Friendships Without Friendships: Traversing the Contours of Relationality Through Reading/Writing

Abstract

This article engages with the intersections of reading, writing, and friendship (between the two authors). Specifically, we (re)trace conversations, presentations, notes, and text messages that have emerged since we (e.g., authors) have become thinking-friends and how we think about reading and its irrevocable relationship to writing. Using a range of books and a suite of theories associated with post-qualitative research, this article tempts readers/writers to consider—and perhaps (re)frame—reading/writing in three distinct ways: reading/writing as haunted, reading/writing as invitation, and reading/writing as provocation. Ultimately, we view this nomadic w(a/o)ndering about each register (e.g., reading, writing, and friendship) as being always-already emergent and not limited to strict temporal demarcations.