This essay describes the process of reassessing our BW program at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in order to cultivate a more deliberate, transparent negotiation among stakeholders toward a "transcultural ethos." Informed by Bruce Horner's argument that leading-edge work on language and language difference can take place in BW, we…

Thirty years ago, Maxine Hairston observed that disciplinary shifts in writing studies occur not gradually but rather due to revolutionary "paradigm shifts." Perhaps. But even as the discipline has grown, chance encounters, collaborations rooted in friendship, conversations and coffees, and the discovery of mutual acquaintances have…