This two-day symposium explores failure’s remarkable artistic success story. The papers ask why failure—and associated phenomena such as disruption, decline, or breakdown—have been so attractive to writers, artists, filmmakers, and intellectuals. Ranging across diverse historical and geographical contexts, these speakers will engage questions that arise in the process of representing, embodying, or resisting failure. They also ask what is to be said against cultural valorizations of failure: How do we stop failure from turning into success?
Speakers
- Patrick Bray, University College London
- Beci Carver, University of Exeter
- Steven Connor, King’s College London/University of Cambridge
- Sara Crangle, University of Sussex
- Thomas Davis, Ohio State University
- Irina Dumitrescu, University of Bonn
- Owen Hatherley, London
- Allan Hepburn, McGill University
- Benjamin Kohlmann, University of Regensburg
- Sam Ladkin, University of Sussex
- Sean Pryor, University of New South Wales
- Joseph Rosenberg, University of Notre Dame
- Claire Seiler, Dickinson College
- Aran Ward Sell, University of Notre Dame
