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Episode 29: Reflections on Rhetoric and Citizenship

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Oct 262015

I just don’t understand why we have to talk about every mode of belonging as some kind
of citizenship. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m interested in people’s practices of
resistance. I’m interested in people’s practices of belonging. […] I’m interested in people’s practices of world-making. — Karma Chavez

I’m increasingly persuaded by those who argue citizenship is a toxic concept and a toxic term. When I do talk about folks who appeal to citizenship, I’m very aware of how often those appeals to citizenship are built on the constitutive exclusions of others, and that if we really want to mobilize a productive, an emancipatory sense of civic obligation and of civic duty, we’ve got to figure out a way to do it without buying into a privileging conception of citizenship. — Cate Palczewski

In Episode 29, we extend a conversation from the 2015 RSA Summer Institute Seminar on Rhetorics of Citizenship. Karrieann Soto and Kate Siegfried host the discussion with co-seminarians Karma Chavez and Cate Palczewski. The episode asks that we critically question rhetorics of citizenship in our scholarship and in daily life. For a full transcript, click here.

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Episode 26: Conversations about Academic Labor, Academic Freedom, and Palestine

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Dec 182014

There’s a certain set of conceits around academic freedom that limit its functionality and its practice, and those conceits often have to do with critiques of state power, critiques of colonization, critiques of structural violence. –Steven Salaita

I think using academic freedom as a way to open these more political conversations and more potentially more transformative conversations about Palestine and about labor, and allowing people to see the connections between these issues is really important. –Vincent Lloyd

Organizing around solidarity communities and connecting with allies and creating networks of solidarity in that way is so crucial. We cannot resist in isolation. –Carol Fadda-Conrey

Steven Salaita, Vincent Lloyd, and Carol Fadda-Conrey

How do the precarious conditions of academic labor affect the conversations that are possible in the academy? How does academic freedom protect—or fail to protect—academics from doing politicized work? How do questions of Palestine in particular affect our understandings of academic labor and academic freedom—and vice versa? In episode 26, Steven Salaita, who lost a tenured job offer after writing a series of tweets condemning Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge,” talks about the rhetorical commonplaces of civility in the academy, and the stakes of circulating critiques of state power on various media platforms. Assistant professor of religion Vincent Lloyd, and associate professor of English Carol Fadda-Conrey—who helped to organize a talk by Salaita on SU’s campus this fall—reflect on their academic trajectories and political work, offer suggestions for how young scholars can build networks of support, and remind us to realize the critical potential of our discipline.

To access a PDF of the full transcript, please click here: Transcript for Episode 26

The music sampled in this podcast is akaUNO’s “Hidden Leaves,” and “Another Word” by The Left Curve.

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Episode 24: On Ferguson

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Oct 242014

Can’t we find more creative ways to report these stories? The story of Michael Brown is so important, but we get trapped, I think, in this narrow narrative that we’ve been telling for a really long time. —Tessa Brown

Social media and mobile technology has particularly been important for people of color, for working class people, for immigrants, for LGBT people, people who belong to groups who have been traditionally marginalized in the media because they don’t have to not only wait for the media to tell their stories but they also don’t have to wait to have their stories be misconstrued, too, and have their stories misinterpreted. —Sherri Williams

These aren’t just flukes, these aren’t just accidents, these aren’t just deviations from an otherwise decent society. The whole society is bankrupt, its corrupt, its racist, its sexist, its homophobic, and ablist and because this is an entrenched deep issue it is going to have to be an entrenched long-term kind of movement to fight those kinds of things. —Nikeeta Slade

The image shows a screenshot of The Root's tweet featuring an image that went viral during Ferguson protests. The image features a black man with his back to the camera, hands in the air. Facing us are approximately 10 police officers in full riot gear, at least 4 of whom are actively pointing guns at the unarmed citizen.

