6. Trust, Write with and for Your Body: A Critical Race Counterstory about Academic Writing

Using critical race counterstorytelling, this article critiques the majoritarian narrative about academic writing as a product of mental turmoil divorced from the body. By equating the act of writing with misery, anxiety, and other neuroses of the mind that commonly occur when writing with electronic word-processors (e.g., computers), this framing dismisses how writing is a process that the body actively facilitates. Additionally, this majoritarian narrative persistently overlooks the unique experiences of minoritized academic writers. Toward this end, this article highlights Marcus Hutchinson, a Black male doctoral candidate, and his dissertation writing experience as a composite account to imagine possibilities of how trusting and writing with and for their bodies can enhance the writing practices of minoritized scholars. The article concludes by discussing the significance of Marcus’ account and the importance of centering the body in the literature about academic writing.