Attention in the humanities has lately turned to the re-thinking of traditional modes of publishing. But is the academy prepared to assess work that deviates from the recognised forms and formats associated with ‘digging down and standing back’ (Felski 2015, p. 52)?

This chapter investigates whether humanistic research, usually expressed in word, might equally be expressed in wood. In so doing, what becomes apparent is the extent to which the scholarly written document has been organised to aid in its own oversight. It is configured to generate documentation that, in turn, propagates more documentation: Titles to aid abstracting; abstracting to aid indexing; bibliographic references to aid citation analysis; citation analysis to aid performance assessment. Integrated into the management of academic life, the scholarly publication defines what ‘counts’ as knowledge and how to count it. But if reconsidered a site for the exercise of administrative power, the written document makes visible the politics of the infrastructures in which it is enmeshed.

As universities increasingly rely on initiatives in the private sector to organize academic life, we may do well to apprehend the dynamics that continue to configure scholarly practice and scholarship.