Alexis McGee

Assistant Professor
location_on Buchanan Tower - BuTo 218
Research / Teaching Area
Education

ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Assistant Professor of Writing Studies, University of British Columbia, 2021-present
Assistant Professor of English, University of Alabama, 2018-2021
Teacher of Record, English, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2014-2018
Teacher of Record, English, Texas State University, 2012-2014

EDUCATION
Ph.D.: English, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Tx, August 2018
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition; Linguistics
Dissertation: “The Legacy of Black Womenhood in Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop: A Global Materialist Sonic Rhetoric Critique of
Intersectionality”
Committee: Sonja Lanehart (Chair), Joycelyn Moody, Kinitra Brooks, Marco Cervantes, Adam Banks

M.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2014
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition
Thesis: “Hip Hop Pedagogy: An Alternative Praxis”
Committee: Octavio Pimentel (Chair), Nancy Wilson, Jaime Mejía

B.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2012
Concentration: English Literature
Minor: Biology

A.S.: Biology, Blinn Junior College, Brenham, Texas, May 2008


About

Dr. Alexis McGee received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at San Antonio where she also received two certificates of concentration in Linguistics and Rhetoric and Composition.

Drawing from this background, McGee is an interdisciplinary scholar who engages with various fields and sub-disciplines such as Rhetoric, Composition/Writing Studies, Black Studies, Critical Pedagogies, Sound Studies, as well as Women and Gender Studies. Her concentrated research interests, more specifically, focus on Black women’s rhetorical uses of voice, literacies, and expression.

McGee’s forthcoming book, From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics(SUNY 2024), amplifies Black women’s ongoing public assertions of resistance, agency, and hope across different media from the nineteenth century to today. By examining recordings, music videos, autobiographical writings, and speeches, Alexis McGee explores how figures such as Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janelle Monáe, and more mobilize sound to challenge antiBlack discourses and extend social justice pedagogies. Building on contemporary Black feminist interventions in sound studies and sonic rhetorics, From Blues to Beyoncé reveals how Black women’s sonic acts transmit meaning and knowledge within, between, and across generations.

Her work has been featured on BBC Radio4 and published in various venues including College, Composition, and Communication (forthcoming, 2022); constellations (2021); Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2021); Rhetoric Review (2021); Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2018); Obsidian (2017); and Pedagogy (2016). Some of her other works can be found in What Is “College-Level” Writing? 2.0. (forthcoming); NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle (forthcoming); Sensory Rhetorics: (Re)Making Sense in Perilous Times (forthcoming); Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, (2019); The Lauryn Hill Reader (2018); Racial Shorthand: Coded Discrimination Contested in Social Media (2018); St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop (2018); and Critical Survey of American Literature (2016).

She currently teaches WRDS 150A and WRDS 350 (including a special section of 350 designed for interdisciplinary students). Dr. McGee has also created a new WRDS 450 course that focuses on writing for public audiences and publications; this course is expected to be offered at UBC for the first time during Winter 1 2024. She has also taught undergraduate courses in Professional and Technical Writing; Introduction to Women and Gender Studies; and Advanced Composition as well as graduate courses in History of Rhetoric; AntiRacist Critical Composition; Research Methods; and Black Essay Writing elsewhere.


Teaching


Publications

McGee, Alexis. From Blues to Beyoncé: A Generation of Black Women’s Sonic Rhetoric. (under advance contract with SUNY Press).
Billingsley, Khadeidra and Alexis McGee. “Black Feminist Pedagogy, Extra-Institutional Mentorship, and Other Things Learned from the Black Caucus.” NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle. Edited by Jamal Cooks, David F. Green Jr., and Mudiwa Pettus. (Forthcoming).
McGee, Alexis. “(Re)Reading Sor Juana’s Rhetorics: The Intersectional, Cultural, and Feminist Rhetorician.” Rhetoric Review. vol. 40, iss, 3, 2021. (Forthcoming).

McGee, Alexis. “Beyisms: The Southern Sociolinguistic Strategies and Rhetorics in Beyoncé’s Lemonade.” Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, edited by Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin, Routledge, 2019.

McGee, Alexis and J. David Cisneros. “Looking Forward, Looking Back: A Dialogue on ‘The Imperative of Racial Rhetorical Criticism.’” Special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol 15, iss. 4, 2018.


Awards

Cultivating New Voices Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2020-2022
Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2014

 WRDS 150A: Listening, Reading, and Writing Voice

 This course investigates the importance of voice as it is composed through a variety of forms. What does it mean to read voice within texts? How do we listen to voices? How can we craft voice when we write? In addition to seeking answers to these questions, this course builds working definitions for the features defining voice, loosely, by engaging with scholarly conversations across discourses (sociolinguistics, writing studies, postcolonialism, etc.). By the end of this course, students should be able to identify, develop, and understand of how voice can be used rhetorically.


