Beyond Conversation
Collaboration and the Production of Writing
Utah State University Press
Collaboration was an important area of study in writing for many years, but interest faded as scholars began to assume that those working within writing studies already “got it.” In Beyond Conversation, William Duffy revives the topic and connects it to the growing interest in collaboration within digital and materialist rhetoric to demonstrate that not only do the theory, pedagogy, and practice of collaboration need more study but there is also much to be learned from the doing of collaboration.
While interrogating the institutional politics that circulate around debates about collaboration, this book offers a concise history of collaborative writing theory while proposing a new set of commonplaces for understanding the labor of coauthorship. Specifically, Beyond Conversation outlines an interactionist theory that explains collaboration as the rhetorical capacity that manifests in the discursive engagements coauthors enter into with the objects of their writing.
Drawing on new materialist philosophies, post-qualitative inquiry, and interactionist rhetorical theory, Beyond Conversation challenges writing and literacy educators to recognize the pedagogical benefits of collaborative writing in the work they do both as writers and as teachers of writing. The book will reinvigorate how teachers, scholars, and administrators advocate for the importance of collaborative writing in their work.
While interrogating the institutional politics that circulate around debates about collaboration, this book offers a concise history of collaborative writing theory while proposing a new set of commonplaces for understanding the labor of coauthorship. Specifically, Beyond Conversation outlines an interactionist theory that explains collaboration as the rhetorical capacity that manifests in the discursive engagements coauthors enter into with the objects of their writing.
Drawing on new materialist philosophies, post-qualitative inquiry, and interactionist rhetorical theory, Beyond Conversation challenges writing and literacy educators to recognize the pedagogical benefits of collaborative writing in the work they do both as writers and as teachers of writing. The book will reinvigorate how teachers, scholars, and administrators advocate for the importance of collaborative writing in their work.
‘It is time to explore the limitations to our thinking about collaborative writing. William Duffy takes this on and offers a new theory—a viable theory—to help us continue thinking about collaborative writing, extending our view and also reviving attention to invention.’
—Michele Eodice, University of Oklahoma
‘Duffy's work is an important contribution to writing studies.’
—CHOICE
‘Researchers, professors, industry practitioners, as well as students, may find this book useful. . . . An excellent resource for encouraging successful collaborations in the workplace.’
–IEEE Transaction Professional Communication
William Duffy is associate professor of English and coordinator of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Technical Communication Program at the University of Memphis. His scholarship has been published in Rhetoric Review, Composition Studies, College English, and Present Tense, as well as in various edited collections.
