Literary and Cultural Theory, 2013

I found the excerpt of Derrida’s essay, Differance, fascinating; not only for the level of complexity (I had to read it 3 times and I’m still struggling), but for the subversive ideas of reversing hierarchies that are entrenched in the history of thought within the metaphysical tradition.

His attempt of de-centering violent hierarchical binary oppositions, and his critique of the privilege given to one variable over another, such as presence/absence, good/evil, speech/writing, etc.  Specifically in this latter relation, Derrida demonstrates that contrary to the traditional approach of considering speech pure, more immediate to thought than writing as this latter as an obstruction to the process of portraying it, writing is a species of speech (Selden, Widdowson and Broker, 168). Both, speech and writing share the same structure of signifiers not always connected with signifieds, and are permeated by differance.

I wonder if the new opposition between metaphysics and deconstruction in the way we understand the world represents another hierarchical opposition that Derrida precisely tried to avoid.

I also found Johnson’s proposal of reading the silence very interesting (Rivkin and Ryan, 346-347) as an alternative to the usual way of reading texts. How we do that when we have social structures internalized (Foucault) that might prevent us from seeing the absence? Are there ways to escape, perhaps, looking at Lyotard and his skepticism toward the meta-narratives or Barthes with his idea of text that generates and subverts meaning? but again how to escape from fixed structures that shape our thought and enable ourselves to go beyond these limits?

I found the excerpt of Derrida’s essay, Differance, fascinating; not only for the level of complexity (I had to read it 3 times and I’m still struggling), but for the subversive ideas of reversing hierarchies that are entrenched in the history of thought within the metaphysical tradition.

His attempt of de-centering violent hierarchical binary oppositions, and his critique of the privilege given to one variable over another, such as presence/absence, good/evil, speech/writing, etc.  Specifically in this latter relation, Derrida demonstrates that contrary to the traditional approach of considering speech pure, more immediate to thought than writing as this latter as an obstruction to the process of portraying it, writing is a species of speech (Selden, Widdowson and Broker, 168). Both, speech and writing share the same structure of signifiers not always connected with signifieds, and are permeated by differance.

I wonder if the new opposition between metaphysics and deconstruction in the way we understand the world represents another hierarchical opposition that Derrida precisely tried to avoid.

I also found Johnson’s proposal of reading the silence very interesting (Rivkin and Ryan, 346-347) as an alternative to the usual way of reading texts. How we do that when we have social structures internalized (Foucault) that might prevent us from seeing the absence? Are there ways to escape, perhaps, looking at Lyotard and his skepticism toward the meta-narratives or Barthes with his idea of text that generates and subverts meaning? but again how to escape from fixed structures that shape our thought and enable ourselves to go beyond these limits?

After several hours of reading the first pages of “Differance” by Jacques Derrida on English, and do not understand a word about he was trying to say, I decided to look for the text in Spanish, so I can easily could find what he was trying to define. I found a translation. After more than two hours of reading “Diferencia” by Jacques Derrida on Spanish, and not be able to pass the page five, I thought that there was something wrong with my brain.

I look for “Derrida for dummies” and I found there some concepts that I could catch. I read Barbara Johnson’s “Writing” essay and finally I could understand some of the ideas that Derrida explains in a very complicated way. At least, it was very complicated for me.

I had to take a break. I went to the store for buying eggs and milk. While I was walking down the street, feeling the cold wind that this Sunday blowed, I could not stop thinking about what happened with Derrida’s readings. It was impossible to understand? Why is so complicated for me? I arrived to some conclusions.

• I remember when I taught a basic reading course for undergraduate students in Colombia, there was this structured model of basic steps for reading: 1) Read the first time and try to identify all the words that you do not know and look for them on the dictionary; 2) Underline the main ideas in the second reading; 3)Try to select the most important ideas or concepts and make a list with them; 4) Try to establish an hypothesis about what the text is trying to say; 5) Make a small synopsis of the text. Well, I think that my problem with Derrida text is around the step 1 and 2. On the one hand, the vocabulary on the text is closely related to philosophy (for instance arche, ousia, parousia Greek or Latin expressions that are used by philosophers). On the other hand, it seems that syntax is working but for me is not:

 Already we had to note that differance is not, does not exist, and is not any sort of being-present (on). And we will have to point out that everything that is not, and,consequently, that is has neither existence nor essence. It belongs to no category of being, present or absent. And yet what is thus denoted as differance is not theological, not even in the most negative order of negative theology (Derrida 282).

I know probably the majority of the class got the idea but, honestly, I have read this quotation over and over and I can not find what is he trying to say.

• If the language that Derrida is using is closer to the philosophy, I think he is writing for a particular reader. Yes, this is arguable and I hope to read your arguments later, however I think Derrida’s discourse is only for students and scholars that know many of his references and can jump easily from the step 1 to the second on the “reading steps”. I wonder if the world of the ideas is only for privileged readers, like me, which have the time to produce questions like these, or if this world is for everyone.

