Office Hours: Wednesdays, noon-3:00pm (on Zoom). Appointments can be requested at: http://officehourswithdrcarey.setmore.com

Education

PhD, Syracuse University

MA, Virginia Commonwealth University

BA, Virginia Commonwealth University

Specialties: Rhetoric and Composition, Cultural and Feminist Rhetorics, African American Rhetorics and Literacies, Black Women’s Writing and Intellectual Histories, the Memoir

Biography

I am an interdisciplinary scholar trained in Rhetoric and Composition Studies and specializing in Cultural Rhetorics, African American and feminist rhetorics, Black women’s intellectual histories and writing traditions, and the memoir. My first book, Rhetorical Healing: The Reeducation of Contemporary Black Womanhood (SUNY 2016), is a feminist critique of the discourses and strategies within Black women’s wellness culture throughout the last thirty years. The book contextualizes reeducation campaigns writers have carried out within self-help books, inspirational literature, and plays and films directed towards women and unearths the complex arguments and pedagogies used to restore communities to idealized states of wellness. I am currently working on projects that examine freedom of speech controversies among contemporary Black women intellectuals and healing practices within memoirs. My published work appears in such venues as Rhetoric Review, Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture, Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society, and Rhetoric Society Quarterly.

Selected Publications

• Rhetorical Healing: The Reeducation of Contemporary Black Womanhood. SUNY Press, 2016.

• “Fighting Words: A Review of Vincent Lloyd’s Black Dignity: The Struggle Against Domination.” Journal for the History of Rhetoric 26.1. (2023)

• “Necessary Adjustments: Black Women’s Rhetorical Impatience.” (2020) Rhetoric Review. 39.3. 269-286.

• “A Tightrope of Perfection: The Rhetoric and Risk of Black Women’s Intellectualism on Display in Television and Social Media.” (2018) Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 48.2, 139-160.

• "A Note to Nicole on Becoming Tax-Free.” Stories from the Front of the Room: How Higher Education Faculty of Color Overcome Challenges and Thrive in the Academy. Eds. Michelle Harris, Sherrill L. Sellers, Orly Clerge, and Frederick W. Gooding, Jr. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2017.

• “Review of Elaine Richardson’s PHD to Ph.D: How Education Saved My Life.” (2015) Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society.   

• “Take Your Place: Rhetorical Healing and Black Womanhood in Tyler Perry’s Films.” (2014) Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 39.4. 999-1021.

• “I’ll Teach You to See Again: Rhetorical Healing as Reeducation in Iyanla Vanzant’s Self-Help Books.” (2013) Enculturation: A Journal of Rhetoric, Writing, and Culture. 15.

• “Firing Mama’s Gun: The Rhetorical Campaign in Geneva Smitherman’s 1971-1973 Essays.” (2012) Rhetoric Review. 31.2. 130-147.