Reading for Tuesday: Derrida

So, my husband warned me that the Derrida, your reading for Tuesday, was going to be met with, at best, confusion, and at worst, disdain and hostility.

Don't be too frustrated. The expectation is not that you will "get" it the first time around; rather, I feel that it is my responsiblity to expose your brilliant and creative minds to the source, the genuine article, for what has greatly influenced the entire literary field for the past 30+ years. The thoughts expressed in this difficult lecture have influenced everyone from DeLillo to Palahniuk to Danielewski. It was truly groundbreaking for how we read and write literature today. Be comforted that it is the hardest thing we'll read all semester.

That said, here are some key terms to focus on as you read:

CENTER, siginified, origin, essence, presence: whenever you see any words like these, just think of God. All these words refer to a central, original, first cause that serves as the basis, the ground, of any given structure. What he is trying to prove in this lecture is that NO grounds, origins, centers, or first causes exist on their own; any first cause is dependent on what comes after it for definition, so really it is not a first. He's trying to break down the idea that meaning has a fixed origin, or ONE source.

Also remember what we talked about in class: the sign as signifier/signified is replaced with sign as an endless play of siginfiers. Why is this important? Because "meaning" is never fixed in Derrida's world - it's always contingent on language and context. Universal truth is a cultural construction. Just take the word "beauty" - what does this word refer to? Does it refer to a fixed concept that is true for all time and place? Or, does the word just point to examples of beauty that are particular to your language and culture? Does it just point to more words, or more shared ideals? Doesn't this "signifier" simply refer to other siginifers, rather than to some final essence of beauty that we can all agree on?

And why are these ideas so important for writing, reading, and life in general?
Well, "deconstruction" really peels away all the stuffy Victorian and Enlightenment ideals that served to make the white rational Christian male (like Rodrigo) the "center" of everything while marginalizing and silencing anything not central (women, blacks, the poor, gays and lesbians, artists, revolutionaries, the list goes on...) But it doesn't attack the central powers. Rather, Derrida and co. show how this central, dominant logic contradicts itself and is the source for its own undoing because it is built on faulty, paradoxical logic. Just think of why Rodrigo failed to write about Macabea.

OK, I'll stop now.