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PODCAST

re:verb

Calvin Pollak and Alex Helberg

re:verb is a podcast about politics, culture, and language in action, featuring interviews and segments from scholars, writers, critics, and activists in the humanities, social sciences, and outside the academy.

news & politics philosophy

All Episodes

01:11:47

E84: Toward a Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico...

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2023/10/27

On today’s show, Ben sits down with Dr. Juan Llamas-Rodriguez, Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss his research at the intersections of border studies, infrastructure studies, and Latin American and Latinx diasporic media.We begin by discussing Juan’s approaches to media studies and challenges in the field, then dive into his new book, Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the U.S.-Mexico Underground (University of Minnesota Press)

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E83: Criminalizing Protest: The Stop Cop City RICO...

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2023/10/06

Ever since its announcement in 2021, the Atlanta police training facility project known as “Cop City” has been the subject of much criticism from activists concerned with police violence and environmental justice. The proposal included razing 85 acres of forest in DeKalb County, Georgia (just South of the city of Atlanta) to build, among other things, a mock “city” in which police would conduct training exercises. In response, members of the surrounding community and beyond have engaged in swift,

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00:53:02

E82: The Rhetoric of AI Hype (w/ Dr. Emily M. Bender)

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2023/07/28

Are you a writing instructor or student who’s prepared to turn over all present and future communication practices to the magic of ChatGPT? Not so fast! On today’s show, we are joined by Dr. Emily M. Bender, Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Washington and a pre-eminent academic critic of so-called “generative AI” technologies. Dr. Bender’s expertise involves not only how these technologies work computationally, but also how language is used in popular media to hype,

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00:54:16

E81: Academic Labor Solidarity (w/ Dr. James J....

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2023/06/30

On today’s episode, we’re thrilled to be joined once again by friend-of-the-show Dr. Jim Brown, Jr., Associate Professor of English and Director of the Digital Studies Center at Rutgers-Camden. While Jim is mainly known to us as an expert in digital rhetorical studies, today we speak to him about his experience as outgoing president of the Camden chapter of Rutgers’ faculty union, the AAUP-AFT, amid its recent historic labor strike and contract negotiations. The Rutgers faculty strike was a massive

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01:07:34

E80: re:joinder - Scott Adams & Persuasion: The...

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2023/05/31

The cognitive scientists at re:verb couldn't get enough of Win Bigly, Scott Adams' bizarre treatise on persuasion in a supposedly post-fact era. After tackling the introduction in December (listen to the first installment here!), we bring you our reading and re:joinder critique the first full chapter, which discusses why ordinary people like us fail to grasp reality for what it is: a mere plaything of the mastermind behind Dilbert. From Adams' ramblings, Alex, Calvin, and Sophie unearth top-secret

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01:00:46

E79: Legitimizing Situated Knowledge in East...

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2023/04/14

On February 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying vinyl chloride and other hazardous chemicals derailed in the town of East Palestine, Ohio. Fearing an explosion, emergency crews conducted a controlled burn of several of the cars, releasing toxic chemicals into the air and forcing the evacuation of local residents. In the ensuing weeks, pictures and videos were shared across social media of dead fish in local waterways and other sick animals throughout the region, followed by official reports

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01:12:56

E78: Campus Misinformation and Academic Freedom (w/...

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2023/03/17

Trigger warning: if you are offended by evidence-based arguments against moral panics surrounding higher education, listen with discretion!Light kidding aside, this episode addresses a very serious issue: restrictions on free speech in higher education. And no, we’re not talking about the exaggerated culture war invocations: “angry mobs” of “coddled students” yelling about “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” to shut down speakers they don’t like. Rather, we’re talking about real, top-down

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00:52:26

E77: Theaters of War (w/ Dr. Roger Stahl)

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2023/02/10

Was your favorite film approved by Uncle Sam? And just how much of your streaming watchlist did the CIA curate? On today’s episode, Calvin and Alex are joined by Dr. Roger Stahl, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Georgia, to discuss the widespread problem of US information operations in the motion picture industry–including, most recently, the 2022 box office smash Top Gun: Maverick.Thanks to Roger’s research team on his recent documentary Theaters of War (2022), we now know

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01:09:36

E76: re:joinder - Lose Bigly: Scott Adams Explains...

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2022/12/15

Are you winning bigly?No?Neither is Scott Adams, the infamous cartoonist, blogger, and self-proclaimed “expert predictor”, whose formerly ubiquitous comic strip Dilbert was recently pulled from national syndication. In September, Dilbert featured “anti-woke” content caricaturing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the corporate world, and it was promptly “cancelled” by Lee Enterprises, owner of about 100 newspapers that had formerly carried the strip. Nevertheless, back in 2017, Adams

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00:32:08

E75: A.I. Writing and Academic Integrity

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2022/11/11

“A.I. Is Making It Easier Than Ever for Students to Cheat,” proclaims Slate. The Chronicle of Higher Education asks, rhetorically: “Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing?” And the New York Times warns: “A.I. is Mastering Language. Should We Trust What It Says?” Judging by media coverage of A.I. writing algorithms, you would think they’re on the verge of becoming the easiest and most effective cheating option for writing students. But is the situation really that simple?To help us answer

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01:12:28

E74: Jordan Peele and the Speculative Fiction of...

