
Drawing from research on multimodality in writing, higher education, and a doctoral thesis (2019), this contribution to the symposium showcases the varied nature of academic writings and explains the ‘conditions of possibility’ (Fransman, 2012) that can allow these to be re-imagined. This is because “what is seen as ‘academic’ writing is contestable and always emergent” (Archer & Breuer, 2016, p. 2) as well as ‘innovative’ (Tardy, 2016), ‘mobile’ (Blommaert & Horner, 2017) and evolving alongside changing academic and professional ‘contexts’ (Paré, 2018). By mobilising the philosophical and sociological concepts of Complexity Theory (Kuhn, 2008), Critical Realism and Open Systems (Collier, 1994), and Emergence (Sawyer, 2001), it is proposed that the academy re-imagine writing as a non-reductive, non-linear dynamic social practice.
Julia Molinari teaches EAP and Academic Writing at the University of Nottingham.