Everyone fails. Yet, the costs of failure affect people differently. Who and what does failure serve? Is failure a privilege or an expectation?
In this class, we will examine the roles failure plays in education, economics, engineering, experimentation, the environment, and your own emotions. We will investigate the history of failure as an economic and social construct beginning in the mid-19th century and chart the changing meanings failure has had as both a negative label and a positive space for innovation and experimentation.
How can failure be productive and instructive? Is failure an end or a beginning? Through interdisciplinary study, creative exploration and storytelling, this class will challenge you to explore how the idea and structural reality of failure shapes your own lives and those of others.