• The idea of deconstruction, what I understood in Johnson analysis, is complex and profound. Its main purpose, like she demonstrated analyzing the poem “Meditation 6” by Edward Taylor, is to look deep in the text and see “how the logic of writing -it is also a logic that can only really exist in writing” (345). Then she add: “When one writes, one writes more than (or less than, or other than) one thinks. The reader’s task is to read what is written rather than simply attempt to intuit what might have been meant” (346). This idea reminds me Foucault, when he said that

“We must question those ready-made synthesis, those groupings that we normally accept before any examination, those links whose validity is recognized from the outset. We must oust those forms and obscure forces by which we usually link to discourse of one man with that other; they must be driven out from the darkness in which they reign” (90-91)

In that order of ideas, deconstruction should question discourses that we as readers have already accepted, and see within them how writing develops those discourse. It is a political idea, I guess. But the idea of questioning  the world in Derrida is only for philosophers? Is the same in Foucault? I wonder if this two authors are in the same quest.

•  The last reflection is around education and pedagogy. Maybe this is not the most adequate place for doing it, but I just want to express what the impossibility of reading Derrida let me.  While I was walking to the store, I started to wonder if sometimes, as a teacher, my discourse is as confusing as Derrida’s is for me. I know, his purpose is different than mine, but he and I are surrounded by “readers”. Students in my class are trying to learn an idiom, his readers are trying to find what the deconstruction is, are developing a language system. Am I that confusing? Maybe I am. Perhaps I have to check if my discourse is dark and looking for some privileges readers who comprehend it. I have to think about it.

I bought the eggs and milk. I came back and started to write down these ideas. Now that I am reading them again, I concluded that the impossibility of reading Derrida maybe deconstructed me.

After several hours of reading the first pages of “Differance” by Jacques Derrida on English, and do not understand a word about he was trying to say, I decided to look for the text in Spanish, so I can easily could find what he was trying to define. I found a translation. After more than two hours of reading “Diferencia” by Jacques Derrida on Spanish, and not be able to pass the page five, I thought that there was something wrong with my brain.

I look for “Derrida for dummies” and I found there some concepts that I could catch. I read Barbara Johnson’s “Writing” essay and finally I could understand some of the ideas that Derrida explains in a very complicated way. At least, it was very complicated for me.

I had to take a break. I went to the store for buying eggs and milk. While I was walking down the street, feeling the cold wind that this Sunday blowed, I could not stop thinking about what happened with Derrida’s readings. It was impossible to understand? Why is so complicated for me? I arrived to some conclusions.

• I remember when I taught a basic reading course for undergraduate students in Colombia, there was this structured model of basic steps for reading: 1) Read the first time and try to identify all the words that you do not know and look for them on the dictionary; 2) Underline the main ideas in the second reading; 3)Try to select the most important ideas or concepts and make a list with them; 4) Try to establish an hypothesis about what the text is trying to say; 5) Make a small synopsis of the text. Well, I think that my problem with Derrida text is around the step 1 and 2. On the one hand, the vocabulary on the text is closely related to philosophy (for instance arche, ousia, parousia Greek or Latin expressions that are used by philosophers). On the other hand, it seems that syntax is working but for me is not:

 Already we had to note that differance is not, does not exist, and is not any sort of being-present (on). And we will have to point out that everything that is not, and,consequently, that is has neither existence nor essence. It belongs to no category of being, present or absent. And yet what is thus denoted as differance is not theological, not even in the most negative order of negative theology (Derrida 282).

I know probably the majority of the class got the idea but, honestly, I have read this quotation over and over and I can not find what is he trying to say.

• If the language that Derrida is using is closer to the philosophy, I think he is writing for a particular reader. Yes, this is arguable and I hope to read your arguments later, however I think Derrida’s discourse is only for students and scholars that know many of his references and can jump easily from the step 1 to the second on the “reading steps”. I wonder if the world of the ideas is only for privileged readers, like me, which have the time to produce questions like these, or if this world is for everyone.

• The idea of deconstruction, what I understood in Johnson analysis, is complex and profound. Its main purpose, like she demonstrated analyzing the poem “Meditation 6” by Edward Taylor, is to look deep in the text and see “how the logic of writing -it is also a logic that can only really exist in writing” (345). Then she add: “When one writes, one writes more than (or less than, or other than) one thinks. The reader’s task is to read what is written rather than simply attempt to intuit what might have been meant” (346). This idea reminds me Foucault, when he said that

“We must question those ready-made synthesis, those groupings that we normally accept before any examination, those links whose validity is recognized from the outset. We must oust those forms and obscure forces by which we usually link to discourse of one man with that other; they must be driven out from the darkness in which they reign” (90-91)

In that order of ideas, deconstruction should question discourses that we as readers have already accepted, and see within them how writing develops those discourse. It is a political idea, I guess. But the idea of questioning  the world in Derrida is only for philosophers? Is the same in Foucault? I wonder if this two authors are in the same quest.