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2022/10/28

For this year’s Halloween special, we wanted to take a journey through the filmography of one of our favorite film directors, Jordan Peele. From the breakout success of his 2017 thriller Get Out, to 2019’s creepy and horrifying tour-de-force Us, to this year’s action-packed monster movie Nope, Jordan Peele is becoming arguably one of the most important American directors working today. His films not only bend and play with the ostensible genre conventions he works within, they also deliver

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01:10:23

E73: re:joinder - The CIA's Podcast

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2022/09/30

We at re:verb can neither confirm nor deny whether the truth will set you free - but it certainly provides good fodder for rhetorical criticism! On today’s show, Alex and Calvin present a re:joinder episode with a unique rhetorical artifact: an “unclassified” podcast recently released by one of the most secretive intelligence agencies in the world, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).The first episode of The Langley Files: A CIA Podcast features hosts “Dee” and “Walter” interviewing current

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00:39:07

E72: Tenant Organizing and the Cult of Property...

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2022/09/13

What’s a tenant union, and why does it matter? On today’s show, Alex and Calvin get some fascinating answers to this question from Luke Melonakos-Harrison, a Masters student in Yale University’s Divinity School, tenant union organizer with the Connecticut Tenants Union and the Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America, and aspiring Methodist pastor.In the course of our conversation, we learn about the kinds of unresolved housing issues, often exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, that led Luke and

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01:01:33

E71: re:pronouns

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2022/08/22

At the recent 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), right-wing movement leaders couldn’t stop whining about “pronouns.” For example, Texas Senator Ted Cruz said that his preferred pronouns are “kiss my ass,” and former Trump official Matt Schlapp complained that instead of carrying out his “duties” like dealing with the “open border,” President Biden is “talking about pronouns.” However, 2022 was not the first CPAC in which this particular part of speech caught heat; back in 2019,

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01:09:00

E70: We hold these Truths & Replies to be...

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2022/07/28

On June 28, 2022, explosive public testimony was delivered by a former Trump Administration aide named Cassidy Hutchinson in front of the United States House Select Committee investigating the January 6th attacks. Hutchinson’s testimony corroborated and deepened the Committee’s case that President Trump had led the attacks. In addition, Hutchinson divulged an extraordinary anecdote in which, after learning that his attorney general, William Barr, had refused to back Trump’s claims of election fraud,

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01:14:05

E69: "We're all trying to find the guy who can do...

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2022/06/03

In the wake of shooting massacres in Uvalde, TX and Buffalo, NY, public outcry has been sustained and vociferous, recalling similarly intense reactions to previous mass shootings over the past 10 years. But in the US, public policy responses to such events are rarely as swift or sweeping as most of us would prefer. Just two days after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, in which 19 children between the ages of 9 and 11 were shot and killed in their classroom, the US Senate recessed for

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01:17:33

E68: How can podcasting help us re:engage with social...

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2022/05/02

This episode was produced as a virtual panel presentation for the 2022 Computers and Writing Conference. It has been 2 years in the making, and we’re so pleased to finally present it to you!Academics have been increasingly using podcasts as rhetorically rich tools for achieving pedagogical goals and re-theorizing the power and potential of sonic rhetorics. While academic podcasts can serve as a useful medium for scholarly conversations among insiders, less explored has been the potential for such

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01:09:50

E67: re:read - Bartleby, the Scrivener

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2022/03/28

We would prefer not to write a description for this episode… but here’s one anyway!Today’s episode is a re:vival of our re:read series, where we create dramatic interpretive readings of short fiction with contemporary political and cultural relevance. In this installment, inspired by our recent conversation with Dr. Kendall Phillips on “rhetorics of refusal,” Calvin, Ben, and Alex bring to life the classic Herman Melville story “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” originally published

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00:58:13

E66: Food, Culture, and Intimacy (w/ Dr. Anita Mannur)

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2022/03/11

On today’s show, Ben and Alex have the privilege to dish with Dr. Anita Mannur, Professor of English and Asian American Studies at Miami University, about her research on the intersections that food has with culture, race, and gender.We begin the conversation by reflecting on how discourses around food and consumption practices, especially in postcolonial contexts, reflect our ideas of national identity and “authenticity” - for instance, the debate over whether Chicken Tikka Masala is an “authentic”

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01:17:02

E65: I The People: Conservative Populist Rhetorics...

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2022/02/14

Although “populism” is a term that has been rigorously discussed and theorized in political science and communication studies, the term has received special attention ever since the political rise and presidency of Donald Trump. But what does populism actually mean, and how can we trace the lineage of populist conservative discourses that prefigured the Trump presidency?To guide us through the rhetorical history of this fraught concept, we are joined on the show today by Dr. Paul Elliott Johnson,

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104 results

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