re:verb

This week’s episode is the second, concluding part of our series reviewing concepts and topics from last season. (If you haven’t yet listened to part 1, you can find it here.)

In part 2 of our re:verb “re:cap,” we rekindle the critical ideas brought up in episodes 6 through 9. First, we build upon our discussion of urban renewal and gentrification from episodes 6 & 7, talking through the ongoing transparency controversy at the heart of Pittsburgh’s “bid” for Amazon HQ2, the economistic frames used by both proponents and opponents of the bid, and the difficulty of staging place-based resistance to massive corporate entities like Amazon. Then, we examine two cases that exemplify people’s affective & emotional attachments to evidence (a call-back to Jenny Rice’s work, discussed in episode 8): the liberal-left split over #Russiagate and the cryptic, all-encompassing, extremely-online #QAnon conspiracy. We go on to discuss the brilliant treatment of language ideology (a concept previously covered in episode 9) in the film Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018), particularly its depiction of code-switching and “white voice.”

Finally, we reflect on some of the unresolved tensions across all of our conversations on the show so far: rhetorics of “the future,” certainty vs. uncertainty, the role of aesthetics in rhetoric, and the relationship between language and power.

Previous episodes discussed:

Episode 6: How do spaces and places function in resistance movements? (Rhetorics of Place: Part 1) (w/ Derek Handley & Liana Maneese)

Episode 7: What are the economic, social, and political forces fueling gentrification? (Rhetorics of Place: Part 2) (w/ Scott Riess)

Episode 8: What can conspiracy theories teach us about how we use "evidence"? (w/ Jenny Rice)

Episode 9: How does language influence our identity (and vice-versa)? (w/ Barbara Johnstone)

Works & Concepts Referenced in this Episode:

Creswell, J. (2018, Aug. 5). Cities’ offers for Amazon base are secrets even to many city leaders. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/technology/amazon-headquarters-hq2.html

Hart, R., & Dillard, C. (2001). Deliberative genre. In Sloane, Thomas O. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125955.001.0001/acref-9780195125955-e-64.

Kroskrity, P. V. (2004). Language ideologies. A companion to linguistic anthropology, 496-517.

Org Chart of the QAnon Conspiracy compiled by “The Infomaniac”: https://throughthelookingglassnews.wordpress.com/2017/11/24/q-anon-learn-to-read-the-map/

Rice, J. (2017). The Rhetorical Aesthetics of More: On Archival Magnitude. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 50(1), 26-49.

Rihl, J. (2018, Feb. 8). How Amazon’s HQ2 may both bring growth and imperil Pittsburgh’s talent pool. Public Source. Retrieved from: https://www.publicsource.org/how-amazons-hq2-may-both-bring-growth-and-imperil-pittsburghs-talent-pool/

Scahill, J. (2018, Feb. 21). RussiaMania: Glenn Greenwald vs. James Risen. Intercepted Podcast. Podcast retrieved from: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/21/intercepted-podcast-russiamania-glenn-greenwald-vs-james-risen/

Shoemaker, J.D. (2018, April 11). Activists call on Pittsburgh officials to release Amazon bid, include residents in economic development decisions. Public Source. Retrieved from: https://www.publicsource.org/activists-call-on-pittsburgh-officials-to-release-amazon-bid-include-residents-in-economic-development-decisions/

Shoemaker, J.D. (2018, July 5). Amazon’s ripple effects: Six things that might happen if Pittsburgh gets HQ2. Public Source. Retrieved from: https://www.publicsource.org/amazons-ripple-effects-six-things-that-might-happen-if-pittsburgh-gets-hq2/

Shoemaer, J.D., & Davidson, M. (2018, June 21). Advocacy groups file court brief supporting media efforts to make Pittsburgh’s Amazon HQ2 bid public. Public Source. Retrieved from: https://www.publicsource.org/advocacy-groups-file-court-brief-supporting-media-efforts-to-make-pittsburghs-amazon-hq2-bid-public/

VanDerWerff, T. (2018, July 27). 100 years of the American left in 5 minutes, with Sorry to Bother You director Boots Riley. Vox. Retrieved from: https://www.vox.com/2018/7/27/17620246/boots-riley-sorry-to-bother-you-history-of-the-left-interview

It’s a new academic year, and the beginning of a new season of re:verb! In our 2-part season premiere, we take a retrospective look at topics in political and cultural rhetoric that we’ve covered over the past year, taking note of the critical concepts and questions still pertinent to our thinking. It’s a re:verb “re:cap,” for long-time fans as well as newcomers to the show who want to get a taste of our perspective on language-in-action.

