We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous―and easier to share than ever. We associate charts with science and reason; the flashy visuals are both appealing and persuasive. Pie charts, maps, bar and line graphs, and scatter plots (to name a few) can better inform us, revealing patterns and trends hidden behind the numbers we encounter in our lives. In short, g...
Dec 03, 2019•58 min•Ep. 42
When you think of the word “demagogue,” what comes to mind? Probably someone like Hitler or another bombastic leader, right? Patricia Roberts-Miller is a rhetoric scholar and has spent years tracing the term and its uses. She joins us this week to explain a new way of thinking about demagoguery and how that view relates to democracy. She also explains what she’s learned from what she describes as years of “crawling around the Internet with extremists.” Patricia is a Professor of Rhetoric and Wri...
Nov 25, 2019•42 min•Ep. 57
The word “ghetto” has taken on different meanings since its coinage in the 16th century. The uses of this term have varied considerably, from its original understanding as a compulsory Jewish quarter in Venice to its appropriation by black Americans to describe racial segregation in the United States. Daniel Schwartz traces this fascinating history in Ghetto: The History of a Word (Harvard University Press, 2019) and examines how “ghetto” has come to occupy different meanings to different people...
Nov 19, 2019•55 min•Ep. 132
Jonathan Rosa's new book Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Raciolinguistic Ideologies and the Learning of Latinidad (Oxford University Press, 2019) examines the emergence of linguistic and ethnoracial categories in the context of Latinidad. The book draws from more than twenty-four months of ethnographic and sociolinguistic fieldwork in a Chicago public school, whose student body is more than 90% Mexican and Puerto Rican, to analyze the racialization of language and its relationship...
Nov 04, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 61
As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might called "fundamental research." Their authors--dedicated researchers one and all--provide the scholarly stuff upon which many non-fiction trade books are based. So when you are reading, say, a popular history, you are often reading UP books at one remove. Of course, some UP books are also bestsellers, ...
Nov 03, 2019•39 min•Ep. 45
In his short book, Theory of the Hashtag (Polity, 2019), Andreas Bernard traces the origins and career of the hashtag. Following the history of the # sign through its origins in the Middle Ages and how it became a common symbol through its placement on American typewriters and touch tone phones. He examines the hashtag’s role in changing how we define and discuss keywords. Focusing on the use of the # on Twitter and Instagram, Bernard looks at how the sign is used in activism and marketing, addr...
Oct 25, 2019•39 min•Ep. 59
The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not necessarily make us good teachers. Jessamyn Neuhaus’s Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers (West Virginia University Press, 2019) helps us to identify and embrace that geekiness in us and then offers practical, step-by-step guidelines for how t...
Oct 24, 2019•33 min•Ep. 81
Called "perhaps the finest and most profound account of ethnographic fieldwork and discovery that has ever entered the anthropological literature" by the Wall Street Journal, A Death in the Rainforest: How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea (Algonquin Books, 2019) is an account of Don Kulick's thirty year involvement with a single village in Papua New Guinea, Gapun. In it, Kulick tells the story of language loss in the village, as well as his own experiences of viole...
Oct 07, 2019•55 min•Ep. 46
Philosophy of Language was a central concern in classical Indian Philosophy. Philosophers in the tradition discussed testimony, pragmatics, and the religious implications of language, among other topics. In his new book, Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy: An Introduction to Mukula's 'Fundamentals of the Communicative Function'(Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Malcolm Keating looks at the views of the philosopher Mukula Bhatta, whose innovative position on meaning aimed to capture the di...
Sep 20, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 198
The last few years have seen a proliferation of helps for those of us who struggle to consolidate and develop our knowledge of ancient languages. But here is one of the most helpful of these new resources. Jonathan G. Kline, who is academic editor at Hendrickson, and the author of Allusive soundplay in the Hebrew Bible (SBL, 2017), has published a series of books that provide one-sentence daily readings in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, and which then parse these sentences in an imaginative and memo...
Aug 13, 2019•40 min•Ep. 73
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo--Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University--to discuss an almost revolutionary work of theory and critique: Ornamentalism (Oxford University Press, 2019). Ornamentalism offers arguably the first sustained theory of the yellow woman and, beyond that, a nuanced reflection on the way in whic...
