Peripheral Visions for Writing Centers

This book aims to inspire a re-conception and re-envisioning of the boundaries of writing centre work. Moving beyond the grand narrative of the writing centre – that it is solely a comfortable, yet iconoclastic place where all students go to get one-to-one tutoring on their writing – McKinney shines light on other representations of writing centre work. McKinney argues that this grand narrative neglects the extent to which writing centre work is theoretically and pedagogically complex, with ever-changing work and conditions, and results in a straitjacket for writing centre scholars, practitioners, students, and outsiders alike. The book makes the case for a broader narrative of writing centre work that recognises and theorises the various spaces of writing centre labour, allows for professionalisation of administrators, and sees tutoring as just one way to perform writing centre work. McKinney explores possibilities that lie outside the grand narrative, allowing scholars and practitioners to open the field to a fuller, richer, and more realistic representation of their material labour and intellectual work.