lauren berlant cruel optimism and new yorker article

LAUREN BERLANT CRUEL OPTIMISM AND NEW YORKER ARTICLE PROFESSIONAL

In this case, the optimistic attachment to the pursuit of an academic career is life-giving (giving doctoral researchers and graduates a goal to work toward, a reason to get up in the morning) and simultaneously damaging (because it turns out the neoliberal university does not much care about its casualised early-career workers). Under “cruel optimism”, affect theorist Lauren Berlant argues, good life fantasies which give your life meaning or enable you to “add up to something” also impede upon your wellbeing. This paradoxical condition, whereby “something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing” is known as “ cruel optimism”. In other words, despite critiquing exploitative and often unsustainable working conditions, few of us seem able to entertain the idea of looking for work in another sector. What struck me both in the data I collected and in subsequent conversations with my peers, is how many of us remain attached to the idea of an academic career despite significantly compromised conditions of possibility. Perception of “failure”, reluctance to “give up” a long-held ambition.Uncertainty of long-term prospects, difficulty with life-planning.Emotional upheaval, sense of abandonment, poor wellbeing.Limited access to career development support or funding.Conducting research unpaid, reliance on savings or family support.fractional, fixed-term, zero-hours, etc.) In a nutshell, for many, the post-PhD transition was characterised by: In what follows, I draw on the data published in my report, “ One size does not fit all” (2017), to sketch out the post-PhD experiences of arts and humanities PhD graduates whose employment is precarious: unaffiliated researchers, hourly paid lecturers, teaching fellows, and research fellows. The free-text responses, in which respondents described their post-PhD transitions, powerfully resonated with me precisely because of my own personal investment in these questions.

LAUREN BERLANT CRUEL OPTIMISM AND NEW YORKER ARTICLE PROFESSIONAL

My placement project with Vitae, where I conducted a survey investigating the professional development of arts and humanities early-career researchers, provided answers of sorts. While this data is crucial to understanding post-PhD career paths in my discipline, what it doesn’t tell us is what it feels like to be employed in this way. Indeed, “a faster-rising proportion employed on fixed-term contracts, especially on short-term contracts,” and there are “higher levels of portfolio working compared with other disciplinary groups”. In my disciplinary home, the arts and humanities, doctoral graduates have been heavily “ affected by changes in the labour market”. One way to answer these questions is to look at existing data on postdoctoral employment. What does my future look like? What kind of job will I have? Where will I live? What will it feel like to finally be “PhinisheD”? This may be attributable to the culture of doctoral training which centralises academic careers as the “norm”, devalues other career paths as “alternative”, and views leaving academia as “failure”.Īs a doctoral researcher nearing submission, I often find myself anxiously wondering about my post-PhD prospects. This paradoxical condition can be seen as a type of “cruel optimism”, with early-career researchers remaining attached to the fantasy of the academic “good life” despite a precarious lived reality. Despite this most PhD graduates remain absolutely determined to forge an academic career, unwilling to even entertain the idea of working in another sector. What does the future hold for PhD graduates? Marie-Alix Thouaille has found that for many the post-PhD transition is characterised by exploitative, often unsustainable working conditions, emotional upheaval, financial worry, and poor wellbeing.

Lauren berlant cruel optimism and new yorker article