Podcast appearances and mentions of patricia roberts miller

Send us a textIn this episode, April drags herself out of bed while recovering from a wicked case of Influenza A (you might notice her somewhat gravelly vocal quality) to record this episode about an important and timely topic--the language of demagoguery. While we tend to think of it as something politicians and other powerful people use, she discovers to her dismay that we are all capable of being "nascent demagogues" and using this rhetorical technique in our everyday discussions about politics. Hey, let's try not to do that, okay?Episode 37 Show Noteshttps://gordoncstewart.com/2023/12/05/the-language-of-demagoguery-2/Social commentator and blogger Gordon Stewart discusses how language is used for social manipulation, referencing Senator Newt Gingrich.https://feps-europe.eu/powerless-arguments-demagogue-and-populist-language/Robert Feustel is a researcher at Friedrich Schiller University, and this article discusses the difficulty of arguing with someone using demagogic language.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02773945.2019.1610636Skinnell and Murphy's excellent article on the pervasiveness of the language of demagoguery.https://www.mediaethicsmagazine.com/index.php/browse-back-issues/209-spring-2017-vol-29-no-2/3999195-media-rhetoric-and-the-demagoguery-of-the-eliteGood article by rhetorician Patricia Roberts-Miller of the University of Texas at Austin, who also wrote the book Demagoguery and Democracy.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2024.2388461#abstractI didn't really reference this excellent treatise about the way that demagogues destroy democracy by John Keane, but I highly recommend that you read it anyway.https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/publications/demagoguery-technology-and-cognition-addressing-the-threats-to-deStephen Lewandowsky's paper on demagoguery and how it threatens democracy.https://www.historyhit.com/culture/anti-jewish-propaganda-in-nazi-germany/Some examples of how the Nazis used anti-Jewish propaganda to influence German citizens.https://brainapps.io/blog/2025/01/stand-up-against-demagogy-protect/This article contains some very helpful tips about how to recognize and stand up to demagogic rhetoric.

Markham interviews Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller, retired professor of rhetoric and writing and former director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of the excellent essay, "Authoritarian Libertarianism and the Freedom to do what I say.” Her related books:Deliberating War (forthcoming)Demagoguery and Democracy (general audience)Rhetoric and Demagoguery (scholarly)

This week I welcome Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller to the show. We'll be talking about her book, Demagoguery and Democracy and her work on the continued threat a culture of demagoguery poses to democracy, equity, and justice. In Demagoguery and Democracy she writes, "Demagoguery isn't about what politicians do; it's about how we, as citizens, argue, reason, and vote. Therefore, reducing how much our culture relies on demagoguery is our problem, and up to us to solve." Patricia Roberts-Miller, formerly Director of the University Writing Center and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, is a scholar of train wrecks in public deliberation—that is, times that communities made decisions they later regretted, although they had all the information they needed to make better ones. In addition to Demagoguery and Democracy, she is the author of Speaking of Race: Constructive Conversations About an Explosive Topic (2021), Rhetoric and Demagoguery (2019; finalist Rhetoric Society of America book of the year), Fanatical Schemes: Proslavery Rhetoric and the Tragedy of Consensus (2009), Deliberate Conflict: Composition Classes and Political Spaces (2004), Voices in the Wilderness: The Paradox of the Puritan Public Sphere (1999), and various book chapters and articles. LINKS Get the book, Demagoguery and Democracy, by Patricia Roberts-Miller: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781615196760 Patricia Roberts-Miller on the web: https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/ More books by Patricia Roberts-Miller: https://bit.ly/3KK4x7M You can support this show by becoming a patron for as little as $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/rcpress. Don't Let Paul Martino & Friends Buy Our Schools and push extremist politics in our community. Raging Chicken has teamed up with LevelField to launch a truly community-rooted PAC to invest in organizing, support local and state-wide progressive candidates, and unmask the toxic organizations injecting our communities with right-wing extremism. We're putting small-dollar donations to work to beat back the power of Big Money.  You can get more information and drop your donation at  https://ragingchicken.levelfield.net/. Join our Discord to continue the conversation all week long: https://discord.gg/BnjRNz3u  