In part 1 of our retrospective, Calvin and Alex discuss interviews and analyses from episodes 1-5, bringing in contemporary examples to illustrate how the issues and ideas discussed in those shows remain relevant today. We analyze metaphors and assumptions in the Trump administration’s national security strategy, discuss the embodied, material nature of trauma and memory in Vietnam, and reflect on the battle over facticity and dialogicality vis-à-vis Hurricane Maria’s death toll.

Tune in for part 2 - where we’ll be discussing episodes 6 through 9 – coming soon!

Previous episodes discussed:
Episode 1: Why listen to a podcast about rhetoric and the humanities (w/ Doug Cloud)

Episode 2: Why do we look toward ‘the future’ when we talk about national security? (w/ Patricia Dunmire)

Episode 3: How can we make room for a different kind of security discourse?

Episode 4: What is the relationship between trauma and memory? (w/ Taylor Rugg)

Episode 5: How is science represented on Wikipedia, and why does it matter? (w/ Ana Cooke)

Works & Concepts Referenced in this Episode:

Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. [on the concept of “dialogicality”]

Chilton, P. A. (1996). Security metaphors: Cold war discourse from containment to common house (Vol. 2). Peter Lang Pub Incorporated.

Chilton, P. A. (1996). The meaning of security. In R. Hariman (Ed), Post-realism: The rhetorical turn in international relations, 193-216. East, Lansing, MI: MSU Press.

Coto, D. (2017, November 8). Puerto Rico reports increase in overall deaths after storm. Associated Press. Retrieved from: https://apnews.com/a64526dd9e314f3aa9de8de6ebd4117a

Dunmire, P. L. (2015). Beyond space and time: Temporal and geographical configurations in US national security discourse. Critical Discourse Studies, 12(3), 297-312.

Milken Institute of Public Health (The George Washington University). Project report: Ascertainment of the estimated excess mortality from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Retrieved from: https://prstudy.publichealth.gwu.edu/sites/prstudy.publichealth.gwu.edu/files/reports/Acertainment%20of%20the%20Estimated%20Excess%20Mortality%20from%20Hurricane%20Maria%20in%20Puerto%20Rico.pdf

Robles, F. (2018, August 9). Puerto Rican government acknowledges hurricane death toll of 1,427. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/us/puerto-rico-death-toll-maria.html

—————

Website for the Vietnam War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, VN: http://warremnantsmuseum.com/

Alex’s tweet thread on visiting the Vietnam War Remnants Museum: https://twitter.com/ajhelberg/status/1030054961957072897

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy document (Dec. 2017): https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf

Yinz ready for another episode of re:verb? On today’s show, we interview Dr. Barbara Johnstone, professor of English and Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University, and one of the foremost scholars of an American English dialect known as Pittsburghese.

Our conversation touches on the history and features of Pittsburghese, how it has helped to forge various local identities in the city and beyond, and more broadly, how the ways that we talk about language influences our use of language. We discuss Professor Johnstone’s career, how she became interested in place-based registers, and to what extent her own work may have influenced public perceptions of Pittsburgh speech. Finally, we end with a light-hearted discussion of human-animal communication, and Alex develops his folk theory about regional dialects of cat-speak.

Works & Concepts Cited in this Episode:

Hawhee, Debra. "Toward a bestial rhetoric." Philosophy and Rhetoric 44.1 (2011): 81-87.

Johnstone, B. (2013). Speaking Pittsburghese: The story of a dialect. Oxford University Press.

