Cyborg Bodies Vocab Terms

Cyborg Bodies Vocab!

"Envisioning Cyborg Bodies" by Jennifer Gonzalez is my favorite thing we have read all quarter. To make sure that I actually knew what I was reading about, I looked up a few important words. These are words where I only kind-of-sort-of remembered the definitions or words that seem to haunt academic texts. (Because where else does anyone come across words like... hegemonic? Or pedagogy? Those are the types of words to which I'm referring.)

Top of page 268
simulacrum (noun)
1. A slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance.
2. An effigy, image, or representation.
3. An unreal or vague semblance.
[One dictionary example for how it's used is "a simulacrum of Aphrodite" which is very fitting to Tomorrow's Eve with its many classical Greek allusions.]

Bottom of 268, 270, elsewhere
ontology (noun) or ontological
1. The branch of metaphysics that studies the nature of existence or being as such.
2. (Loosely) metaphysics.
3. The branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being.

Bottom of 274
metaphysics (noun)
1. The branch of philosophy that treats of first principles, includes ontology and cosmology, and is intimately connected with epistemology.
2. Philosophy, esp. in its more abstruse branches.
3. The underlying theoretical principles of a subject or field of inquiry.
[So what does "abstruse" mean? Apparently, it's an adjective for "hard to understand or esoteric."]

Bottom of 275
miscegenation (noun)
1. The interbreeding of different races or of persons of different racial backgrounds.
2. Cohabitation, sexual relations, or marriage involving persons of different races.
3. A mixture or hybridization.

Top of 276
pejorative (adjective)
1. Having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force.
2. Deprecatory.
(noun)
3. A pejorative form or form of a word.
4. A disparaging or belittling word or expression.

Then, finally, a word that wasn't even in "Envisioning Cyborg Bodies" but we've been using in class...
bionic (adjective)
1. Utilizing electronic devices and mechanical parts to assist humans in performing difficult, dangerous, or intricate tasks, as by supplementing or duplicating parts of the body.
2. (Informal) having superhuman strength or capacity.


These definitions are bits I've nabbed and neatened up from dictionary.com (not the OED).
Are there other words people have been looking up, as well?
Submitted by christine on Wed, 11/07/2007 - 3:01pm. christine's blog | login or register to post comments | printer friendly version