Alexis McGee

Assistant Professor
location_on Buchanan Tower - BuTo 218
Research / Teaching Area
Education

ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Assistant Professor of Writing Studies, University of British Columbia, 2021-present
Assistant Professor of English, University of Alabama, 2018-2021
Teacher of Record, English, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2014-2018
Teacher of Record, English, Texas State University, 2012-2014

EDUCATION
Ph.D.: English, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Tx, August 2018
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition; Linguistics
Dissertation: “The Legacy of Black Womenhood in Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop: A Global Materialist Sonic Rhetoric Critique of
Intersectionality”
Committee: Sonja Lanehart (Chair), Joycelyn Moody, Kinitra Brooks, Marco Cervantes, Adam Banks

M.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2014
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition
Thesis: “Hip Hop Pedagogy: An Alternative Praxis”
Committee: Octavio Pimentel (Chair), Nancy Wilson, Jaime Mejía

B.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2012
Concentration: English Literature
Minor: Biology

A.S.: Biology, Blinn Junior College, Brenham, Texas, May 2008


About

Dr. Alexis McGee received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at San Antonio where she also received two certificates of concentration in Linguistics and Rhetoric and Composition.

Drawing from this background, McGee is an interdisciplinary scholar who engages with various fields and sub-disciplines such as Rhetoric, Composition/Writing Studies, Black Studies, Critical Pedagogies, Sound Studies, as well as Women and Gender Studies. Her concentrated research interests, more specifically, focus on Black women’s rhetorical uses of voice, literacies, and expression.

McGee’s forthcoming book, From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics(SUNY 2024), amplifies Black women’s ongoing public assertions of resistance, agency, and hope across different media from the nineteenth century to today. By examining recordings, music videos, autobiographical writings, and speeches, Alexis McGee explores how figures such as Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janelle Monáe, and more mobilize sound to challenge antiBlack discourses and extend social justice pedagogies. Building on contemporary Black feminist interventions in sound studies and sonic rhetorics, From Blues to Beyoncé reveals how Black women’s sonic acts transmit meaning and knowledge within, between, and across generations.

Her work has been featured on BBC Radio4 and published in various venues including College, Composition, and Communication (forthcoming, 2022); constellations (2021); Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2021); Rhetoric Review (2021); Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2018); Obsidian (2017); and Pedagogy (2016). Some of her other works can be found in What Is “College-Level” Writing? 2.0. (forthcoming); NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle (forthcoming); Sensory Rhetorics: (Re)Making Sense in Perilous Times (forthcoming); Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, (2019); The Lauryn Hill Reader (2018); Racial Shorthand: Coded Discrimination Contested in Social Media (2018); St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop (2018); and Critical Survey of American Literature (2016).

She currently teaches WRDS 150A and WRDS 350 (including a special section of 350 designed for interdisciplinary students). Dr. McGee has also created a new WRDS 450 course that focuses on writing for public audiences and publications; this course is expected to be offered at UBC for the first time during Winter 1 2024. She has also taught undergraduate courses in Professional and Technical Writing; Introduction to Women and Gender Studies; and Advanced Composition as well as graduate courses in History of Rhetoric; AntiRacist Critical Composition; Research Methods; and Black Essay Writing elsewhere.


Teaching


Publications

McGee, Alexis. From Blues to Beyoncé: A Generation of Black Women’s Sonic Rhetoric. (under advance contract with SUNY Press).
Billingsley, Khadeidra and Alexis McGee. “Black Feminist Pedagogy, Extra-Institutional Mentorship, and Other Things Learned from the Black Caucus.” NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle. Edited by Jamal Cooks, David F. Green Jr., and Mudiwa Pettus. (Forthcoming).
McGee, Alexis. “(Re)Reading Sor Juana’s Rhetorics: The Intersectional, Cultural, and Feminist Rhetorician.” Rhetoric Review. vol. 40, iss, 3, 2021. (Forthcoming).

McGee, Alexis. “Beyisms: The Southern Sociolinguistic Strategies and Rhetorics in Beyoncé’s Lemonade.” Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, edited by Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin, Routledge, 2019.

McGee, Alexis and J. David Cisneros. “Looking Forward, Looking Back: A Dialogue on ‘The Imperative of Racial Rhetorical Criticism.’” Special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol 15, iss. 4, 2018.


Awards

Cultivating New Voices Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2020-2022
Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2014

 WRDS 150A: Listening, Reading, and Writing Voice

 This course investigates the importance of voice as it is composed through a variety of forms. What does it mean to read voice within texts? How do we listen to voices? How can we craft voice when we write? In addition to seeking answers to these questions, this course builds working definitions for the features defining voice, loosely, by engaging with scholarly conversations across discourses (sociolinguistics, writing studies, postcolonialism, etc.). By the end of this course, students should be able to identify, develop, and understand of how voice can be used rhetorically.


