In this essay, I describe how I have experienced difficulties writing in particular academic genres. Finding spaces to play in these genres has helped me to ease these difficulties and negotiate the conflicts and contradictions of the academy. To explore and explain innovative spaces within genres, I extend Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of smooth and striated spaces with work in rhetorical genre studies. I conclude that opening smooth spaces in striated academic genres is not only important for students like me but may also help us better respond to the changing realities of graduate studies and academic work in Canada. I offer some suggestions as to how writing studies scholarship could support these efforts.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Bray, N., (2025), "Scenes from Graduate School: Playing in the Smooth Spaces of Academic Writing", HSSCommons: (DOI: 10.31468/cjsdwr.590)

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1. Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie

Original publication: Bray, Nancy. "Scenes from Graduate School: Playing in the Smooth Spaces of Academic Writing." Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie, vol. 28, 2018, pp. 57-78. DOI: 10.31468/cjsdwr.590. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Discourse and Writing/Rédactologie. Copyright © the author(s). Work published in DW/R is licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-SA license