We explore the design of the Writing Studies Tree prototype as an intervention in both writing studies and the study of academic genealogy. We articulate the many exigencies for the project and explain the design choices we have made in response. Finally, we argue for data-driven academic genealogy as a valuable framework for understanding how influence circulates within writing studies.

This article critically analyzes under-acknowledged influences on the recent turn toward emotions, happiness, and well-being in higher education generally and in writing studies specifically: positive psychology (the science of happiness) and positive education (teaching well-being). I provide an overview of their primary features and complicate their assumptions, values, and goals. I also highlight their overlap with and implications for writing studies, including connections and shared concepts between writing and well-being, the central role of writing in positive psychology and positive education pedagogies, and the potential for writing studies to critique and influence well-being education. I argue that embracing emotion as a key component of our pedagogy and scholarship introduces ideological commitments that may challenge and even undermine our personal and professional beliefs. Positive psychology and positive education deserve our sustained attention, and any consideration about emotions in composition will need to confront these movements’ influential version of teaching well-being.