Hello and welcome to Episode Forty Six of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I'm your host, Hannah! If you enjoy the podcast subscribe, tell a friend, or write us a review! The English Language Transcript can be found below But as always we start with Reader's Advisory! The Reader's Advisory for Episode Forty Six is So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. If you like the sound of So You Want to Talk About Race you should also check out: How to Be An Antiracist by Abram X. Kendi, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, and Speaking of Race by Patricia Roberts-Miller. Bonus segment my personal favorite Goodreads list So You Want to Talk About Race is on is Durham Tech Equity & Inclusion Council Book List Happy Reading Everyone Today's Library Tidbit comes to us from the Adult Services Librarian and is on Ndebele art. On February 8th the library will be holding a program on creating Ndebele inspired artwork. It will probably be full or past by the time you hear this podcast, however, that does not mean that you cannot learn about and experience Ndebele art for yourself! The Largo Public Library also has a few books on Ndebele art that you can check out to gain a deeper understanding. Ndebele art is the traditional artwork of the Southern Ndebele people of South Africa. Traditionally it is the art tradition of the women of the Ndebele people. The tradition began with woman painting their houses and while it is still traditionally used as house painting it has also been transferred to canvas and at least one BMW art car. One of the most well-known Ndebele artists is Esther Mahlangu. Mahlangu learned Ndebele from her mother and grandmother. It is important in Ndebele house painting to paint straight lines. When Mahlangu was 10, after watching her mother and grandmother paint their house and wanting to join in, she picked up a chicken feather and tried her hand. She says she was scolded by her mother and grandmother for not painting straight lines and forbidden from trying again. However, she was not dissuaded and kept trying until her mother and grandmother gave her a section of the house, in the back where it would not be visible, to practice until she had learned the craft. Ndebele house painting is categorized with straight lines, geometric patterns, and bold colors. Traditionally these held meaning for the Ndebele people and were a way to communicate to others information such as, marriages, births, death, etc. After the Boer wars, through British expansion, and finally through apartheid Ndebele house painting was a way to express resistance and spread information through the community without the colonizing force knowing. Another aspect of the tradition was that a woman painted her first house when she got married and if the lines were straight the family assumed that she was a good wife and could take care of her family. The walls of houses are white-washed before the lines and patterns are painted in black. The patterns are filled in with colors. Traditionally the pigments used were only colors that could be created using natural pigments. However, modern Ndebele painters use acrylic paints and therefore the colors used in Ndebele house painting has grown. The geometric patterns traditionally used in Ndebele house painting are triangles, chevrons, rectangles, and circles. The patterns tend to be repeated with different colors being used to fill it in. Since the 1980s, Esther Mahlangu has traveled the world spreading the knowledge of Ndebele house painting and teaching others. Mahlangu has collaborated with global brands, such as BMW, Belvedere vodka, Eytys, and Fiat to name a few. She has also been invited to exhibit in 12 countries around Europe, Africa, and the US. Mahlangu has opened an art school to pass on the tradition and worried that it may die out she has begun to teach boys as well as girls.

In this episode of “Keen On”, Andrew is joined by Patricia Roberts-Miller, the author of “Speaking of Race: How to Have Antiracist Conversations That Bring Us Together”. Patricia Roberts-Miller, PhD, is professor emeritus of rhetoric and writing, and the former director of the University Writing Center at University of Texas at Austin. She has been teaching the subject of demagoguery since 2002. Visit our website: https://lithub.com/story-type/keen-on/ Email Andrew: a.keen@me.com Watch the show live on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ajkeen Watch the show live on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankeen/ Watch the show live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lithub Watch the show on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/LiteraryHub/videos Subscribe to Andrew's newsletter: https://andrew2ec.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Patricia Roberts-Miller, author of "Demagoguery and Democracy," talks about how demagogues arise out of a demagogic culture, the forms of argument we can recognize as demagoguery, their appeal, and why a culture of demagoguery is corrosive to democratic deliberation.

Kyle Stedman (@kstedman) reads the bad idea "Rhetoric is Synonymous with Empty Speech" by Patricia Roberts-Miller (https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/), a chapter from Bad Ideas about Writing, which was written by Cheryl E. Ball (@s2ceball) and Drew M. Loewe (@drewloewe). Chapter keywords: conceptual metaphor, deliberative rhetoric, public argumentation, rhetorical topoi Patricia Roberts-Miller is a professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she also directs the writing center. Her scholarly and teaching interests include the history and theory of public argumentation—as she likes to put it, she's a “scholar of train wrecks in public deliberation.” More about Trish can be found at patriciarobertsmiller.com. (2017 bio) The theme music is "Parade" by nctrnm, and both the book and podcast are licensed by a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. The full book is edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe and was published for free by the West Virginia University Libraries and Digital Publishing Institute; find it online at https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas.

University of Texas scholar Patricia Roberts-Miller discusses contemporary demagoguery and its historical origins.

