Between Hope And Despair

At the end of a century of unfathomable suffering, societies are facing anew the question of how events that shock, resist assimilation, and evoke contradictory and complex responses should be remembered. Between Hope and Despair specifically examines the pedagogical problem of how remembrance is to proceed when what is to be remembered is underscored by a logic difficult to comprehend and subversive of the humane character of existence. This pedagogical attention to practices of remembrance reflects the growing cognizance that hope for a just and compassionate future lies in the sustained, if troubled, working through of these issues.

At the end of a century of unfathomable suffering, societies are facing anew the question of how events that shock, resist assimilation, and evoke contradictory and complex responses should be remembered. Between Hope and Despair specifically examines the pedagogical problem of how remembrance is to proceed when what is to be remembered is underscored by a logic difficult to comprehend and subversive of the humane character of existence. This pedagogical attention to practices of remembrance reflects the growing cognizance that hope for a just and compassionate future lies in the sustained, if troubled, working through of these issues.

Roger I. Simon teaches at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. He has written extensively in the area of critical pedagogy and cultural studies and is the author of Teaching Against the Grain: Texts for a Pedagogy of Possibility. Sharon Rosenberg is assistant professor at York University in Toronto, where she teaches in the School of Women's Studies. Her scholarly work attends to questions of feminist remembrance practice in the wake of ongoing traumatic violences against women. Claudia Eppert recently completed her doctoral disseration at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/ University of Toronto. Her work focuses on the ethico-pedagogical possibilities for a responsive/responsible practice of reading contemporary literature of historical witness.