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John K. Roth is an American-based author, editor, and, for over 30 years, professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont McKenna College. In 1988 he was named CASE U.S. National Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Roth is best known for his contributions as a writer and editor on major Holocaust themes. His work began with the 1979 publication of Consuming Fire: Encounters with Elie Wiesel and the Holocaust. In later interviews, Roth acknowledged the depth of the influence of Elie Wiesel on his life as a writer and person. Later volumes include Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy (with Richard Rubenstein, 1987), Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications (ed. with Michael Berenbaum, 1989) and Memory Offended: The Auschwitz Convent Controversy (ed. with Carol Rittner), 1991.

Roth umade national news in 1998 soon after being chosen to direct the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum based on public comments Roth has made several years earlier. Columnist George Will and others portrayed Roth as a liberal relativist who could not be trusted to understand the unique evil of the Holocaust. To avoid distracting from the Museum’s work, Roth withdrew from the position. He incorporated some of the lessons of this experience in his later book Holocaust Politics.

As he continued work on Holocaust studies, he also became interested in global violence, founding the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights (2003; now the Center for Human Rights Leadership) at Claremont McKenna College.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "John K. Roth", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0