one more silly word.

propinquity: (n) nearness in proximity, time, kinship, and/or similarity.

the glossary, continued.

pettifoggery: (n) the bickering over trivia.

i am peeved.

i cannot stand it when authors act as though african-americans are and have been the only racial or ethnic minorities who have experienced oppression in the history of the united states. it is just plain ignorant. if you choose african-americans as a specific case study, i respect that. that’s cool. you have to narrow things down sometimes–only study poverty as it affects women, or language policies as they affect immigrants–but when you’re speaking more generally, then you can’t justify excluding other groups.

life decision

i have just made a decision that i hope i adhere to for the rest of my academic career.

inspired by k. anthony appiah (i am reading his and amy gutmann’s <i>color conscious: the political morality of race</i> right now), i am now going to use feminine pronouns (she, her, hers) when talking about an abstract person in my writing. i will do this instead of using male pronouns (he, him, his). i thought about using gender-neutral terms (they, their, theirs) but going the feminist way is more fun.

more words!

criterial: (adj) based on criteria. doesn’t explain much, does it?

exegesis: (n) a critical explanation or interpretation of a text.

ideational: (adj) of or relating to an idea. still not helpful. doesn’t this mean it’s just made up?

semantical: (adj) of or relating to meaning in a language.

do you see a pattern here?

academia in the news

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/19/academics-under-siege/

the glossary: edition II

i didn’t like our previous format for the glossary, so here’s a different one.

we’ll post words as we come across them in our readings, and, instead of doing this on a single page, we’ll do them as separate posts all tagged “the glossary” so they’re easily findable.

Abnegate: (v) deny, renounce, surrender, relinquish.

Acosmism: (n) the view that God is the sole and ultimate reality and that finite objects and events have no independent existence.

Annular: (adj) shaped like or forming a ring.

Aporia: (n) a difficulty encountered in establishing the theoretical truth of a proposition, created by the presence of evidence both for and against it.

Autoheteronomous: (adj) 1: see “Heteronomous.” 2: Autonomy within heteronomy comes when one accepts their interpellation and the external domination that accompanies it, and when one also choose how to deploy it and reappropriate it. 3: This is a totally made-up word not in any dictionary, even on the internet.

Chimera: (n) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(disambiguation). Still don’t now what this has to do with social science.

Concupiscence: (n) lust.

Eschatology: (n) a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind.
Heteronomous: (adj) 1: Subject to external or foreign laws or domination; not autonomous. 2: In order to be a being, you have to immerse yourself in the social order. You have to be named, interpellated.

Historicity: (n) historical actuality.

Imbrication: (n) an overlapping of edges (as of tiles or scales). [Laclau, “Emancipation(s).”]

Interpellation: (n) the naming/hailing/calling of a subject(s) and his/her/their body/ies. Subject(s) respond(s) accordingly.

Iteration: (n) the act or a process of repeating.

Morphology: (n) the identification, analysis and description of the structure of words.

Ontological: (adv) 1: of or relating to ontology (a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being); 2: relating to or based upon being or existence.

Panopticism: (n) Panopticism is the general principle of a new ‘political anatomy’ whose object and end are not the relations of sovereignty but the relations of discipline.

Particularism: (n) 1: exclusive or special devotion to a particular interest;
2: a political theory that each political group has a right to promote its own interests and especially independence without regard to the interests of larger groups;
3: a tendency to explain complex social phenomena in terms of a single causative factor.

Performativity: (n) 1: as in gender performativity, the process in which a person uses language and other cultural objects and processes to act out their proscribed gender; 2: totally made-up word, not in any dictionary, not even on the internet.

Reappropriation: (n) the act in which a group attempts to take back, or co-opt, a previously derogatory term and make it “their own.” Also, this never works.

Reification: (n) the process of regarding that which is abstract as something real, concrete in an essentialist (as opposed to social constructionist) manner.

Soteriological: (adv) theology dealing with salvation specifically as effected by Jesus Christ.

Seigniorial: (n) a man of rank, usually a feudal lord.

Syndic: (n) one who helps in a court of justice, an advocate, a person in government with varying powers.

new feature: the glossary

though we hate it, we power through it, and now, we’re going to share it with you.

for your own intellectual development or personal amusement, please feel free to visit the-glossary for a healthy dose of unnecessary social science jargon. it might brighten your day, or it might make you dash your brains out on your desk.

first fear.

that i will become like young professors of color who feel the need to speak in jargon constantly in order to feel intelligent and authoritative.

it all begins tomorrow.

comments on orientation and first classes forthcoming!