Tweet from The Root, Aug. 12: “Days after #MikeBrown’s death, #Ferguson looks like a war zone (via @micnews): bit.ly/1orU2GF

Episode 24 focuses on media representations of Ferguson, Missouri after the killing of Mike Brown. As Ben notes in the introduction, This Rhetorical Life focuses on the practice, pedagogy, and public circulation of rhetoric. By focusing on Ferguson, we connect all three: how rhetoric circulates around Ferguson, how our public texts work to either create and sustain or to challenge and resist unjust systems, and how we as writing instructors can help students analyze and flip unjust systems. This episode features interviews with three Syracuse graduate students: Tessa Brown, Sherri Williams, and Nikeeta Slade.

To access a PDF of the full transcript, please click here: Transcript for Episode 24

The music sampled in this podcast is “Strange Arithmetic” by The Coup, “Note Drop” by Broke For Free, “EMO Step Show” by The Custodian of Records, and “This is the End” By Springtide.

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Episode 20: Thinking Collectively about Academic Labor

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Apr 232014

A lot of times, contingent faculty do an incredible job of being incredibly professional in unprofessional working conditions. I think that’s the first big cost: the humanity and the economic stability of those folks who are in contingent positions—many of whom are grad students, people who have earned Master’s degrees or Ph.D.s, and obviously made commitments to being in higher education and commitments to wanting to teach and be with students. And, ironically, that group that is often the most committed to teaching—the most committed to being there for students—has to just struggle to be in something that they love to do. — Eileen Schell

http://www.presenttensejournal.org

We’re happy to share a special collaboration with Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society for Episode 20! Academic labor is something that greatly concerns us as graduate students, and we think it’s an important concern for both full-time faculty and contingent faculty. That’s why this podcast features the voices of both full-time (Eileen Schell and Tony Scott are both Associate Professors of Writing and Rhetoric at Syracuse University) and contingent faculty (Jeff Simmons is a Professional Writing Instructor at Syracuse University).

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 20

The music sampled in this podcast is “N35-40-19-800” by Springtide and “Adventure, Darling” and “Multitudes” by Gillicuddy.

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Episode 14: Interview with Cristina Ramirez

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Nov 012013

So we’re starting by defining the topic or the term of latina. Who is being included in that? Then we’re looking at questions of who are we going to include? Why are we going to include them? And which works are significant and important in talking about nationalism and feminism?

Image of a sign on a building that reads, "Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies / The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection"

The Benson Latin American Collection (cristinadramirez.com)

Episode 14 features an interview with Cristina Devereaux Ramírez at the 2013 Feminism and Rhetorics Conference at Stanford University. In this episode, Ramírez discusses her upcoming book project Mestiza Rhetoric: Ocupando Nuestro Puesto (Claiming Our Space), an anthology collaboration with Jessica Enoch on Mexican women journalists, and the choices we make as archival researchers about whose voices to include and how these voices can contributely positively not only to the field of rhetoric and composition but also to young latina students.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 14

The music sampled in this podcast is “As Colorful as Ever” by Broke for Free and “From Stardust to Sentience” by High Places.

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Episode 13: Uncivil Rhetoric

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Oct 092013

I think that when we look at rhetorical means in relation to people who are making decisions that are destroying the planet, that are destroying people’s lives, that are immiserating and incarcerating large numbers of especially people of color around the country and around the globe, we should not be concerned about making them comfortable. We should not be concerned about finding a seat at their table. We should be thinking about how it is that we get together so that collectively we can make them very uncomfortable so that we can change them and—again—to do this collectively, democratically in a way that we discover ourselves and each other. — Nancy Welch

[W]e’re part of this larger national movement, and so when we’re in Syracuse and we have this opportunity in front of us, my thought was that anyone in the country who has been paying attention to the treatment of Bradley Manning should take the opportunity to, you know, call out President Obama on this issue because he ultimately has the power. — Ursula Rozum

Image from August 22nd Interruption of Obama at Henninger High School in Syracuse. Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre shouts through cupped hands as she and Ursula Rozum are escorted out of the gymnasium.

Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre shouts through cupped hands as she and Ursula Rozum are escorted out of Obama’s speech in Syracuse, August 22nd.

