Episodes
In this week’s episode of the Love, Academic Writing podcast, the Love Doctors, Allison and Lee, talk about this week’s writing but: BUT WRITER’S BLOCK! Click here to get your buts therapized for free on the podcast!
Published 07/01/22
Is writer’s block real? What exactly is the “block”? Did you put it there or did someone else? Is the block depression, in which case maybe you need a break. Or is it just that you aren’t sure of your argument, in which case you need to write. Are you in Jesus’s cave or Plato’s? If you asked Eve Sedgwick or Audre Lorde if they had writer’s block while they were dying of cancer they probably would have said, “I have writer’s block all the time, that’s the whole reason I write.”
Published 07/01/22
Published 07/01/22
Hosted by Dr. Lee Pierce, assistant professor and rhetorical scholar, and Dr. Allison Harbin, academic-exile, freelance writer, blogger, and dev editor. Together, they are the Love Writing Doctors!
Published 06/01/22
Read the blog version:    Today's episode is a reading of an excerpt from the introduction of my now defunct book manuscript, "When Black Women Speak: The Politics of White Listening." Enjoy! Read the blog: https://rhetoriclee.com/when-black-women-speak/ *Learn more at https://rhetoriclee.com  *Follow the show  on Facebook and on Instagram @rhetoriclee  *Subscribe to the show on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, on Google Podcasts, on Stitcher, on Youtube, on Spotify, or via RSS *Take 20...
Published 06/22/21
Takeaways: Jargon, sometimes called buzzwords, sometimes called slang, sometimes called bureaucratese, is basically non-standard language meant to bring into being non-standard thought. Jargon is inclusive and expands our collective understanding about the world when it is used carefully, defined, in tons of examples, and solves a problem by bringing a different awareness than other words in its orbit. However, jargon is exclusive and narrows our collective understanding about the world...
Published 05/27/21
This episode is a reading of a recent piece by Amanda Montell for Sunday Edit titled "Language Lowdown: Why Phrases Like "I Feel Like" and "If That Makes Sense" Aren't Actually Bad." Montell's piece discusses patriarchal language standards and the importance of critiquing our norms for "authoritative speech" and it features my two cents about language as something we want to use intentionally not necessarily "correctly" (because standards for correctness are caught up in all kinds of sexism,...
Published 05/14/21
The first crossover episode between May it Displease the Court, which looks at corruption in the courts from judges through dark money anti-democratic far-Right donors, and RhetoricLee Speaking, banishing banality one speech at a time. Your co-hosts, Mary and Lee, look at censorship, free speech vs. hate speech, and counter speech. Here are the highlights: 1) as much as we may want the law to recognize hate speech sometimes when truly vile opinions (in our opinions) are being circulated, the...
Published 04/20/21
The problem with phrasing the rules or norms or whatever you want to call them around the word n-i** as a prohibition, as a thou shalt not, is that not only does it NOT address the more implicit racism of feeling entitled to say the word when there’s no one around “to be offended,” but it also begs the very people to transgress that you’re trying to get to stop transgressing because most people--especially people who fancy themselves edgy intellectuals or truth tellers or the last stalwarts...
Published 04/07/21
I chatted recently with Nadeje of the Unleashed Unapologetically podcast about thought work, rhetoric, tension, cliches, and internal debate. The episode is called "The Thoughts About the Thoughts." Click on the link below to listen. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Anchor Listen on the Web
Published 03/31/21
Black women remain subjects who must recite power to have any power even though the power of the reciter is never the power of the subject who originates the lines to be recited.  Amidst the praise that critics have rightfully heaped upon “The Hill We Climb” since January 6, only a few critics, mostly Black women, have noticed how her language testifies to American slavery, 1619-present. For example, Gorman’s opening lines contain several middle passage metaphors, including “the loss we...
Published 02/19/21
In honor of National Sex Ed Day on February 2nd, I’m teaching you how to talk dirty! You’re welcome. Let me tell you who this episode is for. It is for people who are excited about the idea of dirty talk, or sexy talk, or explicit talk but have no idea how to start or aren’t sure if their partner is receptive or have had a bad experience or been turned off by stereotypes in the media. It is for people whose sex life has gotten stale but role playing and expensive toys and one-size-fits-all...
Published 02/02/21
Dr. King understood that it is not the strategy itself that does the work. Nonviolence, violence, it’s all just strategy. What matters is what you do with the strategy. And the aim of King’s nonviolence wasn’t the nonviolence for the sake of nonviolence, it nonviolence for the sake of amplifying and highlighting of systemic violence.
Published 01/19/21
When you’re talking about anything pro-Black in America, you’re going to run into a crossroads between making Black culture accessible, translatable to White hegemony or making it about elevating and celebrating Black culture in its distinctness from Whiteness. There is no right answer here. It’s just an ever-present decision. One of the ways that tension gets navigated is the degree to which a text uses cliches. From comforting reassurance and quippy banality to unsettling juxtaposition and...
