Women, "Failure" and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University
Women, “Failure” and Academia examines failures in contemporary academia, and especially the intersections between gender and academic failure.

It argues that academic failure is political, and that seemingly personal failures to achieve a standard or expected academic career (tenure, funding, publications, etc.) should be understood in the context of institutional failures and systemic inequalities. Through theoretical discussions and/or personal reflections on their individual experiences of failure, contributors to the volume address how academic failure can illuminate, and sometimes subvert, the institutional barriers often faced by women and women-identifying scholars in the contemporary university.

The collection is interdisciplinary, intersectional and international and covers topics such as Covid-19, precarity and job hunting, ethnic diversity, accounts of incomplete research, motherhood and disability within the academy. Contributors include established and emerging scholars in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the USA. Conceived as scholarly activism, Women, “Failure” and Academia aims to interrogate the future of universities and challenge perceptions of failure, especially with regard to women and women-identifying academics.

1147792620
Women, "Failure" and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University
Women, “Failure” and Academia examines failures in contemporary academia, and especially the intersections between gender and academic failure.

It argues that academic failure is political, and that seemingly personal failures to achieve a standard or expected academic career (tenure, funding, publications, etc.) should be understood in the context of institutional failures and systemic inequalities. Through theoretical discussions and/or personal reflections on their individual experiences of failure, contributors to the volume address how academic failure can illuminate, and sometimes subvert, the institutional barriers often faced by women and women-identifying scholars in the contemporary university.

The collection is interdisciplinary, intersectional and international and covers topics such as Covid-19, precarity and job hunting, ethnic diversity, accounts of incomplete research, motherhood and disability within the academy. Contributors include established and emerging scholars in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the USA. Conceived as scholarly activism, Women, “Failure” and Academia aims to interrogate the future of universities and challenge perceptions of failure, especially with regard to women and women-identifying academics.

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Women, Failure and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University

Women, "Failure" and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University

Women, Failure and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University

Women, "Failure" and Academia: Activism, Creativity and Critique in the Contemporary University

Overview

Women, “Failure” and Academia examines failures in contemporary academia, and especially the intersections between gender and academic failure.

It argues that academic failure is political, and that seemingly personal failures to achieve a standard or expected academic career (tenure, funding, publications, etc.) should be understood in the context of institutional failures and systemic inequalities. Through theoretical discussions and/or personal reflections on their individual experiences of failure, contributors to the volume address how academic failure can illuminate, and sometimes subvert, the institutional barriers often faced by women and women-identifying scholars in the contemporary university.

The collection is interdisciplinary, intersectional and international and covers topics such as Covid-19, precarity and job hunting, ethnic diversity, accounts of incomplete research, motherhood and disability within the academy. Contributors include established and emerging scholars in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the UK and the USA. Conceived as scholarly activism, Women, “Failure” and Academia aims to interrogate the future of universities and challenge perceptions of failure, especially with regard to women and women-identifying academics.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781350528666
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 03/19/2026
Series: Bloomsbury Gender and Education
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Marina Cano is an independent researcher and former Associate Professor of English at Volda University College, Norway. In 2022, she was selected as one of the Scottish-European Crucible scholars.

Marie-Pierre Moreau is Professor of Education and Director of the Centre for Education on Identities and Inequalities at Anglia Ruskin University, UK. She is co-editor, with Penny Jane Burke and Nancy Niemi, of the Bloomsbury Gender and Education series.

Rosa García-Periago is Senior Lecturer at the University of Murcia, Spain. She is co-editor of Jane Austen and William Shakespeare: A Love Affair in Literature, Film and Performance (2019) and Women and Indian Shakespeares (2022) and has published extensively on Indian Shakespeares in Shakespeare, Adaptation, Cahiers Élisabéthains, Borrowers and Lenders, Atlantis and other journals.

Penny Jane Burke is Global Innovation Chair of Equity and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at University of Newcastle, Australia, and is the former Editor of Teaching in Higher Education.

Table of Contents

“I regret to inform you…”An Introduction to the Politics of Academic Failure, Marina Cano (University of Valencia, Spain) and Rosa García-Periago (University of Murcia, Spain)

Part I: Resistance to Failure, Resistance Through Failure

1. Whorademia: Deluxe Professionals for Hire, Marina Cano (University of Valencia, Spain)

2. The Fantastic Failure of the Ideal Worker and the Promises of the Virtual Phoenix forWomen Faculty in the Post-2020 Academy. A Post-2020 Ideal Faculty Workplace, Jessi L. Smith (University of Colorado, USA) and Michele G. Wheatly (Syracuse University, USA)

3. Embracing the Unfinished, the Unattained, the Unconventional: Reframing Failure to Support Wellbeing, Narelle Lemon (Swinburne University of Technology, Australia) and Sharon McDonough (Federation University, Australia)

Part II: Living in Failure

4. Lost in the Maze: Failing to Find My Way in Dark Academia, Theadora Jean (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK)

5. Complaint and Ambivalence as the Last Line of Defence for a Casual Academic, Djuna Hallsworth (University of Sydney, Australia)

Part III: Restoring Failure

6. The Materiality of Failure, Dawn Lyon (University of Kent, UK)

7. Digital Spaces as Places of Feminist Dissent for Women of Colour, Dinithi Bowatte (Massey University New Zealand) and Helen Yeung (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)

Part IV: After Failure

8. Transness as Radical Hospitality in Academia:Field Notes from an Interloper, Alexa Alice Joubin (George Washington University, USA)

9. It was a Festival of Slaps: On Grief, Failure and Getting Lost: A Black Femme Navigates Academia , Opemiposi Adegbulu (University of Edinburgh, UK)

10. Holding the Space for Failure: Death Doula Feminism as a Guide Through the Claustropolitan University, Tara Brabazon (Charles Darwin University, Australia)

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