•  The last reflection is around education and pedagogy. Maybe this is not the most adequate place for doing it, but I just want to express what the impossibility of reading Derrida let me.  While I was walking to the store, I started to wonder if sometimes, as a teacher, my discourse is as confusing as Derrida’s is for me. I know, his purpose is different than mine, but he and I are surrounded by “readers”. Students in my class are trying to learn an idiom, his readers are trying to find what the deconstruction is, are developing a language system. Am I that confusing? Maybe I am. Perhaps I have to check if my discourse is dark and looking for some privileges readers who comprehend it. I have to think about it.

I bought the eggs and milk. I came back and started to write down these ideas. Now that I am reading them again, I concluded that the impossibility of reading Derrida maybe deconstructed me.

There was an interesting trend that permeated the readings this week, in my eyes: evolution.  I come at this from two different perspectives: one from the evolution of the reader, and the other from the evolution of the perception of the author.

Bourdieu’s “Distinction” was an enlightening piece – I did, however, find it a bit polarizing.  The idea that “the opposition between the dominant and the dominated, temporal and spiritual, material and intellectual, etc.” (Rivkin and Ryan 239) is the driving force behind personal taste seems to be an over-generalization.  There have always been exceptions to this rule – the daughter of a socialite can be raised on the most acclaimed 17th-century authors but can still develop a stronger affinity for slam poetry, given she has the chance to experience it.  It is, in fact, the rejection of what I see as a social obligation to read a certain type of literature that leads to many diverse and colorful interpretations of a text.  It’s what helps readers grow.  The idea of a reader’s power within a literary work, to me, lies in the fact that every reader is different.  I agree wholeheartedly with Stanley Fish when he writes that between two readers, “one of us might be tempted to complain to the other that we could not possibly be reading the same poem…and he would be right; for each of us is reading the poem he had made” (218).

The idea that the reader makes the text, however, can turn the idea of literary criticism into a sea of confusion when it comes to reaching consensus on a text within an “interpretative community”.  This, to me, is why readers latch on to the author.  Much like many of my classmates, I wasn’t won over by Barthes’ “The Death of the Author” – in fact, I think absence of an author could be incredibly detrimental to the study of a literary work.  The author’s view and personal context give us an anchor to work with in terms of finding the “meaning” that we so desperately seek.  However: I find one of Foucault’s concerns in “What Is an Author” to be very legitimate.  Authors like Marx and Freud, who have achieved the title of “founder of discursivity” (or as I like to call it, “super-author status”), have earned themselves fairly unshakeable credibility as thinkers.  What about other writers that contradict these writers’ ideas or bring new ideas to the table within that discourse?  Will they forever be denied super-author status, even if their inquiries and conclusions are equally brilliant?  It is hard to break out of a system once it’s been created.  On a literary level, Barthes would argue that without these super-authors’ names (and more importantly, reputations) removed from their texts, we won’t be able to consider them objectively.  I’m not sure if I disagree with that claim.

This, happily, is where the idea of evolution comes in.  Quite simply, as readers evolve and continue to break through cultural and social barriers, their ideas behind texts will undoubtedly change.  And as Foucault concludes in his piece, “as society changes… the author function will disappear,” and another method for judging a work may very well take its place.  I expect (and hope) that as long as humanity continues to evolve, the presence and importance of an author within a text will surely evolve as well.

I found this week’s reading to be challenging, mainly as I disagree heavily with Barthes’ idea of ‘’The death of the Author’’. I do agree that the meaning of a text depends on the reader as we will probably all take away something different from our reading experience, perhaps due to Bourdieu’s idea of different ‘’tastes’’ which relate to one’s social position.

I disagree however that writing and its creator and unrelated. The author has created the work; therefore the author has formulated the words, the dialogue and the narrative according to his or her own tastes.

The reader is ‘born’ to interpret the writing. Yet this seems a rather unfair relationship as it is not reciprocated as Barthes does not permit the author to interpret the reader. Barthes implies that the reader will judge the text and respond to it, thus themselves becoming a critic, yet in reality the writer also passes judgement on the reader. A piece of writing exists because the author had a specific intent, and likely taken into consideration when writing would be the reader’s response. An artist cannot surely be disconnected from his masterpiece? Spectators may choose view and interpret a work of art separately and out of context of the artist who produced it, yet the artist is still omniscient within the work.

Talking about the death of the author also implies a previous existence; therefore there has been historically an author. The suggestion that writing is now dispossessed implies that it was ‘’possessed’’ in the first place. Yet it seems as if Barthes is implying that there has never been an authorial presence.

On a separate point I found the reading on Bourdieu to be very interesting where he talks about the fact that language is used as a mechanism of power. Also that the way in which we choose to present our social space to the world demonstrates our perceived notion of our place in society is highly intriguing. Bourdieu talks about ‘’the practical ‘attributive judgement’ whereby one puts someone in a class by speaking to him in a certain way (thereby putting oneself in a class at the same time)’’ (242) which demonstrates the ‘’power’’ of language and how it can be used positively or negatively. The idea that we are all ‘’potential object[s] of categorization’’ (245) I think is rather dangerous as one will either consider oneself inferior to or greater than the person or group to which one compares oneself.