Radical Hope

This week in Social Theory we discussed Jonathan Lear's book Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. It was an extremely compelling theory on devastation and hope. Throughout my time spent reading this book I was reminded of an exhibition I saw at the Knoxville Museum of Art with my senior seminar art history class. These paintings were by David Bates, and they are dealing with Hurricane Katrina and the issues around the disaster. Through all of the devastation and disaster Bates has a way of showing hope for the future. He does this by inserting fleur-de-lis, facial expressions, symbols of christianity, symbols of new orleans, etc.  I think this is such a remarkably hard thing to do when faced with devastation, but it is such an amazingly important step to take after devastation. Hope is hard, and in no way is it making light of situation. Super interesting stuff.