Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Human Suffering / Jeff Malpas and Norelle Lickiss -- Part 1. Philosophical considerations -- Suffering, Compassion, and the Possibility of a Humane Politics / Jeff Malpas -- Pathei Mathos: The Political-Cognitive Value of Suffering / Gaetano Chiurazzi -- Economies of Suffering: Kierkegaard and Levinas / Andrew Benjamin and Samuel Cuff Snow -- The Other Thing About Suffering / Lucy Tatman -- 'Giving the World a More Human Face'-Human Suffering in African Thought and Philosophy / Thaddeus Metz -- Suffering as Substantive and Subjective: Slavoj Žižek, Hannah Arendt and the Body's Pain / Michael Mack -- Suffering and Forgiveness: An Heroic Journey / Andrew Brennan and Norva Y. S. Lo.

Part 2. Humanities Approaches -- The Suffering of Job: He is Every Person and No-One / Peta Jones Pellach -- The Meaning and the Experience of Suffering: A Historian's Perspective / Nicholas Tarling -- Jewish Responses to Suffering / Paul Turner -- Suffering and Ancient Therapy: Plato to Cicero / Dougal Blyth -- Ancient Greek Responses to Suffering: Thinking with Philoctetes / Edith Hall -- Historicizing Suffering / Wayne Hudson -- The Politics of Suffering: Aboriginal Health in Contemporary Australia / Peter Sutton.

Part 3. Legal, medical and therapeutic contexts -- Some Aspects of Human Suffering and the Criminal Law / Guy Green -- Suffering: A Perspective From Law / Norchaya Talib -- To Suffer With: The Poetry of Compassion / Jack Coulehan -- On Facing Human Suffering / Norelle Lickiss -- Suffering Seeks a Voice / Frank Brennan -- Technological Efficiency, Human Dignity, and the Meaning of Suffering / Daryl Pullman -- Suffering and the Sleeplessness of Clinicians / Matthew Hamilton and Grant Gillett -- The Selfsame Well: Human Suffering in Grief and Bereavement / Elizabeth A. Lobb -- Reflections on Compassion, Suffering and Occupational Stress / Mary L. S. Vachon -- Mental Suffering and the Brain: Insights from Neurology and Literature / Ross Mellick.