re:verb

On today’s show, Ben sits down with Dr. Iván Chaar López, Assistant Professor with the Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, to discuss his research on the history and politics of computing and information infrastructures. Iván’s recently published book, The Cybernetic Border: Drones, Technology, and Intrusion (Duke University Press), draws on his archival research t...

On today's show, Alex and Calvin continue our discussion about the ongoing war in Iran, focusing on the literal use of artificial intelligence in the imperialist campaign being waged by the US and Israeli militaries. We analyze statements from major AI companies regarding their military contracts, unpacking the conflict between the “Department of War” and Anthropic, and contrasting this with the i...

On today’s show, Calvin and Alex return to a grim and perennial topic in American politics: US military aggression against Iran. We look at the rhetoric of key political figures in the catastrophe currently unfolding in the Middle East, examining recent statements and audio clips from US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Congresswoman Rash...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin sit down with the co-authors of a viral op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education regarding the controversial restructuring of the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University: Dr. Sheila Liming (Associate Professor of Writing & Publishing, Champlain College) and Catherine Evans (doctoral candidate in Literary and Cultural Studies, Carnegie Mellon Universi...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin cover a recent culture war controversy tailor-made for re:verb - the sanctioning of a University of Oklahoma Psychology instructor for giving a student a poor grade on their writing assignment. At issue in the controversy, however, is not just whether the student fully completed the assignment given its specifications and rubric, but rather her invocation of allege...

On today's show, Alex and Calvin continue their series on “AI” and public discourse, focusing this time on the increasing proliferation of AI applications in government writing, policy, and social media. We characterize the second Trump administration as the "first totally post-AI presidency," which has adopted the "dumbest, most unreflective, most uncritical approach" to AI's use in communication...

In this episode – recorded prior to Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire between Iran and Israel – Calvin and Alex unpack the alarming reality of US strikes on Iran, recently announced by President Trump on June 21, and the ensuing escalation of tensions between the US, Israel, and Iran. We situate these recent events within decades of neoconservative influence and prior escalations, including the...

In this episode, Alex and Calvin return to a favorite hobby horse: the University of Austin (UATX). First discussed back in episode 62, this ultra-conservative "university concept" is still not accredited and has no undergraduate degrees planned until at least 2028-2031. In that previous episode, we described UATX variously as right-wing academia’s answer to the Fyre Festival and a pitch deck/Powe...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin – briefly rebranded as Kenneth Jerke and Mikhail Shocktin, co-hosts of "Shock Docs" –  explore the state of rhetorical manipulation in the context of the second Trump presidency. We discuss the general ineptitude of the conservative movement occupying the White House and the unsettling lack of a powerful counter-rhetoric in the Democratic opposition, before tu...

Today’s episode features our rich conversation with Dr. Corinne Mitsuye Sugino, Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Center for Ethnic Studies at The Ohio State University, about her compelling new book, Making the Human: Race, Allegory, and Asian Americans . On the show, Alex and Calvin are joined by guest co-host Dr. Sarah Hae-In Idzik to talk with Corinne about her multifaceted...

Today’s episode features a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Charles Athanasopoulos, Assistant Professor of African American and African Studies & English at The Ohio State University, about his groundbreaking new book, Black Iconoclasm: Public Symbols, Racial Progress, and Post/Ferguson America . On the show, Alex and Calvin talk with Charles about the intricate relationship he charts b...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin continue their series on Discourse and Manipulation by examining the role of manipulative silence in various post-mortems to the 2024 Presidential Election.  As a second-term President Donald Trump looms, many have been debating: what went wrong in the Democrats’ campaign? What policy positions, rhetorical strategies and slip-ups, or other contextual factors l...

On today’s show, we once again fire up our rhetorical stovetop to roast some dubious public argumentation: Oprah Winfrey’s recent ABC special, “AI and the Future of Us.” In this re:joinder episode, Alex and Calvin listen through and discuss audio clips from the show featuring a wide array of guests - from corporate leaders like Sam Altman and Bill Gates to technologists like Aza Raskin and Tristan...

