Book excerpt: This book presents multiple cultural and contextual takes on working performances of academic/writer/thinker, both inside and outside the academy. With worldwide, seismic shifts taking place in both the contexts and terrains of universities, and subsequently the altering of what it means to write as an academic and work in academia, the editors and contributors use writing to position and re-position themselves as academics, thinkers and researchers. Using as a point of departure universities and academic/writing work contexts shaped by the increasing dominance of commodification, measurement and performativity, this volume explores responses to these evolving, shifting contexts. In response to the growing global interest in writing as performance, this book breaks new ground by theorizing multiple identity constructions of academic/writer/researcher; considering the possibilities and challenges of engaging in academic writing work in ways that are authentic and sustainable. This reflective and interdisciplinary volume will resonate with students and scholars of academic writing, as well as all those working to reconcile different facets of identity.