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Derrida's structure, sign and play

Name: Trivedi Hezal K.

Roll No: 35

PG Reg. No. PG15101040

M.A. – English Regular, Semester-2

Year: 2016

Course No. 7:  literary theory & criticism: The 20 Western & Indian Poetics – 2:

Unit-3 – Derrida’s structure, sign & play

Assignments Topic- Derrida’s structure, sign & play Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

(Gujarat – India)

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Jacques Derrida 

Jacques Derrida is a French philosopher, was born on July 15, 1930 in Algiers of Algeria, the then French colony. He is famously known as the father of Deconstruction. He has published more than 40 books on various topics such as anthropology, sociology, semiotics, jurisprudence, literary theory and so on. Some of them  of  “Grammatology”  is very  famous one that discusses   theory of deconstruction and its various aspects. Jacques Derrida was the founder of “deconstruction,” a way of criticizing not only both literary and philosophical texts but also political institutions. Although Derrida at times expressed regret concerning the fate of the word “deconstruction,” its popularity indicates the wide-ranging influence of his thought, in philosophy, in literary criticism and theory, in art and, in particular, architectural theory, and in political theory. Derrida died in Paris on October 8, 2004.

THE THEORY OF DECONSTRUCTION

Derrida has been interested in one particular opposition: the opposition between writing and speech. Derrida's critical approach to deconstruction shows us that dualisms are never equivalent; they are always hierarchically ranked. One pole (presence, good, truth, man, etc.) is privileged at the expense of the second.

In the case of speech and writing, we have attributed to speech the positive qualities of originality, centre and presence, whereas writing has been relegated to a secondary or derived status.

"Deconstruction refers to all of the techniques and strategies used by Derrida in order to destabilize, crack open and displace texts that are explicitly or invisibly idealistic"

However, to deconstruct is not to destroy, and deconstruction is achieved in two steps:

1. A reversal phase: Since the pair was hierarchically ranked, we must first extinguish the power struggle. During this first phase, then, writing must dominate speech, other must prevail over self, absence over presence, perception over understanding, and so on. 

2. A neutralization phase: The term favoured during the first phase must be uprooted from binary logic. In this way, we leave behind all of the previous significations anchored in dualistic thinking. This phase gives rise to androgyny, super-speech, and arche-writing. The deconstructed term thus becomes undecidable.

According to Paul De Man, a member of Yale school:

It is possible within text, to frame a question or undo assertion made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements.

Deconstruction is being applied to texts, most of which are taken from the history of Western philosophy. The new terms become undecidable, then, rendering them unclassifiable, and causing two previously opposed poles to become merged.

Difference:                          

Différance is a term that Derrida coins on the basis of a pun that the French language makes possible.  An understanding of this term is helpful because it can explain a lot about Derrida’s apparently “mischievous” playing with language and ideas.“Mischievous” in quotation marks because many people have misunderstood the powerful implications of his witty strategy.  The pun is possible because in French the word différer can mean either to differ or to defer, depending on context.

            Différence: to differ from something and to defer full identity and presence

Derrida and differance:

The term différance originated at a seminar given by Derrida in 1968 at the Society française de philosophy. The term in itself represents a synthesis of Derrida's semiotic and philosophical thinking.

Ø Structure: Classic concept Derrida calls a” Contradictory     coherence”. There is never a centre without a margin.

Ø Sign: It is metaphysical concept. Meaning is arbitrary. Meaning is never present in the sign, it is always postponed.

Ø Play: “If the sun can stand for the truth of reason then where dose the play of possible substitutions end?

Derrida: Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Sciences

Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of a Human Science‟ was a lecture presented at a conference titled “The Language of criticism and the science of man” held at johns Hopkins university in Baltimore, USA in 1966, which was published in 1967.

Derrida begins the essay by referring to ‘an event’ which has ‘perhaps’ occurred in the history of the concept of structure, that is also a ‘redoubling’. The event which the essay documents is that of a definitive epistemological break with structuralist thought, of the ushering in of post-structuralism as a movement critically engaging with structuralism and also with traditional humanism and empiricism. It turns the logic of structuralism against itself insisting that the “structurality of structure” itself had been repressed in structuralism.

