Hope, Despair, and Meaning

History and literature are filled with examples of people in horrific, desperate situations where having hope seemed essential for their survival. And yet, holding on to “false hope” can be devastating and can also condone inaction, where hoping for a change replaces working for that change. It also can seem that finding hope in a hopeless situation must be irrational. Is the choice between rational despair and irrational hope? The rhetoric of hope is used in many political contexts. We are often told “we need to have hope.” But how can we cultivate hope when we don't have it and how can we help each other gain it when it is lost? And is it true that is always what we need? Can we find meaning that motivates us to keep going even if we lack hope?

Inside the Classroom

Students in this class will investigate questions concerning the nature and value of hope through the reading and discussing of philosophical texts, psychological studies, memoirs, speeches, religious and political writings, and films. While deepening our understanding of this essential and complex idea, the hope is we will also deepen our understanding of ourselves.

The class will be organized around these topics/questions:

  • What is Hope?
  • Hoping Against Hope: Is Hope Sometimes Called for When Optimism is Not?
  • Hope and Racial Justice, and Hope and Meaning

Outside the classroom

Students will have the chance to take what we reflect on in class discussions and apply them to actual places and times where people have maintained hope in the worst of circumstances, and for whom it may have been key for survival, as well as confronting the reality of hopelessness.

In Richmond, this will include visiting and talking to those are working with what looks like people in hopeless conditions, or with people who have no hope, as well as visiting:

Beyond Richmond, we will take a trip that will help us understand the transformative power of hope in difficult external circumstances (after, for example, natural disasters); while the exact location is not yet decided, some potential travel locations are: New Orleans, Chicago, or Detroit.

In addition, we will also take a trip that is focused on internal reflection and meditation where we will have time and space to find those places in all of us where the hopelessness resides, and to see where we find internal hope and meaning.

Research and Capstone Projects

In the course of the fall semester, the students will work on philosophical research about the nature and value of hope which will culminate in two essays. Much of what we do in the Fall semester will lend itself to a documentary film about finding and losing hope, if this is something the group felt equipped to undertake. Other possible options are to write an original story or film, or to to work with individuals or communities in “hopeless” situations, finding concrete ways to help. This could be working with underprivileged children, with the mentally ill, with the sick and dying, with refugees.