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According
to Raymond Williams, "keywords" are cultural references that
expand on their etymological definitions. Every word is distinguished
by a complexity of meanings that are inextricably bound up with their
contemporary usage.
Keyword Project: Witness provides a visual marker of
the temporary community we call Vermont College. The orange wristband
allows for voluntary association with a set of common ideals or perspectives,
while simultaneously including often conflicting viewpoints.
As witnesses, we are implicated in the events surrounding us and burdened
with their corresponding memories. We can testify to details, elect to
affect change, bear witness to events, or remain passive in our response.
Regardless, we become part of a larger whole, a community of disparate
perspectives that simultaneously see and become seen.
Community
can be the warmly persuasive word to describe an existing set of relationships,
or the warmly persuasive word to describe an alternative set of relationships.
What is most important, perhaps, is that unlike all other terms of social
organization…it never seems to be used unfavorably, and never to
be given any positive opposing or distinguished term."
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Raymond Williams, Keywords
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