich Distinguished Visiting Fellow at CMC, calls Ethics the "mature work of a distinguished scholar who asks all the difficult questions and refuses to accept the simple answers." Peter Hayes, professor of history at Northwestern University adds the following: "Appearing at a time of widespread ethical numbness, even cynicism, this book is a clarion call for reinvigorated commitment to memory, humility, decency, responsibility, and practical action."
With Jonathan Petropoulos, the John V. Croul Professor of European History and the associate director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Roth has also edited Gray Zones: Ambiguity and Compromise in the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Berghahn Books), which contains essays from the Center's inaugural academic conference in February 2004. The book, Roth says, was particularly gratifying for two reasons: it is the Center's first research publication, and also reflects the rewarding collaboration with longtime colleague Petropoulos.
Three other edited volumes include a revised three-volume version of Ethics (Salem Press), including more than 200 new entries on topics of recent interest; Fire in the Ashes: God, Evil, and the Holocaust, edited with David Patterson for the University of Washington Press; and Genocide and Human Rights: A Philosophical Guide (Palgrave Macmillan), in which an international group of 25 contemporary philosophers, including CMC's Stephen T. Davisthe Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophyexplore how philosophy can and should respond to genocide, particularly in ways that defend human rights.
Roth said the latter book was a personal effort to encourage philosophers to do something they do too rarely: namely, to reflect on genocide and to consider how philosophy may have contributed to that crime, how the repetition of genocide ought to influence the discipline of philosophy, and what philosophy might contribute to check humanity's genocidal inclinations.