The immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics have garnered substantial attention within the literature. Although it is still not possible to precisely detail the pandemic's long-term effects, many scholars feel very bleak about their academic career prospects. This article focuses on precariously employed academics. It addresses how the performative culture of neoliberal academia has produced a pessimistic mood among them, curbing their hopes of secure careers. I draw evidence from in-depth interviews with non-tenured academics based in Portugal during the first wave of the pandemic and explore how they evaluate their academic futures. Embracing Pereira's ideas on ‘mood,' Berlant's concept of the ‘cruel optimism,' and Ahmed's notion of pessimism, I argue that pessimism and hopelessness reflect increasingly prevalent characteristics of post-pandemic neoliberal academia and disclose the potential for such a ‘mood' to undermine the scope for the social transformation of neoliberal academia. The paper contributes to the literature on the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on neoliberal academia by unveiling how, given the impossibility of keeping up with demands of performativity due to the disruptions brought about by the global health crisis, the future of precarious academics already encapsulates the loss of any real opportunity for an academic ‘good life.’

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Precarity,Neoliberal academia,Mood,Cruel optimism,COVID-19 pandemic,Pessimism

• Economics and Business - Social Sciences
• Sociology - Social Sciences
• Other Social Sciences - Social Sciences

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2019 Legislative Elections
• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2022 Legislative Elections