WORDS OF ART: THE N

Department of Fine Arts, Okanagan University College

WORDS OF ART: THE N_LIST

Compiled by Robert J. Belton

If you would like to see something removed, added or corrected, please feel free to contact bbelton@klo1.ouc.bc.ca.

NAME: In his Principles of Semantics (1957), Stephen Ullman uses the word "name" in a sense analogous to signifier, while Ullman's "sense" corresponds to signified.

NAME-OF-THE-FATHER: English translation of the Lacanian expression nom-du-père, by which Lacan meant any allusion to the father as he appears in the Symbolic realm. Whereas the Real father is simply a biological entity and the Imaginary father is the paternal imago (the idealized image of the father, with ramifications ranging from the anxiety of influence to castration), the symbolic father is the psychological principle of father as authority or Law, something to which the subject binds himself. In contrast, some feminist writers have trangressed (see transgression) the Law of the father -- i.e., structures of thought usually associated with patriarchal society, like disinterestedness and rationalism -- in order to create alternatives like l' écriture féminine, equally within the symbolic but of a wholly different order.

NARRATION: One of the four classic types of written composition, the others being argumentation (compare argument), description and exposition. The function of narration is to deliver a narrative, although it may also include descriptive or other elements that are not narrative proper. In a simplistic distinction, the narrative is comprised of the events of a story, whereas the narration consists of the way(s) in which the story is presented, ranging from the implied author's tone to such things as the actual order of events.

NARRATIVE: A story of events and experiences. See narration, narrative analysis, narrativity, narratology, narrator. Note that the phrase "master narrative" (see metanarrative) has very different connotations. See also J. Hillis Miller's essay "Narrative," in F. Lentricchia and T. McLaughlin, eds., Critical Terms for Literary Study.

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS: Critical writing aimed at narrative and/or narration. It has become fashionable to apply the principles of narrative analysis to visual images. A case in point is the dialogic (see dialogism) narrative analysis of William Holman Hunt's Awakening Conscience in Karl Kroeber's Retelling/Rereading: The Fate of Storytelling in Modern Times: Kroeber maintains that the work's overly insistent narrativity, manifest in the abundance of symbolic details, prevents the audience from sharing in the apparent production of meaning, reducing the image to a non-interactive product, which he calls a "pseudo-story." Although the symbolic details must also function in the domain of description, which is not narrative per se, the isomorphism between every detail and the meaning of the whole image deadens the possibility of dialogism. In other words, if absolutely everything has a meaning, nothing is contingent (see contingency) enough to allow the audience to have a role in the production of meaning. See also dramatism.

NARRATIVITY: The state of having a narrative; the storytelling character of a text.

NARRATOLOGY: Under construction. See also climax, complication, conflict, crisis, discovery (sense 1).

NARRATOR: Under construction.

NATURALISM: The representation of something in a manner thought to be consistent with natural appearance, as opposed to stylization. See, however, perceptualism, realism.

NATURE: Supposedly the opposite of culture -- i.e., the world and all its phenomena as they exist without human intervention. However, since the boundaries of "human intervention" have changed over the centuries, recent writers suggest that "nature" itself is a cultural construct.

NEED: See desire.

NEGATIVE: Under construction. See also photography.

NEGATIVE CULTURAL LUXURY: See licensed rebels.

NEGATIVE THEOLOGY: In his famous essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," Walter Benjamin argued that the traditional artworld was essentially ritualistic and functioned by distancing society at large from works of art by emphasizing their ostensible uniqueness and aura. Benjamin saw the advent of photomechanical reproduction as coincident with the rise of socialism, leading to a more democratic consumption of imagery (cf cultural democracy). This presumably threatened the artworld elite, who responded by proclaiming the existence of a "pure" art which had no social function and no categorizable content. This was the famous nineteenth century doctrine of art for art's sake. Benjamin characterized this move as a deliberate act of cultural mystification, which he further described as a "negative theology" -- that is, as a kind of ritual fantasy (i.e., a theology) determined by what the object is not, rather than what it is. He maintained that this was a doomed project: with the widespread use of technology, "aura" would evaporate and, instead of ritual, art would be based on politics.