Jun 21, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 126
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Sharon Kirsch (she/hers)--Associate Prof. of English and rhetorical studies in the New College at Arizona State University--on the scintillating and beautifully written Gertrude Stein and the Reinvention of Rhetoric from University of Alabama Press (2014). This book is truly a must-read for lovers of language; through Stein, Kirsch redelivers the “rules” of language and persuasion (organization, c...
Jun 17, 2019•41 min•Ep. 60
On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric in the Department of Communication at the State University of New York at Geneseo—is joined by co-host and recent Geneseo Graduate Haley Wigsten to interview Derek Gaunt (he/his)expert trainer and coach at the Black Swan Group--on his thrilling new book Ego, Authority, Failure: Using Emotional Intelligence Like a Hostage Negotiator to Succeed as a Leader (New Degree Press, 2019). Gaunt is a lecturer and author who trained for 29...
Jun 13, 2019•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 42
For some two hundred years now, Pentateuchal scholarship has been dominated by the Documentary Hypothesis, a paradigm made popular by Julius Wellhausen. Recent decades, however, have seen mounting critiques of the old paradigm, from a variety of specializations, not only in Biblical Studies, but also in the fields of Assyriology, Legal History, and Linguistics. In a recent international meeting, scholars across these fields came together and presented papers, each one calling for a paradigm chan...
Jun 04, 2019•24 min•Ep. 47
We’re all familiar with the ways in which speech can cause harm. For example, speech can incite wrongful acts. And I suppose we’re also familiar with contexts in which a person who occupies a position of authority can harm others simply by speaking – as when a boss announced and thereby institutes a discriminatory office policy. In such cases, the announcement is itself a harm in addition to the harm of the instituted policy – the boss’s announcement constitutes a harm and does not only cause ha...
May 31, 2019•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 188
John Pat Leary's Keywords: The New Language of Capitalism (Haymarket Books, 2019) chronicles the rise of a new vocabulary in the twenty-first century. From Silicon Valley to the White House, from kindergarten to college, and from the factory floor to the church pulpit, we are all called to be innovators and entrepreneurs, to be curators of an ever-expanding roster of competencies, and to become resilient and flexible in the face of the insults and injuries we confront at work. In the midst of in...
May 28, 2019•43 min•Ep. 104
Donnel Stern has been a key figure in the advancement of interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis since his initial writings on unformulated experience in the 1980s, in which he offered a fresh perspective on what constitutes the unconscious. Since then, he has consistently been on the cutting edge of theoretical developments in the unconscious and dissociation, and he continues such innovation in his new book, The Infinity of the Unsaid: Unformulated Experience, Language, and the Nonverbal (...
May 15, 2019•58 min•Ep. 83
Why would anyone want to study Sanskrit, an ancient complex tongue? What’s the best way to go about doing so? Sanskrit is the highly sophisticated language of ancient India which remained in vogue for Millennia as a medium of philosophy, ritual, poetry – indeed every facet of Indian culture. Above and beyond Indian culture, it affords deep insight into the grammatical structures of language. Join us as we talk to Antonia Ruppel (Oxford University) about her Sanskrit textbook, The Cambridge Intro...
May 01, 2019•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 16
Dr. Shonaleeka Kaul is a cultural historian of early South Asia specializing in working with Sanskrit texts. She is Associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and has worked extensively on Sanskrit kavya, a genre of highly aesthetic poetry and prose. She is the author of The Making of Early Kashmir: Landscape and Identity in the Rajatarangini (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Imagining the Urban: Sanskrit and the City in Early India (Permanent Black ...
Apr 11, 2019•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 94
On this episode of the New Books Network, Lee Pierce (she/they)--Assistant Professor, Dept. of Communication at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Leslie Hahner--Associate Professor, Dept. of Communication at Baylor University--on a spectacular new work of rhetorical history: To Become an American: Immigrants and Americanization Campaigns of the Early Twentieth Century from the Michigan State University Press’ Rhetoric & Public Affairs Series (2017). To Become an American connects the Americanizat...