General Summary: In this podcast, we talk with Professor and Director of the University Writing Center, Patricia Roberts-Miller. Interviewing is University of Texas student, Jacob Miller. The two go on to discuss over her article, Demagoguery, Charismatic Leadership, and the Force of Habit and other topics related to her work and studies. The podcast includes a narrator, Cole Burke, and occasional comments made by students of the RHE 321 class in connection to discussion points that talked about throughout the podcast. Detailed Summary: The podcast begins by Professor Roberts-Miller introducing her background, where she studied and taught in the past, before she came to the University of Texas(01:07-01:54). She jokes about her previous works as “trainwrecks in public deliberation” and other topics that she tended to study (02:05-05:24). She then goes on to talk about previous courses she has taught, and currently teaching at the University of Texas (05:25 -07:02). Jacob then goes on to ask the Professor the hard-hitting question of “What is a Demagogue?” (07:04-07:34). What follows next focuses on the in-class discussion over the article, raising questions from students and having Professor Roberts-Miller respond to them and give insights (08:12-25:04). Within this discussion, Jacob asks about engaging in demagoguery (08:12-09:36), a clip of a discussion point by classmate, Dabaya Alrefaei and Professor Roberts-Miller's thoughts on the topic (10:20- 14:22). We then get to hear some insight by fellow classmate, Cason Hunwick and his discussion over the media related to her article (14:55-15:55)as well as Professor Roberts-Miller and her response (16:04-17:50). Then we hear a deep conversation over the followers of demagogues and follow up questions by Jacob to finish the interview (17:59-25:04). The podcast then goes to the final statements, conducted by Cole Burke, and the music fades into the ultimate ending of the podcast (25:05-26:41). Scholarly Article Informing this Production: Patricia Roberts-Miller, “Demagoguery, Charismatic Leadership, and the Force of Habit.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 49:3 (2019): 233-247. Credits: This podcast was produced by Cole Burke, Jacob Miller, Jose Morales Mendez, and Parker Neri , with resources and assistance provided by the Digital Writing and Research Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. The production of this podcast was in part due to the teachings of Professor Mark G. Longaker of the University of Texas at Austin. It features the voices of Cole Burke, Jacob Miller, Particia Roberts-Miller, Cason Hunwick, and Dabaya Alrefaei. Music featured in this podcast, were given to the students of RHE 321 by Professor Mark G. Longaker for intended use in this podcast. Additionally, conversation.wav was adapted and incorporated under Creative Commons 1.0 license . Finally, the full class conversations were recorded by the Digital Writing and Research Lab.

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 Writing and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of two new books on demagoguery. Demagoguery and Democracy (The Experiment, 2017) is a short book in the style of On Tyranny that covers the basics of her argument in about 100 small ages. Rhetoric and Demagoguery is a longer, more academic book for those looking for more on the rhetorical roots of demagoguery and its relationship to democratic deliberation. Democracy Works is created by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State and recorded at WPSU Penn State, central Pennsylvania’s NPR station. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Writing and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of two new books on demagoguery. Demagoguery and Democracy (The Experiment, 2017) is a short book in the style of On Tyranny that covers the basics of her argument in about 100 small ages. Rhetoric and Demagoguery is a longer, more academic book for those looking for more on the rhetorical roots of demagoguery and its relationship to democratic deliberation. Democracy Works is created by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State and recorded at WPSU Penn State, central Pennsylvania’s NPR station. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Writing and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of two new books on demagoguery. Demagoguery and Democracy (The Experiment, 2017) is a short book in the style of On Tyranny that covers the basics of her argument in about 100 small ages. Rhetoric and Demagoguery is a longer, more academic book for those looking for more on the rhetorical roots of demagoguery and its relationship to democratic deliberation. Democracy Works is created by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State and recorded at WPSU Penn State, central Pennsylvania’s NPR station. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Writing and Director of the University Writing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of two new books on demagoguery. Demagoguery and Democracy (The Experiment, 2017) is a short book in the style of On Tyranny that covers the basics of her argument in about 100 small ages. Rhetoric and Demagoguery is a longer, more academic book for those looking for more on the rhetorical roots of demagoguery and its relationship to democratic deliberation. Democracy Works is created by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State and recorded at WPSU Penn State, central Pennsylvania’s NPR station. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Much like our conversation with Patricia Roberts-Miller on demagoguery last week, neoliberalism is one of those fuzzy words that can mean something different to everyone. Wendy Brown is one of the world’s leading scholars on neoliberalism and argue that a generation of neoliberal worldview among political, business, and intellectual leaders led to the populism we’re […]

Patricia Roberts-Miller 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 […]