Johnstone, B. (2018). Discourse analysis. John Wiley & Sons.

Johnstone, B., & Pollak, C. (2016). Mobilities, Materialities, and the Changing Meanings of Pittsburgh Speech. Journal of English Linguistics, 44(3), 254-275.

Johnstone, B., & Baumgardt, D. (2004). " Pittsburghese" Online: Vernacular Norming in Conversation. American speech, 79(2), 115-145.

McCool, S. (1982). Sam McCool's new Pittsburghese: How to speak like a Pittsburgher. Renaissance News Inc.

Pittsburgh Dad: Going to Gram’s

“Bringing the Word Straight to You” Podcasts (from Dr. Johnstone’s Pittsburgh Speech and Society Project): http://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech_Podcasts.html

Jim Krenn’s “Pants N’at” sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX2QQZ9ZHuY

A good YouTube playlist of Rick Sebak documentaries based in Pittsburgh

Tribune-Review, “Hey, jagoff! Keep Pittsburghese out of politics”, 5/22/2018, Tribune-Review.

This week, Alex and Ryan sit down with Dr. Jenny Rice (Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at the University of Kentucky) and discuss the rhetoric of “alternative researchers” (i.e. conspiracy theorists), particularly how their practices mirror our own as we construct knowledge in our academic and personal lives. In Dr. Rice’s forthcoming book (tentatively titled Awful Archives) she outlines how “archival” practices – broadly defined as the accumulation, organization/categorization, and referencing of information – are often shaped by our sense of what is “beautiful” or “repulsive,” and argues that we can better understand collective knowledge-making processes if we examine “evidence” for its aesthetic dimensions. In essence, the constant accumulation of evidence into an archive of knowledge can give us a sense of satisfaction, in that it feels like we are “making sense” of a chaotic and complex world – continuously forming it into a coherent narrative that helps explain events occurring around us.

In exploring this idea through examples ranging from 9/11 “truthers,” the Sandy Hook “crisis actor” conspiracy theory, and the TV show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, we try to work toward a better understanding about how our social & cultural practices shape the kinds of evidence we consider beautiful or ugly, and discuss how to use this understanding for productive ends when communicating among people with whom we disagree.

Works & concepts cited in this episode:

Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Stanford, N. R. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers.

Aristotle. Poetics (trans. S.H. Butcher). The Internet Classics Archive. Retrieved from: http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.html [where Dr. Rice draws on the concept of Megethos or “magnitude” – n.b. Section 1, part VII]

Bitzer, L. (1968). The rhetorical situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 1(1), 1-14.

Edbauer, J. (2005). Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 5-24.

Grassi, E. (1980). Rhetoric as philosophy: The humanist tradition. State College, PA: Penn State University Press.

Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J. (2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32(2), 303-330. [Study on the “backfire effect” re: political beliefs]

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf

Rice, J. (2012). Distant publics: Development rhetoric and the subject of crisis. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Rice, J. (2017). The Rhetorical Aesthetics of More: On Archival Magnitude. Philosophy & Rhetoric, 50(1), 26-49.

Schrag, C. O. (1992). The resources of rationality: A response to the postmodern challenge. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

In part two of our series on Rhetorics of Place, Alex and Calvin squeeze into a 5x5 sound booth (reminiscent of a $1,000/month+ studio apartment, or perhaps one floor of a Tiny Home, in a gentrifying Pittsburgh neighborhood) with CMU Master’s Candidate in Literary and Cultural Studies Scott Reiss to talk about the politics of urban development. We map out some of the different social, economic, and political factors in gentrification, and how these are specifically playing out in the city of Pittsburgh. We also discuss how the frontier metaphor is used by developers and in the news as a way of justifying the influx of "urban pioneers" to impoverished neighborhoods. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on different actions that can be taken at a local level to resist gentrification and/or make redevelopment policies that bring wealth to impoverished communities without displacing their residents.