Alexis McGee

Assistant Professor
location_on Buchanan Tower - BuTo 218
Research / Teaching Area
Education

ACADEMIC POSITIONS
Assistant Professor of Writing Studies, University of British Columbia, 2021-present
Assistant Professor of English, University of Alabama, 2018-2021
Teacher of Record, English, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2014-2018
Teacher of Record, English, Texas State University, 2012-2014

EDUCATION
Ph.D.: English, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Tx, August 2018
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition; Linguistics
Dissertation: “The Legacy of Black Womenhood in Blues, Jazz, and Hip Hop: A Global Materialist Sonic Rhetoric Critique of
Intersectionality”
Committee: Sonja Lanehart (Chair), Joycelyn Moody, Kinitra Brooks, Marco Cervantes, Adam Banks

M.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2014
Concentration: Rhetoric and Composition
Thesis: “Hip Hop Pedagogy: An Alternative Praxis”
Committee: Octavio Pimentel (Chair), Nancy Wilson, Jaime Mejía

B.A.: English, Texas State University, San Marcos, Tx, May 2012
Concentration: English Literature
Minor: Biology

A.S.: Biology, Blinn Junior College, Brenham, Texas, May 2008

About keyboard_arrow_down

Dr. Alexis McGee received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at San Antonio where she also received two certificates of concentration in Linguistics and Rhetoric and Composition.

Drawing from this background, McGee is an interdisciplinary scholar who engages with various fields and sub-disciplines such as Rhetoric, Composition/Writing Studies, Black Studies, Critical Pedagogies, Sound Studies, as well as Women and Gender Studies. Her concentrated research interests, more specifically, focus on Black women’s rhetorical uses of voice, literacies, and expression.

McGee’s forthcoming book, From Blues to Beyoncé: A Century of Black Women’s Generational Sonic Rhetorics(SUNY 2024), amplifies Black women’s ongoing public assertions of resistance, agency, and hope across different media from the nineteenth century to today. By examining recordings, music videos, autobiographical writings, and speeches, Alexis McGee explores how figures such as Ida B. Wells, Billie Holiday, Ruth Brown, Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Janelle Monáe, and more mobilize sound to challenge antiBlack discourses and extend social justice pedagogies. Building on contemporary Black feminist interventions in sound studies and sonic rhetorics, From Blues to Beyoncé reveals how Black women’s sonic acts transmit meaning and knowledge within, between, and across generations.

Her work has been featured on BBC Radio4 and published in various venues including College, Composition, and Communication (forthcoming, 2022); constellations (2021); Rhetoric Society Quarterly (2021); Rhetoric Review (2021); Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies (2018); Obsidian (2017); and Pedagogy (2016). Some of her other works can be found in What Is “College-Level” Writing? 2.0. (forthcoming); NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle (forthcoming); Sensory Rhetorics: (Re)Making Sense in Perilous Times (forthcoming); Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, (2019); The Lauryn Hill Reader (2018); Racial Shorthand: Coded Discrimination Contested in Social Media (2018); St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop (2018); and Critical Survey of American Literature (2016).

She currently teaches WRDS 150A and WRDS 350 (including a special section of 350 designed for interdisciplinary students). Dr. McGee has also created a new WRDS 450 course that focuses on writing for public audiences and publications; this course is expected to be offered at UBC for the first time during Winter 1 2024. She has also taught undergraduate courses in Professional and Technical Writing; Introduction to Women and Gender Studies; and Advanced Composition as well as graduate courses in History of Rhetoric; AntiRacist Critical Composition; Research Methods; and Black Essay Writing elsewhere.

Teaching keyboard_arrow_down
Publications keyboard_arrow_down
McGee, Alexis. From Blues to Beyoncé: A Generation of Black Women’s Sonic Rhetoric. (under advance contract with SUNY Press).
Billingsley, Khadeidra and Alexis McGee. “Black Feminist Pedagogy, Extra-Institutional Mentorship, and Other Things Learned from the Black Caucus.” NCTE/CCCC: Teaching, Organizing, and Learning in the Contemporary Freedom Struggle. Edited by Jamal Cooks, David F. Green Jr., and Mudiwa Pettus. (Forthcoming).
McGee, Alexis. “(Re)Reading Sor Juana’s Rhetorics: The Intersectional, Cultural, and Feminist Rhetorician.” Rhetoric Review. vol. 40, iss, 3, 2021. (Forthcoming).

McGee, Alexis. “Beyisms: The Southern Sociolinguistic Strategies and Rhetorics in Beyoncé’s Lemonade.” Beyoncé, Black Feminism, and Spirituality: The Lemonade Reader, edited by Kinitra Brooks and Kameelah Martin, Routledge, 2019.

McGee, Alexis and J. David Cisneros. “Looking Forward, Looking Back: A Dialogue on ‘The Imperative of Racial Rhetorical Criticism.’” Special issue of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, vol 15, iss. 4, 2018.

Awards keyboard_arrow_down
Cultivating New Voices Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2020-2022
Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award, National Council of Teachers of English, 2014
 WRDS 150A: Listening, Reading, and Writing Voice keyboard_arrow_down

 This course investigates the importance of voice as it is composed through a variety of forms. What does it mean to read voice within texts? How do we listen to voices? How can we craft voice when we write? In addition to seeking answers to these questions, this course builds working definitions for the features defining voice, loosely, by engaging with scholarly conversations across discourses (sociolinguistics, writing studies, postcolonialism, etc.). By the end of this course, students should be able to identify, develop, and understand of how voice can be used rhetorically.