Lexicon

This lexicon has been compiled in order to help you become familiar with some of the more complex words that will come up in the week’s lecture program. May they become your partners in crime!

AGENCY
In terms of philosophy and sociology agency refers to the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity) to act in the world. In law agency refers to the office or function of an agent. The thought that we are all agents may be unpleasant.

ANARCHO-
Prefix: Of anarchism (= belief in the abolition of all government, and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without the use of force or anything compulsory.) From Greek: anarkhos, “without a chief”.

APPARATUS
A complex (!) structure within an organization or system. An overlapping term is the critical apparatus: a collection of notes, variant readings and other matter that accompany a written text.

AVANT-GARDE
Refers to new, unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts, culture and politics, or to the people introducing them, who tend to promote radical social reforms. From a historical point of view the avant-garde van be considered as the hallmark of modernism.

CENSORSHIP
Is the suppression of speech or any form of (public) communication which may be considered objectionable by the controlling body (such as the government or media). Censorship holds a long historical, and considerably violent practice of officially examining and suppressing books, texts, and movies, as a whole or in part.

TO COIN
Invent or devise a new word or phrase.

CORPOREALITY
Of or relating to a person’s body, especially as opposed to their spirit – having a (physical) body. In law corporeality refers to something consisting of material objects, something tangible. From Latin: corporeus, “bodily, physical”, from corpus, “body”.

CUSTODY
A legal term, meaning the protective care or guardianship of someone or something. Also: parental responsibility; imprisonment or detention.

DITTY
Is a short simple song. From Old French: dite, “composition”; from Latin: dictatum, “something dictated”.

DNA
In this context a useful definition of DNA may be: the fundamental and distinctive characteristics of someone or something, especially when these are considered as unchangeable; a self-replicating material.

DOCUMENTARY
Description of something consisting of official pieces of written, printed or other matter – and refers to a document (document as a representation of thoughts, from Latin: Documentum, “lesson”. In the computer age a document refers primarily to a textual file, with its structure, design, fonts, colors, images, etc. or in other words; its design and / or architecture.

In photography, film and video the documentary uses pictures (footage) or interviews with people involved in (un)real events and aims to provide a factual record or report.

EMBODIED UNDERSTANDING
In philosophy the embodied mind thesis holds that the nature of the human mind is largely determined by the form of the human body. Researchers who study the embodied mind argue that all aspects of cognition are shaped by the aspects of the body, including the motor system, perception and situatedness (the environment) that the body is in. This opposed to Cartesian dualism: a philosophical position that describes the body and mind as non-identical.

ESSAY
An essay is a short piece of writing from a personal point of view. In a formal sense: an attempt or effort. From Old French: essai, “trial”.

ESSAY / DOCUMENTARY / FICTION
As you can see from the short descriptions of the terms, these notions overlap in many different ways. Its hard to distinguish them from each other, which also makes them so interesting as media and challenging to work with.

ETHNOGRAPHY
Scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures; research designed to explore cultural phenomena. As a noun an ethnography is a means to represent in writing the culture of a group, preferably using a holistic approach (= comprehension of parts of something intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole), and should be (self)reflexive, but has a history of not being so. If you are looking for good read: Tristes Tropiques (1955) by Claude Levi-Straus, comes highly recommended.

EVIDENCE
Can be described as information or facts presented as (strong or weak) support of a belief or statement, where legally speaking there are rules that typify and therewith validate evidence.

FEMINIST THINKERS
Thinkers who advocate or support feminism (= a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic and social rights for women, also in terms of education and employment.)

Feminist theory emerged from feminist movements (all of them) aiming to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women’s social roles and lived experience; having developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues such as the social construction of sex and gender. Some of the earlier forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle-class, educated perspectives, leading to the creation of ethnically specific forms of feminism. Some have argued that men’s liberation is a necessary part of feminism and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.

Look into Simone de Beauvoir’s infamous book La Deuxieme Sexe, The Second Sex (1949) for an insightful introduction to feminism.

FICTION
Is the form of work that deals with information and events that are not real – imaginary – and theoretical; invention or fabrication as opposed to fact (see: Documentary) as well as: a belief or statement that is false but often or in general is held to be true out of convenience (see: Political).

FRONTIER(S)
Are lines or borders separating two countries, or the political and geographical areas near or beyond a boundary. In colonial practices it indicates the region at the edge of a settled area. Investigative: the extreme limit of understanding or achievement in a particular area.

GENEALOGIES
A genealogy is a line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor. In this context the exploration of genealogies may be a form of mapping out the relationships and activity between different people who are related in their way of thinking. You can choose you ancestors.

TO GOVERN
To conduct the policy, actions, and affairs of a state, organisation or people with authority.

In theoretical linguistics and grammar, government (or rection) refers to the relationship between a word and its dependents. In analysing the relationship between different words within a sentence, a governor can be identified. For more information on this topic, please consult the work of the famous linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky.

GUTTURAL
Speech or sound produced in the throat, harsh-sounding.

INTEJECTIONS
Are abrupt remarks, made especially as a side remark or interruption – an exclamation as part of speech: aha!

