Contextualizing Hope and Fear

Abstract

Virtually every historical moment is one in which people are afraid of something, but we seem to be living in a period of time that is particularly marked by a mood of collective fear and anxiety. This was perhaps most obvious during the 2016 presidential campaign, when Americans (and many millions of observers around the world) on both sides of the ideological divide were quite afraid of the consequences should their preferred candidate lose. But the mood of fear extends well beyond politics. Both before and after the electoral dust settled, fears relating to climate change, terrorism, economic stability, and race relations (to name just a few issues) hung over the heads of people throughout the developed world. Given this climate, we in the various humanities departments at Carroll College in Helena, MT, decided to host an interdisciplinary conference in the humanities on the theme of “Hope and Fear” during the 2016–17 academic year. With generous grant support from both the Hearst Foundation and Humanities Montana, we were able to invite proposals from scholars in history, philosophy, literature, and religious studies to address hope and fear through their own disciplinary lens but with an appeal to those in other fields. The call for papers included the following language: