Hope involves the expectation or desire for good things to happen. Yet, does this set up people for despair when hopes get dashed or have no possibility of realization? Or, is the conjuring of something better—somewhere, sometime—what enables life to be sustained in the face of difficulties or just the daily grind of making do? In this class we raise the issue of the ethics, politics, and tactics of hope, drawing on philosophy, feminism, and anthropology.
Cultural Anthropology