INTERSUBJECTIVITY
Is a key (philosophical) term to conceptualize the psychological relation between people. Something intersubjective exists between conscious minds (more than one). Intersubjectivity may be understood as the process of psychological energy moving between two or more subjects, such as love.

LIABLE SPEECH
Liability in legal terms refers to legal responsibility. Civil liability for speech is intended to defend privacy and to protect against defamation (protecting one’s reputation or name). This liability often results in problematic collisions with the right to freedom of speech. In practice, property rules tend to limit free speech. In general, it is a question of what is private or confidential in a conversation and what is not.

TO LOCATE
Means to situate any thing in a particular context or place, also as a discovery, or as an establishment of oneself or business in a specific place.

LOUIS ALTHUSSER
French philosopher (1918-90) who reinterpreted traditional Marxism (the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, later developed by their followers to form the basis for the theory and practice of communism: advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned).

MEDITATION(S)
A meditation is a written or spoken discourse, expressing considered thoughts on a topic. From Latin: meditat-, “contemplated”.

MODALITIES
A modality is a particular form of sensory perception, in experience or expression, as well as a particular mode in which something exists. In medicine a modality is a pattern or symptom that aids in making a diagnosis.

ON A PAR WITH
Equal in importance or quality to, or on an equal level.

POLITICAL
A very interesting term when you look at the meaning of political as: relating to, affecting, or acting according to the interests of status or authority within an organization rather than matters of principle or taking a stand.

PRE-EMPTIVE
Serving or intended to pre-empt or forestall something, especially to prevent attack by disabling the enemy.

REPRESENTATION
Has a wide range of meanings and a long tradition of mind-bending questions attached to it. One that may be of use in terms of the voice is: the action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being so represented. Also: the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature; formal statements made to a higher authority, especially so as to communicate an opinion or register a protest.

RESONANCE
Is among other things the ability to evoke or suggest images, memories and emotions.

In sound applications, a resonant frequency is a natural frequency of vibration determined by the physical parameters of the vibrating object, a basic idea applied throughout physics in electricity, magnetism, mechanics and modern physics.

From the Latin resonantia “echo”, from resonare “resound”.

REVERBERATIONS
Prolongation of sounds, resonance, a continuing effect, a repercussion.

THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT
Is the internationally recognised legal right of the accused or defendant to refrain from answering questions or providing comment. From the brocard (legal principle expressed in Latin):

Nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare: No man is bound to accuse himself.

A form of protection for the prosecuted against the state and against self-incrimination; the guarantee that a person cannot be compelled to present a self-incriminating testimony during criminal proceedings.

ROBERT ASHLEY
(28 March 1930 – 3 March 2014)
American composer best known for his operas and theatrical work, many of which incorporate electronic music. Ashley was a pioneer in audio synthesis (synth or synthesizer music) and he used to work at the Michigan University’s Speech Research Laboratories, before his career as director of different music initiatives, unions and centres. Lovely Music published most of his recordings.

SPEECH ACT(S)
Became a topic of investigation in the course of the twentieth century as speech act theory, in linguistics, philosophy, artificial intelligence, legal theory, literary theory and many other scholarly disciplines. Speech acts are considered to do other (or more) things than describe reality, with a recent emphasis on the challenge of accurately characterising the normative structure underlying linguistic practice. In other words, the general aim is to look at and listen to that which goes without saying.

SUBJECT
Is a term with a wide range of uses and meanings. In this context it may refer to: the subject as a person or thing that is being discussed, described or dealt with; a person or circumstance giving rise to a specific feeling, response or action; a citizen or member of a state other than its supreme ruler; someone under the authority of, dependent or conditional upon, etc.

In philosophy a subject is a thinking or feeling entity, the conscious mind, or the ego  –  especially as opposed to anything external to the mind.

SUBJECTHOOD
(See: Subjectivity)

SUBJECTION
Is the act of subjecting a country or person to one’s control, or the condition of being subjected.

SUBJECTIVITY
Subjectivity is the condition of being a subject: i.e. the quality of possessing perspectives, experiences, feelings, beliefs, desires and / or power. Subjectivity is used as an explanation for that which influences and informs judgments made by people about truth or reality, both consciously and unconsciously. It is the collection of the perceptions, experiences, expectations, personal or cultural understanding and beliefs specific to a person.

Originally: characteristic of a political subject, submissive. From Latin subjectivus, subject, “brought under”.

SUBVERSION
Is the undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution. From Latin: subvertere, “to turn from below”.

TEXTURE
Useful to this context may be the meaning of texture as the quality created by the different elements in a work of music (or literature) – a symphonic texture. In general, texture refers to the feel, tactile quality, appearance or consistency of a substance or surface.

THRACIAN
Of Thrace: an ancient country west of the Black Sea. It is now divided between Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece.

TRANSMISSION
Is the process that causes something to pass from one place or person to another.

UNCANNY (THE)
Strange or mysterious especially in an unsettling way; the opposite of that which is familiar, often of supernatural origin or nature, or even occult and malicious.

The uncanny – in German: Das Unheimliche – is a Freudian concept describing a situation in which something can be both familiar yet alien at the same time, or uncomfortably strange, or of feeling simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by an object. The notion is often used in film theory.

UNINTELLIGIBLE
Impossible to understand.