Working Through the Trauma of Evil: An Interview With Richard Kearney

Abstract

In this interview, the Irish philosopher Richard Kearney explores the human experience of evil and the role of the human imagination in responding to this evil. Kearney focuses on the healing steps people may take in order to "work through" traumatic experience, steps that include remembering, narrative retelling, and mourning. Such working through, he says, can turn melancholia to mourning, thus allowing those who have experienced suffering and loss to "give a future to their past" and, in so doing, to "go on."