NEOLOGISM: Under construction.

NEW CRITICISM: Under construction.

NEW NEW CRITICISM: Term sometimes employed to indicate deconstruction and to characterize it simply as a fashionable alternative to new criticism, which was itself once a fashionable alternative to something else.

NEW HISTORICISM: Where the older historicisms tended to emphasize broader patterns of historical change, the new historicism places greater stress on economic, ideological, political, and social phenomena in the interpretation of culture. The phrase is closely associated with Stephen Greenblatt, whose essay "Culture" (in F. Lentricchia and T. McLaughlin, eds., Critical Terms for Literary Study) outlines the principles involved. Much new artwriting, particularly that of a Marxist inclination (see Marxism), exemplifies the new historicism.

NEW MASCULINITY: A growing discourse which treats patriarchy as the social and institutional oppression of both women and men. Like feminism, the new masculinity is a heterogeneous field. It ranges from pop-psychological, ritual drumming inspired by Robert Bly's mythopoeic Iron John (see mythopoeia) to more sober sociological studies like Robert W. Connell's Gender and Power, cultural analyses like Kaja Silverman's Male Subjectivity at the Margins, and popular books like Warren Farrell's The Myth of Male Power. Connell was one of the first writers to use the term "hegemonic masculinity," by which he meant a "stylized and impoverished" form of masculinity "constructed in relation to various subordinated masculinities [for example, gay men] as well as in relation to women." In other words, patriarchy requires that men must submit to the roles defined for them, just as women must. While this oppression is most marked in men who do not fit the mold because of appearance, effeminacy, lifestyle, and the like, it affects all men in varying degrees. The new masculinity generally holds that feminism's various forms are all worthwhile critiques of this state of affairs, but it insists that women are not the only oppressed group nor even necessarily the most oppressed group. For example, it is often said that the patriarchal medical establishment pays insufficient attention to women's medical concerns. Warren Farrell questions this idea, noting that the difference in life expectancy has increased in women's favour over the years. For example, men lived one year on average less than women in 1920, and now they live seven years less. Among the reasons: U.S. medical funding on women's issues constitutes ten percent of the research budget, whereas men's issues receive five percent; twenty-three articles on women's health are published for every one on men's health; breast cancer research funding is 660 percent greater than prostate cancer research, although women's likelihood of dying from breast cancer exceeds men's likelihood of dying from prostate cancer by a much lower fourteen percent; and so on. It is important to note, however, that this is not a competition but a call for a more equal distribution of resources. It is also important to note that the new masculinity is usually much more disciplined and statistically responsible than the simple nay-saying of those who use words like femi-nazi.The new masculinity is just beginning to enter artwriting, although there are many artists whose work is susceptible to such approaches, including Andy Fabo, Micah Lexier, and Kim Moody. Sympathetic discussions of the difficulties experienced by contemporary gay artists are almost new masculinity by default. See also bi-sexism, victimarchy.

NOISE: 1. In information theory, any sort of interference between the sender of a message and its receiver. 2. In informal logic, any material not relevant to the matter under investigation. 3. In the work of some sociologically inclined writers, an intervention or challenge to a dominant symbolic order (as in Dick Hebdige's Subculture [1977]).

NOM-DU-PèRE: See name-of-the-father.

NON-OBJECTIVE: Without representation; arrangements of ostensibly autonomous (see autonomy) formal features which make no reference to something else by virtue of resemblance.

NON-REPRESENTATIONAL: See non-objective.

NON-TRADITIONAL MEDIA: See extended media.

NOT-YET: See woman as the not-yet.

NOVELTY: Conventionally, a state of newness and/or the essentially transitory amusement value of something which is novel. Since much of what historically has constituted the avant-garde has depended upon novelty -- bear in mind the modernist admonition "it's been done before" -- might it be legitimate to assert that one of the unexplored ramifications of avant-gardism is a certain recreational triviality? See also innovation.

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