Ethical and Hermeneutical Reflections on War, Violence, and Responsibility

Cynthia R. Nielsen is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas, where she teaches courses in the areas of hermeneutics, ethics, philosophy of language, aesthetics, contemporary continental philosophy, and the history of philosophy. Her interest in hermeneutics applies to a broad range of topics, including aesthetics, environmental ethics, social and political (mis)uses of language, Ukrainian Studies, philosophy of race and gender, and post- and decolonial studies. Her most recent monograph is Gadamer’s Hermeneutical Aesthetics: On Art as a Performative, Dynamic, Communal, Event (Routledge 2023).

• Introduction 1. Serhiy Zhadan on War-Time, Language, and Poetry After Bucha 2. Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine? 3. History Returns and Has a (Neo)Imperial Rhythm and Rhyme 4. Russia’s Imperial Identity: Origin Myths, Divinizing Narratives, and Discursive Media Strategies 5. Crimes Against the Environment: Russia’s Destruction of the Kakhovka Dam as an Act of Ecocide 6. Oleksandr Mykhed and The Language of War

Cynthia Nielsen is a creative scholar who offers here a series of connected essays drawing on disciplines ranging from philosophy to discourse analysis to history and literary studies in order to explicate the Russian war in Ukraine. Readers encounter Ukrainian voices wrestling with the unspeakable. Nielsen’s book is a bold and successful effort to articulate the human experience of life in a time and place of shocking and unjustifiable trauma.Susan P. McCaffray, Professor Emerita, Department of History, University of North Carolina WilmingtonAdopting fascist tenets, Putin pursues his geopolitical objectives by erasing Ukraine and Ukrainian identity. Cynthia Nielsen offers a meticulous analysis of falsified and manipulative narratives entrenched in Russian society and dexterously employed by the Kremlin in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed, author of Russia’s Denial of Ukraine: Letters and Contested MemoryIn this timely and penetrating book, Cynthia Nielsen offers a tautly woven meditation on the power of language during times of war, both in its deceitful capacity to rationalize mass violence and destruction and its ability to articulate hope, debunk falsehood, and affirm stubborn truths.Michael Gorham, Professor of Russian Studies, University of Florida