Episode 13 is a two-part episode that features an interview with Nancy Welch discussing the motivation for her scholarly work, composition’s activist roots, and the importance of participating in activist collaborations once tenured. The second part features an interview with Ursula Rozum and Amelia Ramsey-Lefevre who interrupted President Obama’s speech at Henninger High School on August 22, 2013 in order to ask Obama to pardon Private Manning through nonviolent free speech action. This podcast blends activism in both academic and public contexts, highlighting the ways that particular rhetorical acts are treated as un/civil.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 13

The music sampled in this podcast is “Biomythos” by Revolution Void, “Indyair” by Springtide, “Note Drop” by Broke for Free, and “Subterranean Zerbie” by The Mork Quartet.

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Episode 12: This We Believe

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Sep 052013

Stories fascinate me. They’re so laden and richly textured with the values and the literate activities of individuals that it makes me happy to think of that as shaping the communities within which they work and live and make change. — Cindy Selfe

If higher education is at least in part about critical thinking, about citizenship, about making sure that the work we do in the world is ethical and moral and matters, I’m not sure that we, in traditional higher education, haven’t done a particularly good job yet of justifying the work that we do in ways that are more palatable in this new climate. — Steve Lamos

Episode 12 is a glimpse into This We Believe, a project from Writing Democracy to record and archive conversations about democracy. This podcast features brief narratives from Cindy Selfe, Paul Feigenbaum, Steve Lamos, and Ellen Cushman who talk about democracy in our classrooms and in the world, in theory and in practice, and through linguistic and social action.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 12

The music sampled in this podcast is “As Colorful as Ever,” “Murmur,” and “Note Drop” by Broke for Free and “Namer” by High Places.

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Episode 8: “The Silent Protest” with John Carlos

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May 042013

The video provides details referenced in Carlos’s remarks over the next hour, the conditions of racism that John Carlos’s actions responded to, his childhood in Harlem, how he got involved with the Olympic Project for Human Rights, and other details about how the silent protest was developed and interpreted in its time.

The John Carlos Story (image via johncarlos68.com)

Episode 8 features a recording of Dr. John Carlos’s featured session at CCCC in Las Vegas this past March (read the description here). Shannon Carter, Associate Professor of English from Texas A&M-Commerce, has been working closely with Carlos and introduces his keynote by identifying three themes that are relevant to our field: time, collective action, and reciprocity. In his address, Carlos offers insights into the 1968 Mexico City silent protest, his experiences facing racial prejudice, and the choices we all make as writers working for social justice.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 8.

The music sampled in this podcast includes Prefuse 73, J Dilla, Digable Planets, Curtis Mayfield, & Mos Def.

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Episode 5: The Rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street with Dennis Trainor Jr.

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Mar 152013

There are many rhetorical issues to explore through the Occupy Wall Street movement: the framing of the 99% vs. the 1%, materialist physical rhetorics of occupied space, and so on. We’ll get at those, but it’s also important to note that the most commonly stated victory of the Occupy movement is a rhetorical one. That is, we often hear about the movement changing the national conversation.

American Autumn: an Occudoc (image from democraticunderground.com)

Episode 5 explores the rhetoric of the Occupy Wall Street movement and features an interview with filmmaker Dennis Trainor Jr., who discusses his recent documentary, American Autumn: an Occudoc. This episode also includes a response from Deborah Mutnick, Professor of English at LIU Brooklyn.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 5.

The music sampled in this podcast is audio from American Autumn.

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Episode 2: “And the Blood of Children Ran…” with Minnie Bruce Pratt

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Feb 012013

In the first part of this keynote address from Syracuse University’s Conference on Activism, Rhetoric, and Research, Minnie Bruce Pratt discussed shifting definitions of what it means to be an activist and a feminist, considering the rhetoric we use to talk about change and action. In this second part of her address, Minnie Bruce considers what research has to do with change, with the connection between words and action, the connection between symbolic representation and material realities.

Minnie Bruce Pratt (image by Leslie Feinberg)

Episode 2 is part two of Minnie Bruce Pratt’s keynote address. To listen to part one, visit the previous post.

To read a PDF of the full transcript, please download it here: Transcript for Episode 2.

The music sampled in this podcast is “On Children” by Sweet Honey in the Rock.

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