Episodes

In recent years, we developed a new introductory class in my department that is supposed to ease our students into basic rhetorical and communication ideas and give them a foundation for a) analyzing texts, b) writing papers, and c) just kind of providing a basic background of history and oratory. All of that may sound relatively boring, but it really is a great class. My students really respond well to it. I think it’s because for the most part, we don’t do a lot of primary source work in school. So, when my students are presented with the actual words of these historical leaders, they are kind of blown away. [Read More]

Today we’re starting with a little bit of an experiment. I wanted to see what happens when you automate a podcast.*

Greetings, esteemed listeners. Today, let us embark on a journey through the captivating realm of rhetoric. I am your guide, M. Elizabeth Thorpe, and I bid you welcome to a discourse on the art of persuasion, the power of language, and the elegance of rhetoric. [Read More]

Like many women of my age, I was brought up with a complicated relationship with “emotions.”

On the one hand, there was the very real stereotype that women are more emotional than men. We were brought up in a world that would dismiss us at any hint at an emotional response to anything because it was deemed women’s hysteria. I won’t tell you how my times my father called me a “drama queen” because I got mad at something that, looking back, I had every right to be mad about, but, like most men, he needed an excuse to not deal with things; so the easiest thing to do was dismiss me. This was the way we were dealt with for most of our lives. We were told we were overly emotional, so ANY emotion was an excuse to belittle and dismiss us. [Read More]

So, let’s get one thing out of the way: I don’t like TikTok. I think it is dumb. My friends send me TikToks and sometimes and I watch them and sometimes I don’t. I have some friends I can trust to send me good ones, but often I’m just like, “no, thanks,” because from what I have seen of TikTok it is just a repository of us at our most banal.

I am ALSO aware this puts me in a long, millenia old line of curmudgeons who just don’t like and don’t appreciate new mediums. I get it. The problem is probably not TikTok. The problem is me. [Read More]

There is a long-standing narrative from the right that Big Tech (which according to them is a nefarious monolith) is a left-wing behemoth, if not part of a conspiracy, acting in concert with the media, to oppress conservative voices and ideology. The “woke” (and I hope you can hear the air quotes I am putting around that) tech industry is actively conspiring against the Right to suppress their so-often maligned voices and characters so that the oppressive Left can maintain their stranglehold on the public imagination. [Read More]