Published 01/05/21
With New Year’s fast approaching, we are all in store for our usual turning-of-the clock epiphany. Suddenly, everything changes and, at that moment, we just know. Except not. Epiphanies are cliches that keep us from doing the hard work of understanding how persuasion happens. The epiphany collapses the event that happens with our response to it as opposed to the rhetorical figure peripeteia, which marks an event as an opportunity for change. Joe Biden used both epiphany and peripeteia in his...
Published 12/22/20
Back in January, basketball legend Michael Jordan gave a eulogy for other basketball legend Kobe Bryant after Kobe died tragically in a plane crash with his daughter Gianna. Commentators praised the speech because it was “tearful,” “moving,” and “heartfelt.”  I agree that Jordan’s speech is AN example of a eulogy. But I disagree that it is a model for ALL eulogies. It praises Kobe for a bunch of different attributes, all of those attributes are probably what anyone would select if asked to...
Published 08/26/20
It's the last week of August 2020 and the #rhetoricnerds are sending summer off in style with the inaugural week of The Big Rhetorical Podcast Carnival! Eight podcasts are participating this week on the theme The Digital Future of Rhetoric and Composition including yours truly. In addition to checking out this week's episode of RhetoricLee Speaking, be sure to check out the other podcasts participating in the carnival, including: Global Rhetorics Podcast at https://globalrhetorics.com...
Published 08/24/20
Of all the leaders on The Walking Dead, which is a show that takes place in a zombie apocalypse, I would choose the flamboyant, Shakespearean Black man with the giant tiger. Why? Because he, who goes by the name King Ezekiel, is the most rhetorical character.    When I say that Ezekiel is the most rhetorical character, I mean that he is the most aware that meaning is something that has to be created--that there is no such thing as the “right” belief or the most “authentic” person. There are...
Published 07/28/20
Quick announcement after a long hiatus!   A lot is going on in the world. It’s a wonderful and terrible time to be a rhetorician #blacklivesmatter and #stillpodcasting   RhetoricLee Speaking will be back soon with a new episode feat. King Ezekiel of The Walking Dead.    In the meantime, head over to the podcast Rhetoricity hosted by fellow rhetorician Eric Detweiler and check out a new episode featuring several analyses of juxtaposition (putting two things side by side to make an argument),...
Published 07/26/20
An anecdote is not a story. An anecdote is a quick, “this thing happened to me.” An anecdote is a one-dimensional series of facts that people call a story when they don’t know better. An anecdote may have had a point. It might even have some concrete detail. But the one thing it doesn’t have is the one thing that a good story can’t exist without: Plot. Structure. What’s missing from the anecdote is what we call in rhetoric “vicarious experience.” The whole reason stories exist is to trick my...
Published 05/27/20
Corny-ass comedy: I'm here for it! Comedian Chris D’Elia’s new standup, “No Pain,” which premiered on Netflix a few weeks ago and was unanimously a let down to everyone who analyzed it. D’Elia has been a mid-level stand-up for a while now. He really took off last year as the host of the podcast, “Congratulations with Chris D’Elia.” At its best, “No Pain” transgresses and pokes fun at the expectation that people have to suffer to be interesting. That’s a totally worthy theme. D’Elia even jokes...
Published 05/13/20
What’s up Rhetoric Nerds! Welcome to RhetoricLee Speaking--a podcast about banishing banality, one speech at a time. I am your hostess with the mostess, Lee Pierce, she/they pronouns, lover of rhetoric, professor of communication, and loather of cliches. Join me most Tuesdays on YouTube, your favorite podcast app, or my blog at rhetoriclee.com for a whirlwind tour of the banality in culture, politics, and whatever was on Netflix at 3am. Be sure to subscribe wherever you watch or listen so you...
Published 05/13/20
Get a great list of fast and dirty strategies for constructing a kick ass analogy and listen to me mini rant about how Democrats ought to be out visiting the victims of bleach poisoning, sympathizing with those poor people who are so terrified that grasp at a desperate solution, instead of shitting all over them for being idiot sailors led by Captain Idiot on the idiot cruise. Kicking off with Britta’s hilarious explanation of analogies from the recently revived Community, RhetoricLee...
Published 04/28/20
Part 2 of a 2-part episode defending only the first ⅗ of the very first episode of “Tiger King.”: A piece of cultural criticism as epic as “Tiger King” is not. Tiger King bashing--which is not the same as nuanced cultural criticism--is demophobia to the core. Demophobia means a fear of the demos. Tiger King gives you pleasure, at least in the first ⅗ of the first episode, because it toes the line of kink--of queer transgression around sexual identity and practice. Not in a mean, sad way but...
Published 04/21/20
Part 1 of a 2-part episode defending only the first ⅗ of the very first episode of “Tiger King.” Part 1 you will get today, which is an episode that achieves what we in the critical world call a “ground clearing.” See, when something is as popular as Tiger King, and as radically mis-read, you can’t just jump in with an alternate interpretation. You need to clear some ground first, move away some cliche cobwebs to make space for another idea. The second episode--coming to you Tuesday...
Published 04/14/20