February 17, 2007
Changes to the Wiki
Has anyone else noticed that the ARC blogs have really started to “buzz”? It seems that there’s tremendous energy out there. Inspired by at least three different conversation going on right now (”The Social” on the Biopower and the Contemporary Blog , The discussion of metaphor and ideology on Lab Notes and the revisting of mode on Lab Notes), I’ve decided to take it upon myself to move some of the concept work stuff some of us Labinar-types did last semester on the Drupal to the wiki, as well as make new entries based on the blog discussions. Maybe this will be a more efficient space for delving into the concept work?
the wiki link is at: http://www.anthropos-lab.net/arcwiki/index.php/ARC_Lexicon
In creating this site, I noticed that there were already some entries on the wiki (eg, “problematization” and “remediation” — although I couldn’t find any link to them). Did a lexicon previously exist? If so, I missed it. Was it taken down for a reason?
Those were transferred from the drupal site, so the lexicon (any thoughts on lexicon versus glossary?) could just link to those pages.
Initially, I just went went “lexicon” because that’s what Bultanski uses. But your question made me look up the difference: a “glossary” is a marginal commentary on an obscure or projecting word in an otherwise conventional text. a “lexicon” is more of a systematic key to a new or different langauge. I think “lexicon” is the way to go for what we’re trying to do with these concepts…
A glossary can also be a “a collection of specialized terms with their meanings” (Merriam-Webster), or an “alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge; usually published as an appendix to a text on that field” (http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn). Both of those seem good to me. Wordnet.princeton is also a lexicon though, which by its own definition is “a reference book containing an alphabetical list of words with information about them” and Merriam-Webster defines lexicon as “the vocabulary of a language, an individual speaker or group of speakers, or a subject”. I suppose we should look in the OED too, but I am just musing, both words seem good.