In his essay Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of Human Science, Derrida firstly describes the idea of free play, which is a decentring of systems within the systems themselves. Centering of systems is supposed to limit free play, yet this centering of systems, designed to give coherence to the system, is  contradictory because it is there by force of desire, not by any fundamental principle. The basis of a structure comprises of historic patterns and repetitions that can be observed through historical records and these patterns comprise of a series of substitutions for the center. The moment of substitution, which Derrida called "rupture", is the moment when the pattern or repetition reasserts itself through decentring and re-centering the structure, an example of free play (within the system) disrupting history (a series of events that provides linear, logical coherence to a system).

The three major critiques of de-centering (by Heidegger, Freud and Nietzsche) use the language of metaphysics to breakdown / critique / deconstruct the principles of metaphysics itself. This paradox is relevant as it applies to the dislocation of culture, whether historically, philosophically, economically, politically, etc. The development of concepts births their opposing sides (binary oppositions).

Derrida then moves into the discussion of Levi-Strauss' ‘Bricolage’ - the necessity of borrowing concepts from other text (obviously subject to change). This bricolage leads to the idea of myth, and while it is assumed that all myths have an engineer, [the concept/person] who creates concepts "out of whole cloth", the idea of the engineer is impossible since it would mean that a system is created from concepts from outside the system - so where did the engineer get these concepts from? Levi-Strauss suggests that the bricoleur invented it - but suspecting the engineer's existence would be to threaten the bricoleur's centered system.

Bricolage is not just an intellectual concept; it is also myth poetical. Yet for a myth-based concept it seems to command respect as an absolute source. To go back to an absolute source, it is important to reject existing epistèmè (foundations / sciences), yet to oppose mythomorphic discourse on myth, mythomorphic principles must be used. It is a similar quandary the triple philosophers have towards metaphysics.

Myth has no author, therefore determining that it requires a source is a historical illusion, which brings up the question: does this principle also apply to other fields of discourse?

Levi-Strauss only brings up this question, and Derrida does not attempt to answer it. Instead, he writes that there is an assumption on many philosophers' parts: to go beyond philosophy is impossible - there is no language beyond what is available, therefore there is no language that could explain the outer bounds of the centered system. Derrida suggests that to go beyond philosophy, it has to be read in "a certain way", not assume there is something beyond it. Empiricism (gathering of information which relies on what can be expressed within the system), which informs the language and information base we have to center our systems around, menaces scientific discourse by constantly challenging it, yet it is based in scientific discourse. Paradoxically, structuralism - the school of critique that emphasizes a system of binaries - claims to critique empiricism, and Derrida points out that Levi-Strauss' books and essays are all empirical stuff that can challenged as well.

The concept of sciences calls for the concept of history, as history records information / data and enables sciences to have a center for reference in empirical principles. Empiricism also fails as a system that informs because in order to be completely valid, all information must be gathered (totalization). However, due to free play (constant substitutions of the center), totalization of all this infinite information is impossible
Free play not only disrupts the sense of history, it also disrupts presence. Although Levi-Strauss points this out, there is a sense of centered-ness in his critique to ground its presence in a sense of origin, speech and an unmarred source.

Finally, Derrida points out the two reasons for schools of interpretations which are irreconcilable yet exist simultaneously:

1) The interpretation which seeks to decipher an original Truth that is uncluttered by free play, and 

2) The interpretation which affirms the role of free play within the system.

So, His philosophy of not being centered in a single one philosophy has validity. Derrida, as taught in the school of deconstruction, encourages the use of several perspectives (several centers, so to speak) to view a concept. This does not help to affirm any holistic view, but it enables a chance to find common ground between perspectives even though the idea seems impossible.  If the purpose of free play is to de-center within a system, then it is perhaps possible to use the idea of free play to develope and enlarged the system in order to accommodate new centers for thought. This seems to be the point of the post-modern spirit: finding new ways of viewing the world that is not set in any specific system, but constantly moving around with the principles of free play in order to participate in the world better.

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New historicism and cultural materialism

Name: Trivedi Hezal K.

