Abstract

However hopeless we often feel, we are creatures of hope. This collection of short, accessible essays explores the ways in which hope is bound up with power in worlds that are composed through imagination, transformation and feeling. Hope is the most precious ingredient of power. However, the essays do not assume hope to be inherently good or emancipatory. Rather, they reflect on how hope can support and obstruct us in our efforts to make lives more liveable, or futures more just. The essays draw on social research, philosophy, literature, music and film to show how hope might re-enchant writing and politics for a post-hopeful age. This is a book for those who want to remain hopeful but find it hard to see how.