Apr 05, 2019•56 min•Ep. 40
On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Dr. Anne Cheng (she/hers)--Professor of English and Director of the Program in American Studies at Princeton University--to discuss an inimitable work of critique: Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface (Oxford University Press, 2017). Moving fluidly and with suspense through Baker’s performances, personal journals, museums, architectural designs, and the lyrics o...
Mar 25, 2019•45 min•Ep. 59
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contribute to this process? This podcast addresses this issue. We interview Professor Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, whose book, The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance (forthcoming with MIT Press) is undergoing a Massive Online Peer-Review (MOPR) process, where everyone can make comments on ...
Mar 19, 2019•32 min•Ep. 15
In this episode of New Books in Buddhist Studies, Dr. Richard Salomon speaks about his book The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandhāra: An Introduction with Selected Translation (Wisdom Publications, 2018). One of the great archeological finds of the 20th century, the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, dating from the 1st century CE, are the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever discovered. Richard discusses his pioneering research on these fascinating manuscripts, how the then obscure Gāndhārī language was ...
Mar 01, 2019•57 min•Ep. 45
On this episode of New Books in Communications, Lee Pierce (she/they) interviews Dr. Bradford Vivian (he/his) of Penn State University on his fabulous new book Commonplace Witnessing: Rhetorical Invention, Historical Remembrance, and Public Culture (Oxford University Press, 2017). In this book, Dr. Vivian asks readers to reconsider our almost sacred regard for the act of witnessing in public culture and consider witnessing as a rhetorical act that we recognize not only because of the transparent...
Feb 27, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 34
Richard Gombrich's new book, Buddhism and Pali (Mud Pie Slices, 2018), puts the richness of the Pali language on display. He introduces the reader to the origins of Pali, its linguistic character, and the style of Pali literature. Far more than just an introductory book, Richard argues not only that the Pali Canon records the words of the Buddha, but that the Buddha himself is responsible for the Pali language. Richard shows that by learning about Pali, we learn about the spirit of Buddhism itse...
Feb 06, 2019•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 42
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century (Verso, 2017) introduce readers to important work in Anglophone cultural studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, media theory, speculative realism, science studies, Italian and French workerist and autonomist thought, two “imaginative readings of Marx,” and two “unique takes on the bo...
Dec 06, 2018•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 14
The success of a translator may seem to lie in going unnoticed: the translator ducks out of the spotlight so that the original author may shine. Mark Polizzotti challenges that idea in a provocative treatise on his craft, Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto (MIT Press, 2018). “A good translation, created by a thoughtful and talented translator,” Polizzotti writes, “aims not to betray the original but to honor it by offering something of equal–possibly even greater–beauty in its nam...
Nov 14, 2018•40 min
Humans are the only animals that can use language processes to create abstract, symbolic thoughts. This is both a blessing and a curse. Although symbolic processes have many benefits to humans, they can also lead us to great suffering. We worry about the future, fret over the past, get stuck in rigid rules, and create problems for ourselves that exist only in our minds. In this episode, cross-posted from the podcast Psychologists Off The Clock, Dr. Debbie Sorensen talks to Dr. Matthieu Villatte,...
Nov 13, 2018•1 hr 10 min
Arabic script is astounding! Not only because it represents one of the most commonly spoken languages today –that is, the Arabic language– but because it has represented dozens of other languages over the course of human history from the Middle East to Asia, to Europe, and to the tip of South Africa. Letters of Light: Arabic Script in Calligraphy, Print, and Digital Design (Harvard University Press, 2017) is a recent example of the scholarship on the aesthetics of Arabic script and what it commu...
Nov 12, 2018•1 hr 26 min
In a time where concepts such as gender pronouns, sexual assault and harassment, and toxic masculinity are entering and shaping public discourse, knowing the ways in which gender and language interact is key. In her new book, Speaking Up: Understanding Language and Gender (Multilingual Matters, 2018), Dr. Allyson Jule describes the ways in which gender and language intersect in various parts of life. Jule examines gender and language in media and technology, education, the workplace, religion, a...
Sep 28, 2018•47 min
