interpellate alterity assuaged iterable...

[Munachi]

Um... I am reading a text for university and came across a few words that I don't know and can't find in the dictionary I have here. and I am too lazy to go to the library to look them up, so I thought I might just bother you...

The words in question are the ones in the title for this topic. Hm, in case the context in which they were used makes explaining easier, here are the sentences in which I found them...

"But the America that interpellated childish me was no freely entered agreement; it was a cluster of accents with a hollow cultural center."

"Spanish kept my alterity in a paradoxically stabilizing schizophrenia and assuaged the immigrant self-hatred by revealing it as structural, repeated, iterable, perhaps essential to Americanism both her and to the South."

(Text is the preface of "Foundational Fictions" by Doris Sommer)

 

[Equinoxe]

Interpellating is a sort of strict questioning, alterity is being 'other' (the state of being alter you could say), assuaged is eased, softened, or lessened, and iterable is repeatable, able to be iterated.

 

[glynndah]

Verb 1. interpellate - question formally about policy or government business
query, question - pose a question

 

[past_perfect]

interpellate - interrupt, in a parliament interrupt the order of the day questioning a minister on a point of government policy. (Shorter Oxford).

 

[Munachi]

thanks...

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

W.C. Fields probably taught that course.

Looks like they're covering up a lack of content with verbiage.

 

[Munachi]

what do you mean? who is w. c. fields?

well the preface is interesting anyway (i haven't read more than that yet)... and most parts were easy enough to understand, apart from those particular words... (and i more or less could guess what the sentences themselves meant, but i prefer to really know the words... like, to learn more english and such).

 

[Lil_Mama]

The only one I can tell you about is asuaged, and that's already been answered.

 

[oggbashan]

It sounds to me as if the course is trying to demonstrate that the Emperor has clothes, when he doesn't.

That sort of verbiage is jargon at its worst, trying to persuade you that there is a body of arcane knowledge that only learning the language of the initiates will reveal.

The greatest ideas can be expressed in simple language.

Og

Edited for PS:

"Spanish kept my alterity in a paradoxically stabilizing schizophrenia and assuaged the immigrant self-hatred by revealing it as structural, repeated, iterable, perhaps essential to Americanism both here and to the South."

My version:
Spanish kept my identity in a permanent split and soothed the immigrant's self-hatred by showing that split as basic, repeated and repeatable, perhaps an essential feature of being American both for here and for the whole of the South.

(Re-edited for corrected typo in the original)

 

[Munachi]

oh, just saw i had a typo there btw, it wasn't "both her and to the South" but "both here and to the South"...

 

[Dr_Strabismus]

Ah, NOW the whole things makes sense...

 

[Munachi]

yes... sorry... i only noticed my typo when i read ogg's version of it... guess i should proof-read my posts better...