Lexilalia: On Translating a Dictionary of Untranslatable Philosophical Terms

Paragraph ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Apter

Lexilalia, a kind of repetition disorder or form of ‘repeat-after-reading’, is contextualized in this article as a term for continual or interminable translation. Barbara Cassin has emphasized how one definition of the ‘Untranslatable’ is temporal, associated with a symptomatic condition of ‘keeping on translating’. In extending Cassin's ‘time’ of translation to the psychic condition of translating philosophical terms and working with encyclopedic objects, the article concludes with some reflections on anxiety, concept-making and the death drive.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
William P MacNeil

Despite its highly subjectivised title, Laura – Otto Preminger's dazzling 1944 noir classic – is, according to this article, a film not so much about persons as things. And what spectacularly beautiful things Laura proffers: exquisite objets d'art, chic fashion, striking design. All of which points to a certain psychic condition that underpins Laura: namely, fetishism. Of course, the fetish nonpareil in the film is Laura herself; she is the not so ‘obscure object of desire’ for all and sundry, possessing everyone in the film, and, in turn, being treated by those possessed, as a possession herself. Though the nature of these sorts of possessory regimes differs dramatically, being contingent upon the psychic profile of the possessor: love interest Shelby Carpenter, police detective Mark McPherson and wealthy mentor, Waldo Lydecker. This article will explore Laura's competing possessory regimes, utilising psychoanalytic concepts such as hysteria, repetition compulsion and the death drive, as well as fetishism and sado-masochism to unpack this vivid filmic representation of the ‘Law of Desire’ as a desire for what is, here, law's objet petit a – feminine sexuality itself.


2011 ◽  
Vol 12 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 198-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentine A. Pakis

The history of impoliteness — of which insults are a part — and violence are intertwined. In medieval Germanic cultural history, this link manifests itself in historical-pragmatic contexts such as sennur, whettings, and flyting-to-fighting scenarios, which are surveyed in this paper. The ethological origins of such interactions are called into question with reference to the Freudian death drive. Based on the connection between insults and violence, a novel definition of Old English lytegian in the Battle of Maldon is offered, namely ‘jeer, insult’, with comparative support from Icelandic.


1966 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
W. W. Morgan

1. The definition of “normal” stars in spectral classification changes with time; at the time of the publication of theYerkes Spectral Atlasthe term “normal” was applied to stars whose spectra could be fitted smoothly into a two-dimensional array. Thus, at that time, weak-lined spectra (RR Lyrae and HD 140283) would have been considered peculiar. At the present time we would tend to classify such spectra as “normal”—in a more complicated classification scheme which would have a parameter varying with metallic-line intensity within a specific spectral subdivision.


1975 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 21-26

An ideal definition of a reference coordinate system should meet the following general requirements:1. It should be as conceptually simple as possible, so its philosophy is well understood by the users.2. It should imply as few physical assumptions as possible. Wherever they are necessary, such assumptions should be of a very general character and, in particular, they should not be dependent upon astronomical and geophysical detailed theories.3. It should suggest a materialization that is dynamically stable and is accessible to observations with the required accuracy.


1979 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 125-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Allen

No paper of this nature should begin without a definition of symbiotic stars. It was Paul Merrill who, borrowing on his botanical background, coined the termsymbioticto describe apparently single stellar systems which combine the TiO absorption of M giants (temperature regime ≲ 3500 K) with He II emission (temperature regime ≳ 100,000 K). He and Milton Humason had in 1932 first drawn attention to three such stars: AX Per, CI Cyg and RW Hya. At the conclusion of the Mount Wilson Ha emission survey nearly a dozen had been identified, and Z And had become their type star. The numbers slowly grew, as much because the definition widened to include lower-excitation specimens as because new examples of the original type were found. In 1970 Wackerling listed 30; this was the last compendium of symbiotic stars published.


Author(s):  
K. T. Tokuyasu

During the past investigations of immunoferritin localization of intracellular antigens in ultrathin frozen sections, we found that the degree of negative staining required to delineate u1trastructural details was often too dense for the recognition of ferritin particles. The quality of positive staining of ultrathin frozen sections, on the other hand, has generally been far inferior to that attainable in conventional plastic embedded sections, particularly in the definition of membranes. As we discussed before, a main cause of this difficulty seemed to be the vulnerability of frozen sections to the damaging effects of air-water surface tension at the time of drying of the sections.Indeed, we found that the quality of positive staining is greatly improved when positively stained frozen sections are protected against the effects of surface tension by embedding them in thin layers of mechanically stable materials at the time of drying (unpublished).


Author(s):  
W. A. Shannon ◽  
M. A. Matlib

Numerous studies have dealt with the cytochemical localization of cytochrome oxidase via cytochrome c. More recent studies have dealt with indicating initial foci of this reaction by altering incubation pH (1) or postosmication procedure (2,3). The following study is an attempt to locate such foci by altering membrane permeability. It is thought that such alterations within the limits of maintaining morphological integrity of the membranes will ease the entry of exogenous substrates resulting in a much quicker oxidation and subsequently a more precise definition of the oxidative reaction.The diaminobenzidine (DAB) method of Seligman et al. (4) was used. Minced pieces of rat liver were incubated for 1 hr following toluene treatment (5,6). Experimental variations consisted of incubating fixed or unfixed tissues treated with toluene and unfixed tissues treated with toluene and subsequently fixed.


Author(s):  
J. D. Hutchison

When the transmission electron microscope was commercially introduced a few years ago, it was heralded as one of the most significant aids to medical research of the century. It continues to occupy that niche; however, the scanning electron microscope is gaining rapidly in relative importance as it fills the gap between conventional optical microscopy and transmission electron microscopy.IBM Boulder is conducting three major programs in cooperation with the Colorado School of Medicine. These are the study of the mechanism of failure of the prosthetic heart valve, the study of the ultrastructure of lung tissue, and the definition of the function of the cilia of the ventricular ependyma of the brain.


Author(s):  
P. M. Lowrie ◽  
W. S. Tyler

The importance of examining stained 1 to 2μ plastic sections by light microscopy has long been recognized, both for increased definition of many histologic features and for selection of specimen samples to be used in ultrastructural studies. Selection of specimens with specific orien ation relative to anatomical structures becomes of critical importance in ultrastructural investigations of organs such as the lung. The uantity of blocks necessary to locate special areas of interest by random sampling is large, however, and the method is lacking in precision. Several methods have been described for selection of specific areas for electron microscopy using light microscopic evaluation of paraffin, epoxy-infiltrated, or epoxy-embedded large blocks from which thick sections were cut. Selected areas from these thick sections were subsequently removed and re-embedded or attached to blank precasted blocks and resectioned for transmission electron microscopy (TEM).


Author(s):  
K.P.D. Lagerlof

Although most materials contain more than one phase, and thus are multiphase materials, the definition of composite materials is commonly used to describe those materials containing more than one phase deliberately added to obtain certain desired physical properties. Composite materials are often classified according to their application, i.e. structural composites and electronic composites, but may also be classified according to the type of compounds making up the composite, i.e. metal/ceramic, ceramic/ceramie and metal/semiconductor composites. For structural composites it is also common to refer to the type of structural reinforcement; whisker-reinforced, fiber-reinforced, or particulate reinforced composites [1-4].For all types of composite materials, it is of fundamental importance to understand the relationship between the microstructure and the observed physical properties, and it is therefore vital to properly characterize the microstructure. The interfaces separating the different phases comprising the composite are of particular interest to understand. In structural composites the interface is often the weakest part, where fracture will nucleate, and in electronic composites structural defects at or near the interface will affect the critical electronic properties.


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