Sitting with failure

Last year, a student of mine asked if I would share some of my experiences of the PhD at the NewMac Postgraduate Humanities Symposium. Thinking back to my time as a student, I realised that among the most formative and character-building moments of the dissertation process were those that involved some form of failure. For me, the periods when the research and writing progressed smoothly didn’t stand out as much as points when things weren’t going to plan and the process felt out of my control. Failure is an important topic in the university context, especially for those new to the crafts of research and writing. However, it is rarely formally discussed as an important aspect of the research experience. This is because it is typically understood as being the opposite of, or an obstacle to, success.