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28 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Logocentrism
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-Placing spoken word over writing
-Placing originals over copies -Paradox is that copies become valued equally to original -Spoken word is greater than writing because of mediation |
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Mediation
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-Means both communication or representation
-Takes place within a concrete medium (speech, writing, images, etc.) -Opposed to immediacy |
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Zeno's Paradox
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-If you keep reducing the distance between two things by half the distance between them never becomes zero
-Has the implication that representation can never catch up with experience (writing never catch up with action) -Narrative is inevitably retrospective |
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Mediated Desire
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-Desire is always an imitation of someone else's desire, not an attraction to something intrinsic in the love object itself
-Partially a desire to be like someone else -Takes the form of a triangle with two rivals desiring the same person or object |
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Spectrum of Male Homocentric Relations
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-Spectrum of an intensely emotional relationship between men
-The exact balance or nature of the relationship is not as important as the intensity of the bonding (rivalry, loyalty) -Spectrum runs from homosexuality/homoeroticism to homophobia -Highly exclusive of women, often to the point of mysogyny (sometimes women are conduits but ultimately are rejected) |
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Always Already
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-Paradoxical relationship between cause and effect and what appears to be a symptom or a fact there really is no reliable mark for; it seems to be a mark of predisposition
-A character's nature is the result of that character's position within a structure -Impossible to find a first cause or instance of particular behavior or effect -Ex: Lucy is always already pale -Counter Ex: creature is not always already destructive |
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Ambivalence
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-The state of possessing multiple meanings or attitudes
-Not the same as ambiguity because multiple meanings are specifiable -Multiple meanings often in conflict with each other |
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Primal Scene
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-Refers to the witnessing or the fantasy of witnessing your own conception
-Always retrospective therefore unverifiable -Always a traumatic experience -Ex. creature reading about conception |
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Paternal Interdiction
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-When a father/father figure prohibits you from doing something
-Interdiction functions to repress desire -Paradoxically, the prohibition incites desire rather than repressing it |
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Narrative Desire
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-Desire to get to the end of a story, desire for closure
-Paradoxically, one takes pleasure in reading the narrative and doesn't want it to end (desire to prolong/delay the ending) -Technically takes place at level of reader of the story; individual characters may be figures for this process |
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Binary Opposition
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-Pair of concepts that contradict or exclude each other
-Tend to couple with other binary oppositions -Tend to be hierarchical -Normally, binary oppositions become susceptible to reversal and break down |
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Synchronic
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-Relations of simultaneity or do not depend on a particular sequence of events or on time
-Generally pervade a given text -Symbols, metaphors, etc. |
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Diachronic
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-Relations of sequence or temporality
-Histoire and rècit are both types of diachronic relations |
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Histoire
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-The sequence of events as they "really" took place in the world referred to by a text, fiction, or narrative
-Open-ended; has no formal beginning, end, or divisions -Only one histoire (though there can be multiple rècits) |
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Rècit
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-Sequence of narration within a particular medium
-All formal organizing devices such as chapter breaks, flashbacks, nested narratives, etc. determine a story's sequence of narration -Can, and often does, differ from histoire |
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Metaphor
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-Figure of speech in which you literally state that something is what it is not
-Metaphor implies a noting of similarity |
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Metonymy
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-Figure of speech in which you name something that is proximate to or habitually associated with
-Metonymy emphasizes relationships of contiguity |
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Ariadne’s Thread
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-A clue replicates the shape of the puzzle
-Interpretations inevitably retrace the shape of the object it was trying to interpret -All critique risks taking on the character of the thing it was criticizing |
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Cinematic Apparatus
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-Technique used to create point-of-view in film
-Cinematic technique that adds shot-reverse-shot -Divides characters into active and passive roles -Persuades us to identify with a character and their desires |
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Cultural Relativism
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-Meanings and values are culturally constructed
-Values are not intrinsic or natural -Meaning is subjective; different meanings in different times/places/cultures |
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Essentialism
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-The belief that character traits are intrinsic (across times, across cultures)
-Trans-historical, trans-cultural -Meaning cannot be variable or subjective -Relationships between cultural relativism, essentialism - opposites |
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Oral Culture
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-Culture organized around principles of storytelling, call and response, music (principle form of communication)
-Preserves and transmits collective experiences -Opposed to official culture (counterculture because our culture is generally written/print) -Dialogical and dynamic - not fixed, active relationship between speaker and listener, story is different/changes almost every time |
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Signifier
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-Purely material part of a sign; the actual alphabetic/phenetic character
-Pure form without meaning - letters don't have meaning but indicate -Every word/sign is divided into two parts - signifier (material without content or meaning), signified |
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Visual Culture
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-Production or consumption of images
-Culture that is organized around dissemination of images -Consumption of images offered as a substitute -Images over other types of media -Real power lies in being person in charge of producing images |
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Print Culture
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-A culture organized around printed documents
-Literacy, access to literacy are political issues -Printed material is a sign of power -Teaching reading is more than actual skill; initiation into the culture of the literate |
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Plain Style
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-Literary style featuring stripped down vocabulary/syntax without a lot of ornament
-Effect has no intrinsic style or meaning -Not necessarily clearer than any other style -Direct narration without authorial interpretation of what character are doing: readers interpret themselves -Deliberate choice on part of author - not meaningless |
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Male Gaze
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-Idea that men are always watching or gazing at women
-Gaze implies sexualization/objectification/control -Perspective that triggers/causes how we see or understand things; not individual man's gaze - social practice (audience in a theater) |
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Aphasia
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-Medical term for never being able to find the right word (disorder)
-Two types: contiguity, similarity disorder -Contiguity: trouble identifying contiguity, rely on similarity as a crutch (people with disorder tend to use metaphor) -Similarity disorder – disorder of similarity: when issues understanding symbols or similarities – compensate by relying on context/metonymy |