On today’s show, we bring back one of our all-time favorite guests (and emeritus co-Producer / co-Founder of re:verb ) Dr. Derek G. Handley to talk about his newly-published book, Struggle for the City: Rhetorics of Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement . This episode is a spiritual successor to our first episode with Derek ( all the way back in Episode 6 !), which focused on th...

On today’s show, Calvin and Alex analyze the rhetoric and politics of the 2024 presidential election in terms of a particularly significant job this cycle: the vice president, or veep! We begin by discussing Vice President Kamala Harris’s meteoric rise to the Democratic nomination following President Biden’s departure from the race, as well as Harris’s conspicuous similarities to HBO’s fictional V...

Have you ever wondered why you immediately gravitate towards some speakers and writers? How they form a connection with you and make you want to pay closer attention? Or why you react with disgust and revulsion to other kinds of communicators? What is it about strategic discourse that fosters and nurtures deep connections with some audiences while (intentionally or unintentionally) turning other k...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin are thrilled to be joined by Dr. Patricia Fancher, a Continuing Lecturer in the Writing Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In her fabulous new book Queer Techné: Bodies, Rhetorics, and Desire in the History of Computing , Dr. Fancher offers a groundbreaking history of how the Manchester University Computer and discourses about it were shaped by...

On today’s show, Alex is joined by Olivia Wood, a lecturer in the English Department at City College of New York (CCNY) to discuss the recent escalations of force by the NYPD and campus administrators against student protesters in solidarity with Palestine over the past several weeks. In particular, we touch on the flashpoint raids by police - at the behest of campus administrators - at Columbia a...

On today’s show, Calvin and Alex sit down with Dr. Robin Reames - Associate Professor of English at the University of Chicago - to discuss her new book The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself: The Power of Rhetoric in Polarized Times .  In this book, Robin synthesizes rhetorical theories and concepts from Greek antiquity to the 20th century to deliver some of the most practical lessons that...

Spoiler Alert: This episode contains numerous plot spoilers for Civil War . On today’s show, we inaugurate a new episode series called reel:verb , in which we rate, review, and analyze a recent movie from the perspective of politics, culture, and language in action. In the first installment, Alex, Olivia, and Calvin tackle the 2024 dystopian thriller Civil War , directed by Alex Garland ( Ex Machi...

On today’s show, Calvin and Alex sit down with the co-authors of a hot-off-the-presses article in Discourse & Society about journalistic reporting on US drone strikes in the Middle East: Dr. John Oddo (Carnegie Mellon University), Dr. Cameron Mozafari (Cornell University), and Alex Kirsch (MA Professional Writing graduate, CMU). In their article, entitled “Sustaining or overcoming distance in...

Do you consider yourself to be a rational person? If so, Scott Adams (a.k.a. “The Dilbert Guy”), has some bad news for you. On today’s show, we attempt to surmount our various cognitive dissonances and confirmation biases to better understand “How to See Reality in a More Useful Way,” according to the third chapter of Scott Adams’s 2017 pseudo-rhetorical quasi-treatise, Win Bigly: Persuasion in a...

Disclaimer: This episode covers sensitive issues related to suicide and self-harm. If this topic makes you uncomfortable, we recommend skipping this episode. If you or someone you know is in crisis, in the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. On the morning of February 25, 2024,...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin continue to break down the concept of “Manipulation” in rhetoric and political discourse, recapping part one of this series , demonstrating strategies for identifying and critiquing manipulation, and discussing how this kind of large-scale “mind control” is affecting contemporary foreign policy discourse in the US. The term manipulation, as we define it, comes from...

On today’s show, Alex and Calvin break down the concept of “Manipulation” in rhetoric and political discourse. We outline some key strategies for identifying and critiquing manipulation, and discuss its social and political implications as a form of large-scale “mind control.” The term manipulation, as we define it, comes from a school of linguistic and discourse analysis known as Critical Discour...