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Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction. Some Key Concepts & Examples. Outline. Difference vs. difference ; Differ and defer Re-contextualization Spacing and Traces Against Transcendental Signified “ Method ” of Deconstruction: an example. Writing and Différance (1).
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Post-Structuralism: Deconstruction Some Key Concepts & Examples
Outline • Difference vs. difference; • Differ and defer • Re-contextualization • Spacing and Traces • Against Transcendental Signified • “Method” of Deconstruction: an example
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
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.
Writing and Différance The chain of signification:
Manifest Destiny White Man’s Burden God Writing and Différance: an Example • Signifier Signified 2 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
Writing and Différance (3) Two chains of signification Re-contextualization; traces kept. e.g. 1. Pharmakon: 1). poison, 2). Pharmacy 2. Creole: 1). Native, local,”pure”; 2). Native-born whites; 3). Hybrid hence the ensuing discrimination against creole.
〈幌馬車之歌〉 • 《悲情城市》中與文清同牢房的難友 在前往刑場之前所唱； • 《好男好女》 ︰1937 蔣碧玉認識鍾浩東﹐1940 赴大陸．－1949 被捕﹐－1950 年十月十四日鍾浩東就義之前所唱。 • 歌詞︰「黃昏的時候,在樹葉散落的馬路上,目送你的馬車,在馬路上幌來幌去地消失在遙遠的彼方。在充滿回憶的小山上,遙望故國的天空,憶起在夢中消逝的一年。」
〈幌馬車之歌〉 • 日影評人田村小姐感到「愕然」與「好奇」的是﹐「這種已驅喚前往侵略地滿州及築構日本人之夢的〈幌馬車之歌〉竟會在台灣二二八事件被捕﹑被槍殺的知識青年口中唱出來。」 • 蔣碧玉解釋︰「他曾經告訴我說︰『每次唱起這首歌﹐就會忍不住想起南部家鄉美麗的田園景色！』」 （藍博洲《幌馬車之歌》pp. 122; 126）
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
