Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Fear Of Etiolation In The Age Of Professional Passion, Kathleen F. Mcconnell

Faculty Publications

Recent analysis of academia credits neoliberalism for its destabilization. Neoliberalism alone does not explain academics’ conflicted attachments to a precarious professional life or the tendency to embrace normative conceptions of passion and shun professional decline. The quarantine on decline is analogous to the exemption that J.L. Austin imposed on theatre: both deny constitutive power to certain statements and harbor a fear of queerness. Four essays published in Text & Performance Quarterly illustrate how academics quarantine professional fears and doubts. A fifth finds that the deterioration of professional accomplishments loosens normative associations to make space for other, queer relations.