Collection: John K. Roth

Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College

Few philosophers dare to stare directly into humanity’s darkest abyss—but John K. Roth has spent a lifetime doing just that. A relentless investigator of the Holocaust, genocide, and the moral catastrophes that continue to scar the modern world, Roth is one of the most prolific and provocative voices in ethics today. Author or editor of more than fifty books—including The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies, The Failures of Ethics, Sources of Holocaust Insight, and Advancing Holocaust Studies—he dissects the failures of human conscience with surgical precision and unflinching moral clarity.

Roth is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights (now the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights) at Claremont McKenna College, where he taught for four decades. His teaching and scholarship have not only shaped generations of thinkers but also challenged institutions—from the classroom to national councils—to reckon with the ethical aftermath of atrocity.

His academic path has taken him from Yale to the University of Haifa, from the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where he served as the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar. Named U.S. National Professor of the Year in 1988 and honored with the Holocaust Educational Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award, Roth has earned his reputation not just as a scholar but as a conscience for his generation.

Now living near the North Cascades in Washington State, Roth continues to write, reflect, and bear witness—driven by the belief that philosophy must not flinch in the face of horror, but confront it, interrogate it, and demand something better.

Find out more about John K. Roth: https://johnkroth.com/