Cover image: A “tiny home” designed and sold in the neighborhood of Garfield by Eve Picker, developer and landlord of the East Liberty “Last Billboard” space discussed on our previous episode. Post image: “Keep Pittsburgh Shitty” bumper sticker spotted by a user on the r/pittsburgh subreddit (t-shirt here).

Works, Concepts, and News Items Cited in this Episode:

Dionne Jr, E. J., Ornstein, N. J., & Mann, T. E. (2017). One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-yet Deported. St. Martin's Press.

Edbauer, J. (2005). Unframing models of public distribution: From rhetorical situation to rhetorical ecologies. Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 35(4), 5-24. [Discusses how the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” was appropriated by developers in Austin.]

“Future of Manufacturing To Rise Within Abandoned Steel Mill.” [CMU website article describing the university’s new development in Hazelwood.]

Glass, R. L. (1964). London: aspects of change (Vol. 3). MacGibbon & Kee. [Coins the term “gentrification.”]

Harvey, D. (2008). “The right to the city.” The City Reader, 6, 23-40.

Kelly, M. & McKinley, S. (2015). “7 Paths to Development That Bring Neighborhoods Wealth, Not Gentrification.” yes! Magazine.

Moore, D. (5/8/2018) “Secrecy surrounding Amazon HQ2 bid will help Pittsburgh win, Allegheny Conference CEO says.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Smith, N. (1996). “‘Class struggle on Avenue B’: The lower east side as wild wild west.” The New Urban Frontier. New York, NY: Routledge, 3-27.

St-Esprit, M. (5/8/2018). “As Bloomfield weighs new development, residents seek to prioritize affordable housing.” Public Source. [Note for Pittsburghers: “The BDC will hold another public meeting regarding affordable housing options in the community at 6:30 p.m. May 24 in the West Penn School of Nursing auditorium.”]

On this week’s episode, our guests speak with us about how two distinct locations – featuring two billboards – in the city of Pittsburgh played remarkable roles in social movements and controversies over urban spaces. In our first conversation, we speak with Derek Handley (recent Carnegie Mellon Rhetoric PhD. graduate and soon-to-be faculty at Lehigh University) about his study of “Freedom Corner” in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, and how it functioned as a location and a resource for arguments against urban renewal practices in that neighborhood. Then, we talk to Liana Maneese, a social practice artist and entrepreneur with The Good Peoples Group, about a recent controversy in the neighborhood of East Liberty over a billboard whose text read: “There are black people in the future.”

Through these conversations, we explore how contestations over places play out in urban communities, as well as the linkages between African American social movements, language, and the ownership of space.

Cover image: The original billboard located at Freedom Corner, circa 1960 (Image source), and Alisha Wormsley's "There will be black people in the future" installment at "The Last Billboard."

Works & Concepts Cited in this Episode:

Endres, D., & Senda-Cook, S. (2011). Location matters: The rhetoric of place in protest. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 97(3), 257-282.

https://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00335630.2011.585167

Handley, Derek G. (forthcoming). “The line drawn”: Freedom corner and rhetorics of place in Pittsburgh, 1960s-2000s. Rhetoric Review.

Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture, in which she states “Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence”:

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1993/morrison-lecture.html

Whitaker, Mark. (2018). Smoketown: The untold story of the other great black renaissance. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Smoketown/Mark-Whitaker/9781501122392

Wilson, Kirt. (2002). The reconstruction desegregation debate: The politics of equality and the rhetoric of place. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.

Alisha B. Wormsley’s “There Are Black People in the Future” Project:

http://www.alishabwormsley.com/there-are-black-people-in-the-future/

Young, Vershawn A. (2007). Your average nigga: Performing race, literacy, and masculinity. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press.

