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Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction

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Presentation on theme: "Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction"— Presentation transcript:

1 Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction
Some Key Concepts & Examples

2 Outline Difference vs. difference; Differ and defer
Re-contextualization Spacing and Traces Against Transcendental Signified “Method” of Deconstruction: an example

3 Writing and Différance (1)
Writing as a system of difference, vs. Writing as Différance. * While structualists had treated binary oppositions as stable terms in a formal structure, Derrida sees them as organized in unstable disequilibrium.  because of the presence/absence of traces

4 Writing and Différance (2)
Writing as Différance and the endless play of signs. Différance: To differ; A sign is defined by its binary opposition to another sign. 2. To defer. The signifier (black) that is distinguished from the other one (white) is not completely erased; it is only deferred, bracketed. Black. It can subvert the fixed meaning of the sign.

5 Writing and Différance
The chain of signification: Signifier 1 (rose) Signified 1 (flower) Signified 2 (love) (rose=love) Signified 3 (rose= woman in love)

6 Writing and Différance: an Example
Signifier Signified Signified 3 Asian People Yellow Exotic (Evil or Weak) Other Racial Features What they did Other Skin colors Innocence White White Americans The other Americans White Man’s Burden Manifest Destiny God

7 Writing and Différance (3)
Two chains of signification  Re-contextualization; traces kept. e.g. 1. Pharmakon: 1). poison, ). Pharmacy 2. Creole: 1). Native, local,”pure”; ). Native-born whites; ). Hybrid  hence the ensuing discrimination against creole.

8 “Spacing”-- Movement from one Signifier to another
-- spacing: Meaning changed when the context is further revealed. --The traces of the old meanings are both present and absent.

9 Questions What is Transcendental Signified?
Transcendental Signified: source of meaning and center of existence. e.g. being, unity, truth, the good, reason, progress, identity, continuity, meaning, subjectivity, authenticity, etc.

10 Questions & Answers What is presence?
What the first step of deconstruction? 2. Presence: Opposite to absence; presence of god, of meaning, essence, etc.; implies fixed and domineering presence. 3. One way of deconstruction: Reverse the “hierarchical” binary of presence/absence, speech/writing, and allow the latter to supplement the formers.

11 Critique of Metaphysics: logocentrism, phonocentrism, phallogocentrism
Traditional binaries are hierarchical. Should be reversed. Logocentrism: Logo as center, source, or founding presence of knowledge and human beings. Phonocentrism: In the speech/writing binary, speech is supposed to signal presence of the speaker. Phallogocentrism: Man/Woman= sun/moon, reason/emotion, Subject/Object, etc.

12 Deconstruction: practices
(p. 131) 1. Open texts  A text that deconstructs its unity or author. 2. Reverse the text’s binaries or expose its undecidability or multiple meanings (131); Study the process of signification of a sign or a text and find out what it tries to erase. Find where the text differs from itself. (critical difference ambiguity and undecidability) Radical contextualization  to find out its intertextual references and thus undecidability of meanings.


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