Chad Duffy

This book project reframes transcription as a practice that rhetorically "invents" access rather than simply recording speech. Drawing on archival research, interviews, and ethnographic studies with professional transcript writers and readers, the project shows how transcription is shaped by class, labor, disability, and technology. The book introduces critical transcription studies, a new field that situates transcription at the center of debates about rhetoric, disability justice, and artificial intelligence. This ACLS Project Development Grant will support the drafting of key chapters over the summer 2026.