Taylor, Carol A.Gannon, SusanneAdams, GillDonaghue, HelenHannam-Swain, StephanieHarris-Evans, JeanHealey, JoanMoore, Patricia2022-06-012022-06-012019-11-28Taylor, C.A., Gannon, S., Adams, G., Donaghue, H., Hannam-Swain, S., Harris-Evans, J., Healey, J. and Moore, P. (2020) 'Grim tales: Meetings, matterings and moments of silencing and frustration in everyday academic life', International Journal of Educational Research, 99, article no. 101513.0883-0355https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2019.101513https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/12274Helen Donaghue - ORCID: 0000-0002-7227-7864 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7227-7864Item previously deposited in Sheffield Hallam University repository on 02 Dec 2019 at: https://shura.shu.ac.uk/25496/Item not available in this repository.Universities are dominated by marketisation, individualisation and competition, forces inimical to individual flourishing and collaborative endeavours. This article presents four stories from a collective biography workshop in which a group of women academics explored everyday moments in their university lives. The stories are grim tales of damage, silencing, frustration and cynicism, whose affects continue to reverberate. The article makes two contributions to higher education research. One, its focus on mundane moments offers insights into embodied dynamics of gender, power and affect within the neoliberal university. Two, it demonstrates how collective biography as a feminist methodology can mobilise increased awareness of shared experiences and, thereby, enable participants to work together to recognise and contest the affective grimness of their workplaces.enCollective BiographyPowerAcademiaGenderAffectArticle