Word of the Week: Numinous

As in:  “To hear the unembodied call of a place, that numinous  voice, one has to wait for it to speak through the harmony of its features-the soughing of the wind across it, its upward reach against a clear night sky, its fragrance after a rain.”

 Lopez, B. H., & Gwartney, D. (2010). Introduction.  In Home ground: Language for an American landscape (p.xviii).  Retrieved from  http://site.ebrary.com/lib/emmanuel/docDetail.action?docID=10492532&p00=numinous

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc.
•  Explore  Music and the Numinous by Richard Elfyn Jones [E-Book]. 
• View numinous art at Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University. 

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Word of the Week: Sere

As in:  “The Sonoran Desert, sere and zipping past, could have enhanced that idea, certainly.”

Finnegan, W. (2008, September 29).  The Last Tour. The New Yorker, 84(30), 71.

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc.
• More about aspects of desert life at these sites:
  • an Online Exhibits: The Desert Biome from the University of California Museum of Paleontology;
  • more detail about the Biological Soil Crust from the U.S. Geological Survey Canyons Land Research Station;
  • visit the Joshua Tree National Part: A Desert Park;
  • explore The Art of Being Taureg: Sahara Nomads in the Modern World, from the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian.

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Word of the Week: Haptic

As in: “The haptic eye becomes a point of reference for poets and artists who look closely at their territory, who discern its size and scale; who carefully draw the lines defining nooks, edges, and crannies and relief of its surface; who follow the roads and rivers cutting and winding through it … who touch the lairs and recesses inspiring the fantasies that mark what they see and what, in turn we observe before our eyes.”

Conley, T. (2011). Introduction. In An errant eye: Poetry and topography in early modern France (p. 2). Retrieved  from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/emmanuel/docDetail.action?docID=10442226&p00=haptic

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc.

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Word of the Week: Raiment

As in: “Words are a kind of raiment with which each character broadcasts a sense of his own uniqueness.”

Lahr, J. (2012, March 12).  Minority Reports. The New Yorker, 88(4), 80.   [Review of the play, Tribes.]

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc.
• Do you want to increase your verbal raiment?  Consider signing up for word of the day from the Oxford English Encyclopedia for a while; see the link on the right.
• If you have studied Britain during WWII, you’ll find the exhibit of raiment at the Museum of Fine Arts worthwhile.  Hurry, it closes on May 28^th.

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Word of the Week: Rune

As in:  “From the magic rune to Derrida’s generalized writing, a fundamental assumption regarding the principles of literary aesthetics is that the written word escapes the control of its author and becomes partly dependent on the whim of the reader.”

Larsen, S.E, I. (1998).  Benjamin: A literary critic? New Literary History, 29(1), 135-151.  Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu.webadvisor.emmanuel.edu:2048/journals/new_literary_history/v029/29.1larsen.html

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..

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Word of the Week: Prolix

As in:  “…, Christopher (Jeff Perry), the prolix patriarch, explains.”

Lahr, J. (2012, March 12).  Minority Reports. The New Yorker, 84(4), 80.   [Review of the play, Tribes.]

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..
• Don’t be a prolix writer, see tips from:
  • Being Concise (Writing @CSU, Colorado State University): http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/abstract/2com2f1.cfm
  • If the alliteration of ‘prolix patriarch’ intrigues you, check out the Glossary of Poetic Terms in The Poetry Foundation’s Learning Lab for a definition and examples.

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Word of the Week: Ecotone

As in: “Ecotones, we know, are perilous places, where predators appear from both sides of the margin, but they are productive places, too, abundant in diversity” (p.131).

Marshall, I., & Simpson, M. (2006).  Deconstructing haiku. College Literature, 33(3), 117-134.  doi:10.1353/lit.2006.0042

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..
• Learn about a Canadian ecotone at The Land Between.
• Read, listen, and watch haikus at the Poetry Foundation.

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Word of the Week: Raconteur

As in: “Your Grandpa is quite a raconteur.”

Crane, B. (2011, October 30).  Pickles [Comic Strip]. The Boston Globe.  

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..
• Learn about cartoons and comic strip artists from these sources:
  - National Cartoonist Society
  - Bill Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum, The Ohio State University
  - The Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

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Word of the Week: Deliquesce

As in: “Like ice into water, words deliquesce into meaning.”

Osborn, S. (2006).  Reconsidering Elizabeth Bowen. MFS Modern Fiction Studies, 52(1), 187-197. doi: 10.1353/mfs.2006.0037

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..
• Read an article about glacial melting.
  Strain, D.  (2011, October 6).  Glacial melting putting animals on the run. Science Now.  Retrieved from http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/10/glacial-melting-put-animals-on-t.html
   

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Word of the Week: Impecunious

As in: “Where was the impecunious son at the time of the murder?”

Acocella, J. (2010, August 16 & 23).  Queen of Crime: How Agatha Christie created the modern murder mystery. The New Yorker, 86(24), 86.  

• Explore definitions at the library’s E-Ready Reference Resources site using the Dictionaries listed on Research Guide: Dictionaries, Encyclopedias, etc..
• Resources about the history of the crime and detective fiction genres include:
  -  Shiach, M. (1999). Detective fiction.  In L. Sage, G. Greer,  & E. Showalter (Eds).  The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  Retrieved from Credo Reference. 
  - Stevenson, J. A. (1998). Crime, detective and mystery novel.  In P. Schellinger, C.  Hudson,  & M. Rijsberman (Eds.), Encyclopedia of the Novel. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.  Retrieved from LION: Literature Online.
   

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