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Reading group

Reading group: Abandon All Hope?

Date
Tuesday 7 October 2025
Series
Culture and Politics Event Series
Location
Leiden University Faculty Club

The crumbling of the liberal international order. The growing toothlessness of international law. A climate crisis that escalates as the appetite to address it declines. The stripping away of even the façade of civility. These are troubled times in the international political realm. What does the present situation require? The philosopher Simon Critchley, riffing on Nietzsche, would suggest that one response is certainly not in order. Christianity, the modernist belief in progress, Marxist utopia (might we add aspects of the decolonialist impulse?) … these are all cut from the same problematic cloth—hope. We will explore several Greek myths (“Pandora’s Box” from Hesoid’s Works and Days, Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, the “Melian Dialogue” from Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War) so as to better understand Critchley’s call: “Abandon (nearly) all hope”. And, we will discuss what we make of his call given the present conjuncture.

Culture and Politics Event Series

The Culture and Politics Event Series serves to expose students to further themes related to their specialisation as well as to possible future career opportunities for which their specialisation provides required knowledge and skills.

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