EPILOGUE

EPILOGUE:

US. It's late August now—the dog days of summer, as those Romans used to say. Despite the busy-ness of each of our individual transitions from summer to the academic year, we're gathering again. This time, not at physically shared rooms and tables and beaches. Today, we're trying to use technology to build a virtual space in which to finish this work, but as much as ethernet and wifi allow this, they're inconsistency seems to have become a new member of our collective. Mari has a hard time getting invited to the hangout, so she and Jenn and Maria text and IM to troubleshoot. Malea sits in the conference room with Maria and acts as an information conduit. Andrea joins in the midst of this confusion, feeling a little ill. Daisy's wifi connection introduces some funny audio effects and keeps dropping her out of the conversation. Jenn's two sons pop on and off camera to say "hi" or make requests of their mother.

And yet, we are all here. Laughing and joking about the audio-twang of Daisy's connection, waving back to Jenn's kids, trying to get Mari into the space, offering various remedies to Andrea about her queasiness, all while we work and write together. Writing this article has been a remarkable event—at times, it just seemed like it wouldn't happen. Getting this many people to articulate their ideas and listen to each other and commit to a plan and agree on a structure—well, it hasn't been easy. Why are we telling you this? Because the messiness of our process—the coming togethers and going aparts and general chaos of—are as much the point of this article as the article itself. What you've read here is not just a text, you see. It's a living part of us—a living part of a community of scholarship that stretches beyond us too. Cultural rhetorics scholarship is never a practice of individuals making knowledge on their own; it's always a part of a larger community, a larger conversation, a network of relations.

MALEA. So, while our part of this performance is at its end now, your responsibility has just begun. These stories we've told are yours now.¹⁹ Do with them what you will. Re-read them. Cite them. Build upon them. Argue with them. Disagree with them. But don't ever say that you would've practiced your scholarship differently if only you'd heard these stories. You've heard them now.