Frankie Condon

"Both from the Right and from the Left, we are stymied in talking well with one another about race and racism, by intransigent beliefs in our own goodness as well as by our conviction that such talk is useless...White antiracist epistemology needs to begin not with our beliefs, but with our individual and collective awakening to that which we do not know." Drawing on scholarship across disciplines ranging from writing and rhetoric studies to critical race theory to philosophy, I Hope I Join the Band examines the limits and the possibilities for performative engagement in antiracist activism. Focusing particularly on the challenges posed by raced-white identity to performativity, and moving between narrative and theoretical engagement, the book names and argues for critical shifts in the understandings and rhetorical practices that attend antiracist activism.

In a landmark collaboration, five co-authors develop a theme of ordinary disruptions ('the everyday') as a source of provocative learning moments that can liberate both student writers and writing centre staff. At the same time, the authors parlay Etienne Wenger's concept of 'community of practice' into an ethos of a dynamic, learner-centred pedagogy that is especially well-suited to the peculiar teaching situation of the writing centre. They push themselves and their field toward deeper, more significant research, more self-conscious teaching.