Roll No: 35

PG Reg. No. PG15101040

M.A. – English Regular, Semester-2

Year: 2016

Course No. 7 -C:  The cultural studies

Unit-1 – Cultural Studies:

Assignments Topic- New Historicism and Cultural Materialism

 Submitted to: S.B. Gardi Department of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

(Gujarat – India)

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New historicism:

The term ‘new historicism’ was coined by the American critic Stephen Greenblatt whose book renaissance self-fashioning: from more to Shakespeare (1980) is usually regarded as its beginning.

A simple definition of the new historicism is that,

                       “It is a method based on the parallel reading of literary and non-literary texts, usually of the same historical period”.

 

That is to say, new historicism refuse (at least ostensibly) to ‘privilege’ the literary text: instead of literary ‘foreground’ and a historical ‘background’ it envisages and practise a mode of study in which literary and non-literary texts are given equal weight and constantly inform or interrogate each other. This ‘equal weighting’ is suggested in the definition of new historicism offered by the American critic Louis Montrose: he defines it is a combined interest in ‘the textuality of history, the historicity of text’. 

Typically a new historical essay will place the literary text within the ‘frame’ of non-literary text. Thus greenblatt’s main innovation, from the viewpoint of literary study, was to juxtapose the plays of the renaissance period with ‘the horrifying colonialist policies pursued by all the major European power of the era’. Greenblatte himself refer to the appropriated historical document as the ‘anecdote’, and the typical new historicist essay omits the customary academic preliminaries about previously published interpretations of the play in question and begins with a powerful and a dramatic anecdotes, as signalled, for instance, by Louis Montrose, in the first sentence of the essay discussed later: ‘I would like to recount an Elizabethan dream -not Shakespeare’s A midsummer Night’s Dream but one dreamt by Simon Forman on 23 January 1597’.

New and old historicism – some differences:

·       New  historicism

                     

v History has very affects on people; it is subjective to people’s feeling and emotions, making it blased.

v New historicism follows the principal that text is “culture in action” and is constantly moulded and shaped by the culture that surrounds it.

v New historicism looks at history as a fluctuating interpretive aspect rather than a strong component of literature.

v  Parallel reading. 

v  A historicist movement. Interested in history as represented and      recorded in written documents – history as text.

v The aim is not to represent the past as it really was, but to present a new reality by re – situating it.

·       Old historicism:

        

v  Before the 1980s, people believed that historical information taken from novels was completely accurate, without any bias.

v  Old historicists believe that if they look into the historical context of the book, they will achieve a better understanding of the text.

v  Old historicism relies on the historical setting to interpret the novel.

v  Hierarchical

v  A historical movement: creates a historical framework in which to place the text.

v  “The words of the past replace the world of the past.

New historicism and Foucault:

New historicism is resolutely anti-establishment implicitly on the side of liberal ideals of personal freedom and accepting and celebrating all forms of difference and ‘deviance’. This notion of the state as all-powerful and all-seeing stems from the post-structuralist cultural historian Michel Foucault whose pervasive image of the state is that of ‘panoptic’ (meaning ‘all-seeing’) surveillance. The panoptic was a design for a circular prison conceived by the eighteenth century utilitarian Jeremy Bentham:  the design consisted of tiered ranks of cells which could all be surveyed by a single warder positioned at the centre of the circle. The panoptic state, however, maintains its surveillance not by physical force and intimidation, but by the power of its ‘discursive practices’ ( to use Foucault’s terminology – ‘discursive’ is the adjective derived from the noun ‘discourse’) which circulates its ideology throughout the body politic.

 On the other hand politic power operates in and suffuses so many spheres, the possibility of fundamental change and transformation may to seem very remote. Foucault’s work looks at the institutions which enable this power to be maintained, such as state punishment, prison, the medical profession and legislation about sexuality. Foucault makes a less rigid distinction than is found in Althusser between ‘repressive structures’ and ‘ideological structures’.

