ABSTRACT. Here I present conceptual writing as/within autoethnography. As a conceptual writing project, I took the third line of every email I sent from my work account in 2021 (January 1 to December 31) and present each as a single, stand-alone line. As autoethnography, the work reaffirms Raymond Williams’ idea that individuals live in eras that each have a ‘structure of feeling.’ These decontextualised statements, questions, signature lines and auto-generated advertisements cumulatively help reframe my everyday written communication, lived experience, professional self and quotidian bureaucratic life as indicators of emergent culture in an unusual year.

Keywords: autoethnography; conceptual writing; COVID-19; universities; pedagogy; sociological writing; creative writing

How to cite: Borchard, K. (2023). Conceptual autoethnography: Every third line from work emails I sent in 2021. Knowledge Cultures, 11(2), 124–149. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc11220238

Received 23 June 2022 • Received in revised form 23 July 2023
Accepted 23 July 2023 • Available online 1 August 2023