Demanding Black Linguistic Justice: An Interview with April Baker-Bell
Release Date: 04/11/2021
Rhetoric Before and Beyond Post-Truth: Afterwords
Rhetoricity
This special episode of Rhetoricity features a roundtable that also serves as the "Afterwords" for a forthcoming collection entitled Rhetoric Before and Beyond Post-Truth. That collection is edited by Scott Sundvall, Caddie Alford, and Ira Allen and will be published by the in 2026. The featured panelists are James Ball, Barbara Biesecker, Omedi Ochieng, Robin Reames, and Ryan Skinnell. See below for more detailed bios of the panelists. The roundtable focuses on key questions from Rhetoric Before and Beyond Post-Truth: what we mean by “post-truth,” how it intersects with rhetoric, and...
info_outline
No End to the Struggle: An Interview with Derek G. Handley
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with , author of the book . Dr. Handley is an Associate Professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is also affiliated faculty in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department and in the Urban Studies program. Before that, he was a Chamberlain Project Fellow in English and Black Studies at Amherst College and a Predoctoral Mellon Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. He has taught at Lehigh University, the United States Naval Academy, and the...
info_outline
Sensitivity, Solidarity, and Higher Education: An Interview with Kendall Gerdes
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with . Dr. Gerdes is an associate professor in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric Studies at the University of Utah, where she also serves as president of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors. This interview focuses on her book , which won the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s 2025 Outstanding Book Award. In addition to Sensitive Rhetorics, Dr. Gerdes coedited the collection and has published articles in such journals as Philosophy & Rhetoric, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and Kairos. The...
info_outline
Where the Writing Is: An Interview with Ashley J. Holmes
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with . Dr. Holmes is Associate Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning at Oregon State University, where she leads the Center for Teaching and Learning in supporting effective, innovative, and scholarly teaching that engages students in meaningful learning experiences. She has published books, articles, and chapters in writing studies. One of those books is 2023's , which was also the focus of Dr. Holmes' keynote at the 2024 , an annual event hosted at Middle Tennessee State University. This interview was recorded during her visit for that symposium. In adding...
info_outline
Rhetorical, Material, Critical Bodies: An Interview With Christina Cedillo
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with . Dr. Cedillo is an associate professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, where she recently won the 2024 President’s Research Award. Her research lies at the intersections of race, gender, and disability. She examines how legal, scientific, and popular discourses circumscribe the embodied lives of marginalized populations, and how those populations enact rhetorical presence and engage in rehumanization practices using multimodality and digital technologies. In this episode, she discusses a number of her projects. Those include focused on...
info_outline
Podcasting in the Classroom: A Roundtable on the Humanities Podcast Network’s Teaching Manual
Rhetoricity
This episode features a roundtable conversation by contributors to , an open-access, lesson plan-based manual on integrating podcasts into humanities courses. That manual was written by members of the 's pedagogy working group. The discussion features six of its coauthors: , , , , , and . They discuss how they came to podcasting and teaching podcasts, their respective sections of the manual, and the possibilities and challenges of having students make podcasts in courses in and around the humanities. This episode features a clip from Ketsa's
info_outline
"The Path Chose Me": Keith Gilyard on His Career, Writing, and Legacy
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with conducted by guest host during the 2023 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute at Penn State University. They discuss Gilyard's path to a career in rhetoric, writing, and composition studies; his writing process and creative writing; academic mentorship and leadership; and his legacy and contributions to the field of African American rhetoric. Keith Gilyard is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University. He formerly was a member of the faculty at Syracuse University and at Medgar Evers College...
info_outline
Food, Feelings, and Other Rhetorical Sensitivities: An Interview with Jennifer LeMesurier
Rhetoricity
This episode features an interview with . The conversation, recorded at this year's Conference on College Composition and Communication, focuses on her 2023 book . That book explores how the rhetorical framing of food and eating underpins our understanding of Asian and Asian American identity in the contemporary racial landscape. Dr. LeMesurier is Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at Colgate University. Her areas of expertise include bodily and material rhetorics, genre theory, discourse analysis, qualitative research, and affect theory. In addition to Inscrutable Eating, she...
info_outline
AI Goes to College: Large Language Models and the Teaching of Writing
Rhetoricity
This episode of Rhetoricity features members of the : , , , , and . The task force also includes Leonardo Flores, David Green, Matthew Kirschenbaum, and A. Lockett. In July 2023, that task force published a laying out issues, principles, and recommendations related to the effects of generative artificial-intelligence tools on the college writing courses. In this episode's roundtable discussion, these task force members clarify some of the terminology around AI technologies, reflect on the process of writing the working paper, and discuss the pedagogical, historical, and labor...
info_outline
Rhetoricians Assemble: A Roundtable of Black Rhetoric Faculty
Rhetoricity
This is the third Rhetoricity episode guest-hosted by . It's also part of . The episode was recorded at the 2022 Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, and marks the two-year anniversary of the protests against anti-Black police violence that took place in the summer of 2020. Moderated by Dr. Handley, it features a roundtable of Black rhetoricians: , , , , and . They share the paths and choices that led them to become rhetoric scholars, reflect on the limitations of antiracist initiatives in higher education since 2020, and discuss the extra work colleges and universities often demand of Black...
info_outlineThis episode features guest interviewer Derek G. Handley speaking with Dr. April Baker-Bell. They discuss Dr. Baker-Bell's book Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy as well as her work on such projects as the Black Language Syllabus and "This Ain't Another Statement! This is a DEMAND for Black Linguistic Justice!"
Dr. April Baker-Bell is a transdisciplinary teacher-researcher-activist and Associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and English Education in the Department of English and Department of African American and African Studies at Michigan State University. A national leader in conversations on Black Language education, her research interrogates the intersections of Black language and literacies, anti-Black racism, and antiracist pedagogies, and is concerned with antiracist writing, critical media literacies, Black feminist-womanist storytelling, and self-preservation for Black women in academia, with an emphasis on early career Black women.
Baker-Bell’s award-winning book, Linguistic Justice: Black Language, Literacy, Identity, and Pedagogy, brings together theory, research, and practice to dismantle Anti-Black Linguistic Racism (a term Baker-Bell coined) and white linguistic supremacy. The book provides ethnographic snapshots of how Black students navigate and negotiate their linguistic and racial identities across multiple contexts, and it captures what Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy looks like in community with Black youth. Linguistic Justice features a range of multimodal examples and practices through instructional maps, charts, artwork, and stories that reflect the urgent need for antiracist language pedagogies in our current social and political climate.
Baker-Bell is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the 2021 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation's New Directions Fellowship, the 2021 Michigan State University's Community Engagement Scholarship Award and the 2021 Distinguished Partnership Award for Community-Engaged Creative Activity, the 2020 NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, the 2019 Michigan State University Alumni Award for Innovation & Leadership in Teaching and Learning, and the 2018 AERA Language and Social Processes Early Career Scholar Award.
Dr. Derek G. Handley is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he is also affiliate faculty in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies. He’s currently working on a book project that explores the rhetorical and civic actions taken by African Americans in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, Minnesota, during the 1950s and ‘60s as they attempted to protect their communities from urban renewal. He is also collaborating on a digital public humanities project with his UW-Milwaukee colleague Anne Bonds entitled “Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee County.” That project uses GIS mapping and rhetorical analysis of racial housing covenants and African American resistance to them in Milwaukee County.
This episode contains a clip from Podington Bear's "Detroit."