Freedom to Fail: James Chappel

When James Chappel, Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History, thinks about failure, he doesn’t point to one dramatic moment. Instead, he describes something more common: the steady stream of rejection that comes with almost any career. 

“In grad school, I kept a spreadsheet of jobs I was applying to,” he said. “Everything I applied to, I put in a spreadsheet, and when I didn’t get it, I would color it red.” 

Over time, the red lines piled up. 

“I think there were probably 80 red lines,” Chappel said. “If I ever got an interview, I would turn it yellow, and I thought, ‘One day there’s going to be a green line.’” 

Eventually, there was. But only one. 

“Almost every single thing I tried, I failed,” he said.  

That pattern hasn’t changed much. In academia, rejection is routine: articles declined by journals, grant proposals turned down, and fellowships awarded to someone else. 

“I’m sure I’ve gotten over 200 rejections in my career,” Chappel said. “Rejected articles, rejected job applications, rejected grant applications. And every single time, it stings, even though I know it happens to everybody.” 

That’s something students don’t always see. From the outside, a successful career can look smooth and inevitable, but the reality is usually the opposite. 

“Even a career that is superficially quite successful has so many tiny failures built in,” Chappel said. 

"I still struggle a fair bit with insecurity and imposter syndrome, which I recognize, objectively, is absurd."

One example came when one of his books was reviewed in the New York Times, something he “always dreamed of,” he said. 

When it finally happened, the review wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t quite what he hoped for either. 

“It wasn’t necessarily a bad review, but it was kind of mean-spirited,” Chappel said. 

One line in particular stuck with him. The reviewer wrote that his prose was “like a baked potato,” suggesting it was nourishing but dull. 

“The line is amusing, and my friends were texting me pictures of baked potatoes,” he said. “But it hurt a bit too, because I took a fair bit of pride of my prose in that book.”  

Moments like that are a reminder that even accomplished academics aren’t immune to the same doubts many students feel. 

Students sometimes assume that by the time someone becomes a professor, the doubts have disappeared. But Chappel says that isn’t really the case. 

“I still struggle a fair bit with insecurity and imposter syndrome,” he said. “Which I recognize objectively is absurd.” 

Those feelings can surface in ordinary parts of academic life when an article is rejected, when criticism lands harder than expected, or when a class simply doesn’t go the way he hoped. 

“If a class goes badly, I still feel it,” Chappel said. “And I take it personally.” 

For students who feel pressure to succeed in every class, every activity, and every opportunity, Chappel offers a reminder: no one gets everything right, not even Duke professors.  

“I know a lot of people,” he said. “Nobody I know succeeds in every area. It’s not possible.”