Tell Me More!

Hello! We at TMM Studios hope you’ve been well during this break in episodes, over the holiday break, and now here at the end of many people’s semesters (shout-out to those on quarter systems). But we’re back with regular episodes for your feeds—just in time for winter break!

Welcome to a new episode of Tell Me More!—now with a fresh coat of paint! We can't wait for you to take a listen to this next series of episodes after reaching our tenth episode. To kick off our refresh, Ashely Beardsley, a fourth-year PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Writing Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the Department of English, stops by for a chat about her research.

Just in time for a Labor Day weekend, we're back in your feeds with another episode! This time, Eliza Gellis, a fourth-year PhD Candidate in rhetoric and composition at Purdue University stops by to chat about her dissertation project bridging rhetorical studies with Jewish studies through a focus on the rhetoric of the Tanakh (or the Hebrew Bible). Specifically, she examines encounters with the Divine as a framework for understanding Otherness and the rhetorical encounter using a transdisciplinary methodology. Eliza, who was a third-year doctoral candidate at the time or recording, chats about the project, but also the broader implications of her work regarding historiography, comparative rhetoric, classical and/or ancient rhetoric, and bringing rhetorical studies into conversation with Jewish studies. For those of you who find yourselves wondering about what the past reveals about today—and vice versa—or how to use our training in classical rhetoric to envision new avenues for work, this is the episode for you!

You've found yet another episode of Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. Congrats! This time around, Dr. Elena Costello Tzintún, a recent graduate of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the Ohio State University (this episode was recorded while she was a PhD candidate at OSU). Dr. Costello Tzintún is an applied linguist with a focus on race, equity, and inclusion who examines the role of interpreters in healthcare settings to improve accessibility in such spaces along the lines of culture, discourse, and practices of health.

In this episode, Dr. Costello Tzintún chats to us about a program for marginalized students to access university while also giving them a profession in health care while still in high school, which is work that came out of her dissertation research. Specifically, Dr. Costello Tzintún argues that, when you take marginalized students gifts and present them as unique skills, they can then access dual enrollment programs, receive college credit, and learn to navigate academia. She also chats about several other programs and groups she has been a part of, all of which advance an assets-based framework for multilingual people.

Hey there! Welcome back to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this episode, we're visited by Millie Hizer, who is starting her fourth year in the MA/PhD Program in the Department of English at Indiana University Bloomington this semester; her work focuses on disability studies, classical rhetoric, and writing pedagogy. Millie chats with us about a project she is developing that examines the rhetorical complexities of disclosure and nondisclosure via the affordances of Metis, or adaptive rhetorical cunning (a la Dolmage). Millie also talks about a course she is developing that has been approved for Spring 2022 on disability, visibility, and popular culture, and she reviews what a teaching philosophy can look like when it centralizes empathy and uptakes the affordances of disability theory as rhetorical practice. Millie has presented her work at the Society for Disability Studies conference at CCCC, and keep an eye out for her in the future!

Thanks for tuning into another episode of Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. This time, we're visited by Khadeidra Billingsley, a third-year PhD student in the Department of English at The University of Alabama focusing on Composition, Rhetoric, and English Studies. Khadeidra talks to us about her dissertation project, which seeks to amplify the professional expertise and knowledge of high school English teachers who are oftentimes blamed for the inadequate writing skills of college-bound student writers. Khadeidra also talks a bit about the historical context behind her project, the impetus for K-16 collaborations, and setting up a long-term research agenda.

Welcome to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this episode, Tyler Gillespie, a second-year PhD student in the Writing, Rhetoric, & Technical Communication program at the University of Memphis, stops by for a chat!

Tyler gives us an overview of his chapter in the upcoming Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric (edited by Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes) on rhetorical practices in Florida’s LGBTQ community. Specifically, he talks about the self-published Womyn’s Words, which ran from 1983 to 2011 and is known as “Florida’s Oldest Gay Publication.” Tyler’s chapter focuses on the publication’s text creation, collaborative production, and circulation as means of place-based, community formation. He also chats about the ethics of storytelling and research.

Welcome back to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this episode, we hear from Aunrika Tucker-Shabazz, a fourth-year PhD candidate at University of Michigan Ann Arbor in the Department of Sociology focusing on gender, sexuality and family. Aunrika gives us an overview of her formative work on sex that happens at home as opposed to sexual harassment that happens on campus or the street or the workplace, as well as the academic silence over such sexual violence despite its appearance in popular, whitestream media such as Good Will Hunting and Game of Thrones. As such, please be aware this episode comes with a content warning regarding sexual abuse.

Welcome to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this episode, we hear from Joel Bergholtz, a fourth-year PhD candidate at Florida State University in the Department of English. Joel walks us through his dissertation project on birther artifacts and the spreading of birther conspiracies, or the notion that various politicians of color must be publicly investigated. Joel also talks about race-based skepticism in public spaces and what we can do to understand them.

Welcome to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this episode, host Wilfredo Flores chats with Rachel Huddleston, a second-year PhD student at Texas A&M University-Commerce in the Department of Literature & Languages. Rachel gives us a fascinating overview of her dissertation topic and outline, which focuses on the rhetoric surrounding women accused of violent crimes with a specific focus on cases from Texas. That said, keep in mind this epsiode comes with a general content warning as we disucss violent crime. Rachel also chats about interdisciplinary, feminist methodologies, true crime, and public interventions.

Welcome to Tell Me More!, a podcast for amplifying the work of graduate students. In this, the first episode of the show, host Wilfredo Flores chats with Dr. Cana Uluak Itchuaqiyaq, who recently graduated with a PhD in technical communication and rhetoric from Utah State University and is an incoming assistant professor of professional and technical writing at Virginia Tech. Dr. Itchuaqiyaq, who recorded this interview before defending and graduating, talks about their chapter in an edited collection on historical Inuit narratives about subsistence practices as a way to learn about climate change. They also talk about social justice in technical communication, knowledge legitmitation, and moving the field toward equitable publishing.