Introduction: What’s writing got to do with it? How academics make knowledge and why it matters
1 The origin story of the British sociological canon: here, there, and now
2 ‘The kind of thing you see on Morse’: intellectuals, aesthetics, and academic writing in popular culture
3 Legitimacy, value, and the craft of writing: how do scholars write?
4 Affective relations and the ‘ideal other’: cultural capital, cosmopolitanism, and writing
5 Materiality and mood: finding legitimation in our spaces of writing
6 Becoming and belonging: writing as a process of legitimation
7 Geographies of knowledge: across space and place in sociology
8 How do you solve a problem like the mainstream?
Conclusion: Reflections on sociological knowledge: power, performances, and futures

Appendix A: Participants
Appendix B: Research Excellence Framework
Bibliography
Index