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)
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)
1. Writing as Différance and the endless play of signs.
Différance:
1. 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:
Signifier 1 ( rose)
Signified 1 ( flower) Signified 2 ( love)
Signified 2
( rose=love )
Signified 3 ( rose=
woman in love)
The other Americans
Other Skin colors
Other Racial Features What they didWriting and Différance: an Example
1.
Signifier Signified 2 Signified 3Asian People Yellow Exotic (Evil or Weak)
White Americans White Innocence
White Man’s Burden
Manifest Destiny God
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.
“ 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
1. 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
2. What is presence?
3. 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
1. ( p. 131) 1. Open texts A text that deconstructs its unity or author.
2. 2. Reverse the text’s binaries or expose its undecidability or multiple meanings (131);
3. Study the process of signification of a sign or a text and find out what it tries to erase.
4. Find where the text differs from itself. (critical difference ambiguity and undecidability)
5. Radical contextualization to find out its
intertextual references and thus undecidability of meanings.
