An inter-disciplinary inquiry into the philosophy, theology, politics and literary history of hope. Speakers will summarize pre-circulated papers and welcome audience response.
Pre-circulated papers available upon request from Kim Girman, kgirman@princeton.edu
Schedule of paper presentations will be available on the colloquium secure site closer to the date of the conference.
Friday, April 5, 2019
Welcome and Acknowledgements
Session I (9:00 -10:30 a.m.)
- Adam Potkay (English, William & Mary; University Center for Human Values, Princeton): "For And Against Hope"
- William Hutton (Classics, William & Mary): "The Etymology of Hope"
Session II (10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.)
- Seamus Perry (English, Oxford University): "Literary Hope: The Case of Rhyme" (Hallam, Tennyson, Coleridge)
- Robert Miner (Philosophy and Great Texts Program, Baylor University): "Hope in Nietzsche’s Gay Science"
Session III (1:15 p.m.-3:30 p.m.)
- Andrew Chignell (Religion, Philosophy, University Center for Human Values, Princeton) "The Focus Theory of Hope"
- Luc Bovens (Philosophy, University of North Carolina): "A Puzzle of Hope and Faith"
- Nancy E. Snow (Philosophy, Institute for Human Flourishing, University of Oklahoma): "Can Populist Hope be a Democratic Civic Virtue?"
Session IV (4:00 p.m.-5:30 p.m.)
- Alan Mittleman (Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Theological Seminary of America): "Hope and Metaphysics"
- Dorota Chabrajska (Editor of Ethos, John Paul II Institute, Catholic University of Lublin): “'To Get all the Music Possible': On Hope as an Ontological and Epistemological Mark of the Human Condition"
Saturday, April 6, 2019
Session V (9:00 a.m.- 10:30 a.m.)
- Willa Swenson-Lengyel (Religion, Villanova University): "Hope and Inaction in Light of Climate Change"
- Michael Lamb (Politics, Ethics, and Interdisciplinary Program, Wake Forest University): "Wendell Berry’s Difficult Hope"
Session VI (10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.)
- Philip McDonagh (Center for Theological Inquiry, Princeton): "Speculum Gentium: The Poets, Thucydides, and the Diplomacy of Hope"
- Lori Gruen (Philosophy, Wesleyan University): "Resisting Hope"
Chair: Adam Potkay, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching
Adam Potkay is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Humanities at the College of William and Mary. He has been a Visiting Professor at Columbia University, Washington University and the University of Aberdeen. His writings explore literature's connections to ethics, theology and rhetoric. His most recent books are "The Story of Joy from the Bible to Late Romanticism" (Cambridge, 2007), awarded the Harry Levin Prize by the American Comparative Literature Association, and "Wordsworth's Ethics" (Johns Hopkins, 2012). While at Princeton he will be working on "Hope: A Literary History."
Open to Princeton University Communicty: Faculty, Staff, Fellows, & Students