The Poetics of Failure: How art rewrites meaning

How does art help us rewrite meaning in the face of fear and profound disappointment? This standalone second lecture in The Case for Unhappiness lecture series examines failure as a defining artistic question of the twentieth century, exploring how it becomes a lens for imagining possible futures when conventional notions of success have lost their force.

Focusing primarily on mid-century drama and its anti-heroes—figures marked by stalled lives and broken ambitions—we trace how art responds to a world shaped by war, totalitarianism, economic collapse, and social dislocation. At its core, the lecture asks how failure can be transformed from a deficit into a generative condition of meaning, one that continues to shape how we reckon with human worth.

Designed for curious minds, no prior knowledge of the topic or texts are required.

Select Pieces

Waiting for Godot (Beckett, mid-twentieth-century France/England)
Death of a Salesman (Miller, mid-twentieth-century America)
A Raisin in the Sun (Hansberry, mid-twentieth-century America)

Lecture Format

Each 90-minute session is delivered online, beginning with a 50-minute lecture followed by a short break and a 30-minute Q&A and discussion moderated by an expert facilitator. Attendees’ microphones and cameras remain off during the lecture but are welcome during the Q&A for interactive discussion.

About the Lecturer

Dr. Julie Sutherland is a lecturer and published author with 25 years of experience researching and teaching the humanities and nearly a decade of experience in transformative humanities. She holds an MA and PhD in English Studies and Modern European Languages from the University of Durham (UK), and a BA (Honours) degree in English and Drama. Dr. Sutherland draws on her lived experience at the intersection of oppression and privilege to explore the complex, often overlooked dimensions of ‘reading for well-being’, speaking on the topic internationally. An award-winning educator and entrepreneur, she is also recognized for her contributions to anti-racism initiatives.

About the Moderator

Dr. John Allemand is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and consultant in private practice in Seattle, Washington. A Clinical Instructor in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, his theoretical and clinical interests include British Object Relations theory and archetypal psychology, but his real passion is the psychoanalytic study of art, literature and film. His doctoral dissertation was a psychoanalytic study of the films of Pedro Almodovar. Dr. Allemand taught university-level literature for ten years before being lured away by Freud and Jung, but he continues to draw heavily on literature as a means of tending the unconscious in his clinical work.

The Series

The Case for Unhappiness: Arts Against the Tyranny of Positivity

Lectures for curious minds

The Case for Unhappiness explores why art so persistently returns to suffering, failure, and dissatisfaction—and what these experiences reveal about meaning, value, and the human condition. Challenging the assumption that happiness, success, and emotional comfort are the highest goods, the lectures examine how literature, music, dance, and visual art confront pain not as something to be resolved, but as something to be understood. Drawing on aesthetic theory, philosophy, literary studies, and cultural history, The Case for Unhappiness invites participants to reconsider what art teaches us about living well in a world marked by loss, limitation, and moral pressure.