Check out Liana Maneese’s company The Good Peoples Group here: http://thegoodpeoplesgroup.com/

Also, check out some of the details about her Adopting Identity project here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/adopting-identity-lies-luck-and-legitimacy#/

It’s a real scorcher of an episode this week as Calvin and Alex sit down with re:verb web editor and Carnegie Mellon PhD candidate Ana Cooke to discuss her research on the arguments taking place within Wikipedia articles about global warming. We talk about why Wikipedia is an important space for public knowledge-curation, how certain kinds of language can color our perceptions of the certainty surrounding scientific facts, and how Wikipedia editors found a working solution to manage the ways both the scientific consensus and dissenting opinions on global warming are represented online. We also get down into the trenches of online polemics with Wikipedia editor and CMU Rhetoric alumnus Daniel Dickson-Laprade, who gives us a first-hand look at how arguments on Wikipedia talk pages play out, tells us how he successfully argued for the deletion of a scientifically faulty Wikipedia article, and reminds a certain popular author that just because you wrote Jurassic Park, it doesn’t mean you get to dictate how science works.

Cover Photo: Former Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe brings a snowball onto the U.S. Senate floor as “evidence” that global warming isn’t real. (image source)

Sources and Concepts Cited in this Episode

Bakhtin, M.M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. (on the concept of “dialogism”)

Michael Crichton’s “Aliens Cause Global Warming” speech (in which he coins the spurious term “consensus science”):

https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf

Ceccarelli, L. (2011). “Manufactured scientific controversy: Science, rhetoric, and public debate.” Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 14(2), 195-228.

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) on Climate Change:

http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm

Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (2013). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. (2003). The language of evaluation (Vol. 2). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. (on the concepts of “dialogic expansion” and “dialogic contraction”)

McGee, M. C. (1980). The “ideograph”: A link between rhetoric and ideology. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 66(1), 1-16.

Oreskes, N., & Conway, E.M. (2010). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. London, UK: Bloomsbury.

Pew Research Center. (14 Jan. 2016). “Wikipedia at 15: Millions of readers in scores of languages.” Retrieved from: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/14/wikipedia-at-15/

Safran, N. (20 Mar. 2012). “Wikipedia in the SERPs: Appears on page 1 for 60% of informational, 34% transactional queries.” Conductor. Retrieved from: https://www.conductor.com/blog/2012/03/wikipedia-in-the-serps-appears-on-page-1-for-60-of-informational-34-transactional-queries/

Xia, R. (20 Sep. 2016). “College students take to Wikipedia to rewrite the wrongs of internet science.” Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-wikipedia-science-classes-adv-snap-story.html

Wikipedia page on “Global warming”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

Wikipedia page on “Global warming controversy”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy

Wikipedia page on the spurious “Oregon Petition” (famously “signed” by “Dr. Geri Halliwell,” a.k.a. “Ginger Spice” of the Spice Girls):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Petition

In this episode, we explore some dimensions of the concept of memory through conversations with two people whose work deals directly with how we remember people, places, time periods, and events. Audrey Strohm hops on the mic with Alex to talk with Taylor Rugg, an M.A. student in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon, who has authored both academic and creative work on how people remember traumatic events. We specifically discuss the ways that trauma is experienced by members of the military, and how this can sometimes be at odds with how the public perceives and remembers their trauma, after which Taylor delivers a live reading of a lyric essay she wrote about her own personal trauma. Alex and Ryan also speak with Emily Ruby - a curator at the Heinz History Center museum in Pittsburgh, PA - about her work collecting and preserving the memories and stories of people in the Pittsburgh community.

*Trigger warning* This episode contains brief descriptions of traumatic events such as torture and the death of family members.

Works and concepts cited in this episode:

Butler, J. (2010). Frames of war: When is life grievable? Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books.

Delillo, D. (2007). Falling man. New York, NY: Scribner.

Fair, E. (2007, Feb. 9). An Iraq interregator’s nightmare. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801680.html

Fair, E. (2014, Dec. 9). I can’t be forgiven for Abu Ghraib. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/opinion/the-torture-report-reminds-us-of-what-america-was.html

Fair, E. (2016). Consequence: A memoir. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Co.

Phillips, K. (2010). The failure of memory: Reflections on rhetoric and public remembrance. Western Journal of Communication, 74(2), 208-223.

Plato. (1992). Theaetetus. (M. J. Levett, Rev., Myles F. Burnyet, Trans., B. Williams, Ed.). Indianapolis: Hackett.

