Hope in the Modern Age

Immanuel Kant famously considered "What may I hope?" to be the third and final question of philosophy. This course considers the thinkers, from Immanuel Kant to Judith Butler, who have attempted to answer this question from within the context of modernity. Has revolution replaced religion as the object of our hope? Has Enlightenment lived up to its promises? These topics and more will be discussed, with readings from thinkers including Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, and Arendt, alongside the literature of writers such as Kafka, Celan, Nelly Sachs, among others, and with particular focus on the question of hope within the German-Jewish tradition.