Welcome to Mere Rhetoric, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren, and I’ve had a hard time getting started on this one.   Sometimes I procrastinate an episode because I don’t want to get into an idea or movement that is potentially stupidfaced. Other times, I’m nervous about doing a great work a disservice in doing a stupidfaced episode. This is one of those times.   Patricia Roberts-Miller was one of my mentors at the University of Texas, and I always knew that she was doing work on demagoguery. She’s one of those wonderful rare people who let you in on the secrets of their research revision and editing process, letting you behind the curtain of producing academic work. But until I read Demagoguery and Democracy, I had no idea how important that work could be. I am not exaggerating when I say this is the most important book I’ve read this year.   First off, let me give you the caveat that the small, portable, ultimately very readable Demagogury and Democracy is not, strictly speaking, the academic version of her research. That’s forthcoming. But Demagoguery and Democracy is compact and makes a handy gift for friends and relatives this holiday season. Perhaps you can think of someone who needs it.   The fact is we all need it. Roberts-Miller argues that when we think of demagoguery, we usually think of demagogues-- silver tongued seducers who memorize their audience into doing stupid things they would normally never do. These lying liars know what they’re saying is false, but they know it will manipulate the sheeple follow them. But that’s not the direction it goes. “We don’t have demagoguery in our culture because a demagogue came to power,” she argues, “when demagoguery becomes the normal way of participating in public discourse, then it’s just a question of time until a demagogue arises” (2). So if we should be focusing less on individual demagogues and more on the practice of engaging in demagoguery, if it’s something you and I could be doing, how do we know if we’re doing it?   “Demagoguery,” Roberts-Miller says “is about identity. It says that complicated policy issues can be reduced to a binary of us (good) versus them (bad). It says that good people recognize there is a bad situation, and bad people don’t; therefore, to determine  what policy agenda is the best, it  says we should think entirely in terms of who is like us and who isn’t” (8). In other words “demagoguery says that only we should be included in deliberation because they are the problem” (20 emphasis in original).   I shouldn’t have to say that if you’ve been following American politics for the past, oh, especially year and a half, all of this is going to sound familiar, but again, remember that demagoguery isn’t about one powerful individual--it’s about a range of discourses that gives power to an individual. When compromise is out of the picture and persuasion is about being the right kind of person rather than having a good idea, democracy withers.   Roberts-Miller gives the example of Earl Warren as someone who go burned by participating the demagoguery. Warren, if the name doesn’t ring a bell, was the WWII-era attorney general for the state of California, and he advocated strongly for Japanese internment. He made spurious claims, like that people of Japanese descent were living disproportionately close to areas like factories, ports, railroads, highways etc. without considering that PEOPLE live disproportionately close to factories, port, railroads, etc. because that’s part of living in civilization. Years later, in his 1977 memoirs, Warren himself said he deeply regretted his role in advocating in Japanese-American internment. Warren wasn’t an evil mustache-twirler, even though he participated in some pretty wicked demagoguery. Later, Warren was the supreme court justice who, among other things, managed to bring about the pivotal Brown vs. Board ruling, hastening racial desegregation. So if this generally good dude could engaged in bad demagoguery, we’re all at risk of falling into it. I like to think that he might have had fewer regrets iif one of Warren’s friends had been all, “Hey Earl, seems like you’re getting carried away. Let’s take a couple steps back and talk about your reasoning.”   And that, Roberts-Miller suggests, is one of the keys to fighting demagoguery whereever we find it--with others or with our friends or even ourselves. She gives us some key todos:   Consume less of it yourself. That means not clicking on links that say “Look at this stupid thing the other side did--aren’t they idiots?” It’s hard to restrain yourself because, as demagoguery, it will make you feel good for not being one of those idiots. But it’s not what you or democracy need Don’t engage in purely “us vs. them” arguments who are just repeating talking points someone told them to think. Instead, consider sharing counter-examples or stories, which can lead them to think for themselves. Instead of arguing abstractly with, for example, someone who thinks immigrants are lazy, tell them how proud you are of your sister-in-law for learning three languages and graduating college and becoming a high school math teacher. Even better, invite them to meet her and get to know her personally. It’s hard to think of someone as “them” when you’re meeting him or her individually. If appropriate, go ahead and engage those arguments, but be prepared to point out inconsistencies in reasoning. This is where Roberts-Miller encourages all of us to review our logical fallacies and learn to reason abstractly in order to look for internal inconsistencies. Again, think of Earl Warren’s imaginary friend saying, “Say, Earl, don’t you think those folks are living next to highways and railroads because they need to commute to work, not because they want to sabotage them?” You can’t just go around saying “that’s a fallacy” because that will make people want to punch you, so you might as well also ask, or discover, the key question “what are the circumstances under which [you] would change [your] mind?” Finally, and most importantly, support and argue for democratic deliberation. Encourage inclusion, fairness, self-skepticism and the other values of democratic deliberation. As Roberts-Miller puts it “Democracy is about having to listen, and compromise, and it’s about being wrong (and admitting it)” (129). I’ve given you the quick summary and takeaways of this book, but I really do recommend checking it out yourself, and recommending it to others who are concerned about the increasingly bifurcated social and political world we inhabit. I don’t know about you, but I hate always having to wonder if I’m the “right kind of person.” It’s much more freeing to think, “Am I having the right kind of conversations?”   If you have a favorite strategy for more productive deliberation, why not send us an email at mererhetoricpodcast@gmail.com? I’m thinking we’re probably going to be talking a lot more about this sort of thing in the future, so probably an episode on listening rhetorics? Maybe something on protest rhetoric? What would you like?