🎙️ Podcast Notes — Episode 1: Navigating the Academy with Dr. Codi Renée Blackmon

Episode Summary: In this debut episode of La Rhetorica, Dr. Amanda Patterson Partin (Anie) sits down with Dr. Codi Renée Blackmon to talk about what it really means to survive and thrive in academic spaces as a woman of color. Together they unpack microaggressions, invisible labor, mentorship, and the beauty of finding community in a field that wasn’t built with us in mind. This is a conversation about care, courage, and the power of showing up.

🌱 Key Topics:

• The invisible labor and “emotional tax” of women of color in academia
• Mentorship that heals, not just advises
• Navigating microaggressions and gaslighting in graduate programs
• The labor of belonging and the necessity of community
• The radical act of rest and refusal in academic spaces

📚 Books & Resources Mentioned:

• Dr. Bettina L. Love — We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom 🔗 Buy on Bookshop.org Essential reading for understanding how education can be a site of both harm and healing—and what abolitionist teaching looks like in practice.
• bell hooks — Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black 🔗 Bookshop.org Link The inspiration for Season 1 of La Rhetorica, this book explores what it means for Black women to speak truth to power in spaces designed to silence them.
• Audre Lorde — Sister Outsider 🔗 Bookshop.org Link A foundational collection on voice, resistance, and the intersections of identity.
• Sara Ahmed — On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life 🔗 Bookshop.org Link