Rugg, T. (2017). As a star moves among stars in the night’s darkening. The Journal, 41(4). http://thejournalmag.org/archives/12542

Donald Trump stating that torture “absolutely” works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUtAUu_3Yks

In part two of our series on the politics of security, Calvin and Alex analyze two recent “artifacts” of national security discourse – General John Kelly’s October 2017 press conference addressing why the U.S. has troops in Niger (and elsewhere), and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Office’s January 2017 report on Russian “activities and intentions” in U.S. elections. The ensuing conversation explores how national security figures establish an authoritative, dominating narrative and close off the possibility of dissent through their language, and ends with a meditation on a radically different way of thinking about “security.” Plus, Ryan Mitchell solicits people’s associations with the term “national security” in a new edition of re:verberations.

Works and concepts mentioned in this episode:

Chilton, P. A. (1996). Security metaphors: Cold war discourse from containment to common house (Vol. 2). Peter Lang Pub Incorporated.

Chilton, P. A. (1996). The meaning of security. In R. Hariman (Ed), Post-realism: The rhetorical turn in international relations, 193-216. East, Lansing, MI: MSU Press.

The DNI report on “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”:

Full report: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

John Kelly’s press conference:

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BxsCyS6Y8U (question on Niger comes @ 11:53)

Further reading on security discourse, particularly the "container" metaphor:

Brown, W. (2017). Walled states, waning sovereignty. Boston, MA: MIT Press.

Campbell, D. (1992). Writing security: United States foreign policy and the politics of identity. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota Press.

Prior to World War II, American political leaders tended to talk about national security by framing the U.S. as a “sanctuary” for democratic ideals that needed to be protected. After the war, this dominant framing shifted to focus on the U.S. as a “powerhouse” for democracy, in which the nation’s responsibility was to go on the offensive and spread American ideals throughout the world. In this week’s episode, Calvin and Alex speak with Kent State English Professor Patricia Dunmire about the ways that U.S. politicians and others in government have made arguments about national security throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – what “security” means, who should have it, and what actions are deemed necessary to “maintain” and “promote” that security in the future.

We also introduce a new segment called "re:verbrations," in which Ryan Mitchell speaks with guests at re:verb's launch party to get their thoughts on the power of language in society and politics.

Cover Image: Commemorative "challenge coin" bearing the US National Security Agency (NSA) slogan: "Defending our nation, securing the future." (image source)

Publications by Dr. Patricia Dunmire on national security and the rhetoric of futurity:

Dunmire, P. L. (2005). Preempting the future: rhetoric and ideology of the future in political discourse. Discourse & Society, 16(4), 481-513.

Dunmire, P. L. (2010). Knowing and controlling the future: A review of futurology. Prose Studies: History, Theory, Criticism, 32(3), 240-263.

Dunmire, P.L. (2011). Projecting the future through political discourse: The case of the Bush doctrine. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Dunmire, P. L. (2015). Beyond space and time: Temporal and geographical configurations in US national security discourse. Critical Discourse Studies, 12(3), 297-312.

Other works & concepts mentioned in this episode:

Fairclough, N. (2003). Representations of social events [chapter mentioning “space-time”]. Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London/New York: Routledge, 134-155.

John Kelly’s response to questioning about US troops in Niger:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/us/politics/statement-kelly-gold-star.html

George Kennan’s “long telegram”

               Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan#The_%22Long_Telegram%22

               Document: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm

Luce, H. (1999/1941). The American century. Diplomatic History, 23(2), 159-171.

NSC Resolution 68

               Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSC_68

Document: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/10-1.pdf

Teleology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology

Further Reading:

Engels, J., & Saas, W. O. (2013). On acquiescence and ends-less war: An inquiry into the new war rhetoric.

Goode, L. & Godhe, M. (2017). Beyond capitalist realism – why we need critical future studies. Culture Unbound, 9, 1-22.

On the Nov. 2017 special election results: https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/politics/5-takeaways-election-virginia-governor-trump/index.html