The Cruel and Reparative Possibilities of Failure

This edited collection brings together scholars in communication, gender, sexuality, performance, and media studies to share research on failure with an emphasis on communication and gender. Using multiple methodologies and theoretical frameworks, the chapters contribute to a deeper understanding of failure and its reparative possibilities.

The Cruel and Reparative Possibilities of Failure brings together a variety of scholars and research across disciplines, with an emphasis on communication and gender studies, to work toward reimagining the idea of failure. Contributors consider failure as both a space for growth and repair and as a space from which hope can emerge. The collection is divided into five parts, investigating failure as consumption; failure as media; failure as pedagogy; failure as narrative; and finally, failure as transformation. Contributors spanning the fields of communication, gender, sexuality, performance, and media studies each employ unique disciplinary approaches to failure in their explorations of topics including queer counterpublics, corporeal commodification, misinformation, abolitionist principles, abuse and consent culture, and everyday organizing, among others. Looking to the future, the book takes these perspectives and experiences a step further to explore the reparative possibilities that may be found in failure.