Post-structuralism: Jacques Derrida

European-based theoretical movement that departs from structuralist methods of analysis

Deconstruction is a US based method of literary and cultural analysis influenced by the work of Jacques Derrida

Radically challenges commonsense assumptions about language...

language is not a vehicle for the communication of pre-existing thoughts

language is not an instrument or tool in man's hands

language is not a transparent window onto the world

Language is...

unreliable

differential (cf. Saussure)

performative: it shapes/constructs the world and us

Writing, not speech, is the main model for language in general because it is...

not inmediate

context-independent

open-ended

text/arche-writing

generalized notions of writing

There is nothing outside the text

we can never get access to meaning or reality because texts always refers to other texts

language constructs/shapes the world

textuality of the world

Meaning

differential/relational

they acquire meaning only in relation to and in their difference from other sign system

to differ: signs acquire their meaning only in difference from other signs

to endlessly defer (delay): meaning is endlessly deferred because signs always refer to other signs

metaphysics of presence

belief in a fixed reference point/presence outside of language, a transcendental signified, to which we owe respect

transcendental signified

fixed reference point/ concept/ presence that...

exists outside of (transcends) language

grounds language

legitimates whole systems of thought

can be made present by language

The Enlightenment considers Man as a transcendental signified

e.g. 'the people' in the US constitution

critique of Logocentrism / Decentering

logos: transcendent word, speech, reason, proportion, substance, ground

Logocentrism: belief that language is grounded by a fixed reference point outside language, a transcendental signified whose truth or meaning language conveys

religion, philosophy, historiography need a center

Derrida argues that centers are mere constructs of language: all there is is an endless play of differences in which signifiers refer to signifiers, and so on

What does Deconstruction deconstructs?

binary oppositions/ dichotomies

e.g. nature vs culture or man vs woman

How does it work?

Deconstruction actively challenges and undoes binary opposites/ dichotomies in 2 steps

reverses the hierarchy

Undoes the binary systems

Deconstructive critics focus on those moments in texts at which the binary distinctions on which the texts are based break down

deconstructivists show how texts deconstruct themselves

Aporia

impasse, a passage that cannot be explained by means of the text's own binary distinctions

the point at which the dichotomies of which the text is based break down

Deconstruction and Literature

Literature...

... is more obviously non-referential than other language uses

...can be read and enjoyed without reference to historical and social contexts

highlights that language is a closed system

...in its fictionality escapes logocentrism

...plays with language rather than communicating a definite meaning

...aporias, discrepancies, and contradictions are the norm

...problematizes its own status and so invites deconstruction

Is deconstruction apolitical?

no, it challenges to binary oppositions and its decentering of dominant worldviews are political

Political uses

Postcolonial theory

Post-structuralist/ Third-wave Feminism

colonizer/colonized - rational/irrational -master/servant

man/woman - active/passive - reason/feeling