Tag: discourse

• On Wanting Language to Say Something

  I worry about “semantic freewheeling,” at this moment in history in particular. Bourdieu says this: …language is the exemplary formal mechanism whose generative capacities are without limits. There is nothing that cannot be said and it is possible to say nothing. One can say everything in language, that is, within the limits of grammaticality. We […]

  HAT

  February 10, 2017

  Thinking Out Loud

  Bourdieu, discourse, language, meaning, politics, semantic freewheeling

• Where are the Western Religions West of?

  Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – the typical subjects of “western” world religions courses – originate geographically in south-western Asia, more or less. That’s considerably “east” of, say, Louisville, Kentucky if one were to, for instance, “travel to the Holy Land.” Where are they west of that makes them “western”? That is to say, what’s the […]

  HAT

  August 22, 2016

  Thinking Out Loud

  discourse, perspective, questions, religion, social construction, world religions