Forgiveness, theologies of justice and Jean Améry's resenting subject

The recent volume of The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, which defines as one of its goals the identification and mapping out of the complexity of theoretical thinking of politically pertinent and urgent themes, includes a chapter by Duncan Isivon titled "Historical Injustice." This chapter asks how within the realm of political theory one could make sense of the contemporary projects that aim to do justice for and repair past discriminations and past atrocities through a variety of reconciliatory and retributive institutions. That contemporary political theorists have become interested in the questions of what is widely, even if somewhat uncritically, termed as "transitional justice" seems to be a novel and a promising development in this field, which has so far remained largely under-theorized. This is because to view "transitional justice" through the lenses of critical theorizing includes a promise that one would consider its central assumption, namely that it is both desirable and possible to relate politically to the past in terms of justice-doing.