Failures of interest

• Published in: Emotion, space and society Vol. 35; p. 100670
• Main Author: Anderson, Ben
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.05.2020
• Subjects: Affect; Boredom; Event; Failure; Interest; Interest; Event; Boredom; Affect; Failure
• ISSN: 1755-4586; 1878-0040
• DOI: 10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100670

What kind of failure is it to lose interest and detach from a project, empirical scene, or cause? Should we always stay interested in our work and attempt to interest others? Through discussion of two ongoing but perhaps failed projects alongside reflection on various failures over my career, I explore the relationship between affects of failure and the event and relation of interest. Staying with the non-evental dynamics of the ordinary failures that accumulate in the background to all academic lives, I explore how losing interest or not holding interest relates to and expresses the attachments and detachments we have to academic life. Via these reflections, I argue that we should pay attention to those ordinary failures – like losing interest - that don't quite fit with institutionally named and collectively recognised events of failure – a rejected paper or grant, for example. •Explores the affects that surround failure.•Focuses on the affect of holding and losing interest through examples of two ongoing projects – on boredom and on emergency.•Argues for a focus on the non-evental dynamics of ordinary failures.