You can see a first rough trial in a version of my work on multimedia
semiotics in scientific print publications:
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/papers/mxm-syd.htm>
My next project in a week or so will be to put up the much more fun
preliminary material on multimedia analysis of evaluative meaning in
political cartoons. I'm giving a talk in March on this in Ottawa, and hope
to get some material up beforehand.
Several people have urged me to add a glossary of relevant terms to the
Researcher's Corner. It's a great idea, but a lot of work. My plan is to
make it a Gateway Glossary: informal glosses rather than formal definition,
for the purpose of helping students and newcomers to these fields get
inside them. I am not a great believer in the value of precise definitions
of terms that name fluid concepts. For some purposes precise definitons are
useful, but in most of the human sciences I think it is better to follow
the practices of natural language and profit from polysemy, ambiguity, and
the logic of 'family resemblances'. Accompanying the Glossary will be a
little essay on why words don't "have" meanings.
Nonetheless, avoiding giving definitions even in the form of informal
glosses is itself an exclusionary practice, keeping people out. The Gateway
Glossary will be my response to this need. I have a preliminary list of
about 130 terms, and I want to given them context-specified glosses, but
not go to more than a short paragraph for each. I also want to keep the
glossary entries a bit light-hearted to encourage browsing and again avoid
intimidating and excluding. I will probably want to test these out on xmca
people who are willing.
I have also thought it might be interesting to use xmca and a website,
either mine or its, as a toolset for pioneering new forms of collaborative
research. My current guess is that only virtual research communities can
span the space and time scales needed to study many sorts of sociocultural
phenomena. It takes a network to study a network ...
But I have no idea yet just how complicated such a practice might be, so
I'd rather start very simply. Suggestions welcome. JAY.
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"A is for Aardvark, and ..."
actant, actantial
action
activity, - theory
actor network, - theory
affordance
agnation
amodern
autopoiesis, autopoietic
axiolog-y,-ical
...
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JAY L. LEMKE
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
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