Professor Berlant (pronounced burr-LANT) — who used the pronoun she in her personal life but they professionally, Mr. Horswill said — taught in the English department of the University of Chicago and wrote books and essays that focused on a grab bag of Americana, from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Anita Hill, seeking in history and current events broader lessons about nationalism, sexuality and power.
The professor's signature phrase, "cruel optimism," referred to "when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing." That state of being is widespread in the United States, Professor Berlant argued, where the tools we depend on to achieve "the good life" — a safety net, job security, the meritocracy, even "durable intimacy" in our romantic lives — have degenerated into "fantasies" that bear "less and less relation to how people can live."
In a profile in The New Yorker, the staff writer Hua Hsu said that Professor Berlant's thought illustrated how despite "a gut-level suspicion that hard work, thrift, and following the rules" no longer "guarantee a happy ending," many people "keep on hoping."
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