For my wife, Gabika
– A.A.
For my parents, Gad and Elia Alexander,
and for my family, on both sides of the ocean
– N.A.
polity
Copyright © Arjun Appadurai and Neta Alexander 2020
The right of Arjun Appadurai and Neta Alexander to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2020 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-0475-6
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition.
For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com
For helping me to prepare this book, I have to give special thanks to the PhD students in my two seminars on “Failure” in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University. I am also grateful to the authors who contributed to the special issue on “Failure” of the journal Social Research, as well as to its editor, Arien Mack, for enriching my thoughts on this topic. My co-author, Neta Alexander, brought her acute intellect and expert knowledge to bear on every page of this book and made this collaboration a real pleasure. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my wife, Gabika, and our son, Kabir, who have taught me a great deal about the most important failures and successes in life.
Arjun Appadurai
First and foremost, I wish to thank New York University’s intellectual community, which has nourished and sustained me for many years and made this book possible. I am especially indebted to Anna McCarthy, Nicole Starosielski, and Faye Ginsburg for their ongoing support and for the numerous conversations that proved crucial for the ideas in Failure. I also wish to thank the editors of Cinema Journal, who published an earlier version of my work on buffering. Working with a writer of such accomplishment as Arjun Appadurai has been a rare privilege. The support and rigor of both Arjun and Polity’s John Thompson turned a challenging endeavor into a highly enjoyable journey, and I thank them both for believing in this project from the very first moment. I am also grateful for the insightful and generous critical response of three anonymous readers, whose reports made this manuscript substantially richer. Lastly, I could not have written this book without the incredible support of my family: my parents, Gad and Elia Alexander, and my brother, Uri Alexander. I dedicate this book to them and to my partner, Bradley H. Kerr, whose love, compassion, and intellect have never failed me.
Neta Alexander