Advantage and disadvantage of new historicism:

            However, the appeal of new historicism is undoubtedly great, for a variety of reason. Firstly, although it is founded upon post structuralism thinking, it is written in a far more accessible way, for the most part avoiding post structuralism’s characteristically dense style and vocabulary. It present its data and draws its conclusion, and if it is sometimes easy  to challenge the way the data is interpreted, this is partly because the empirical foundation on which the interpretation  rests is made openly available for scrutiny. Secondly, the material itself is fascinating and is wholly distinctive in the context of literary studies. These essay look and feel different from those produced by any other critical approach and immediately give the literary student the new territory is being entered. Particularly, the ‘uncluttered’ ‘pared - down’ feel of the essays, which results from not citing previous discussion of the literary work, gives them a stark and dramatic air. Thirdly, the political edge of new historicist writing is always sharp, but at the same time it avoids the problems frequently encountered in ‘straight’ Marxist criticism: it seems less overtly polemical and more willing to allow the historical evidence its own voice.

Example from fairies Queen

 In Spenser’s fairies Queen, Elizabeth can project herself as the Queen whose virginity has mystical and magical potency because such images are given currency in court masques, in comedies & pastoral epic poetry. The figure oh Elizabeth stimulates the production and promotion of such work and imagery. Thus, history is textualised and texts are historicized.

Cultural materialism:

The British critic Graham Holderness describes cultural materialism as ‘a politicised from of historiography’. The term ‘cultural materialism’ was made current in 1985 when it was used by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan sinfield (the best – known of the cultural materialists) as the subtitle of their edited collection of essay political Shakespeare. They define the term in a foreword as designing a critical method which has four characteristics. It combines an attention to:

1)    Historical context,

2)    Theoretical method,

3)    Political commitment, and

4)    Textual analysis.

To comment briefly on each of this: firstly, the emphasis on historical context ‘undermines the transcendent significance traditionally accorded to the literary text’. Here the word ‘transcendent’ roughly means ‘timeless’. The position taken, of course, need to face the obvious objection that if we are today still studying and reading Shakespeare then his plays have indeed proved themselves ‘timeless’ in the simple sense that they are clearly not limited by the historical circumstances in which they were produced. The aim of culture materialism is to allow the literary text to ‘recover its histories’ which previous kinds of study have often ignored.

Secondly, the emphasis on theoretical method signifies the break with liberal humanism and the absorbing of the lessons of structuralism, post-structuralism, and other approaches which have become prominent since the 1970s.

Thirdly, the emphasis on political commitment signifies the influence of Marxist and feminist perspective and the break from the conservative-Christian framework which hitherto dominated Shakespeare criticism.

Finally, the stress on textual analysis ‘locates the critique of traditional approaches where it cannot be ignored’.

The two words in the term ‘cultural materialism’ are further defined:  ‘culture’ will include all forms of culture. That is, this approach does not limit itself to ‘high’ culture forms like the Shakespeare play. ‘Materialism’ signifies the opposites of ‘idealism’: an ‘idealist’ belief would be that high culture represents the free and independent play of the talented individual mind; the contrary ‘materialist’ belief is that culture cannot ‘’transcend the material forced and relations of production. Culture is not simply a reflection of the economic and political system, but nor can it be independent of it”. These comments on materialism represent the standard beliefs of Marxist criticism, and they do perhaps point to the difficulty of making a useful distinction between a ‘straight’ Marxist criticism and cultural materialism.

Thus, in cultural materialism there is an emphasis on the functioning of the institutions through which Shakespeare is now brought to us – the royal Shakespeare company, the film industry, the publishers who produce textbooks for school and college, and National Curriculum, which lays down the requirement that specific Shakespeare plays be studies by all school pupils.

Cultural materialism takes a good deal of its outlook from British left – wing critic Raymond Williams. The result is that cultural materialism is much more optimistic about the possibility of change and is willing at times to see literature as a source of oppositional values. Cultural materialism particularly involves using the past to ‘read’ the present, revealing the politics of our own society by what we choose to emphasise or suppress of the past. A great deal of the British work has been about undermining what it sees as the fetishistic role of Shakespeare as a conservative icon within British culture. This form of cultural materialism can be conveniently sampled in three ‘new accents’ books. 

                                                                     

Difference between new historicism and cultural materialism:

Political optimism vs. Political pessimism: cultural materialists tend to concentrate on the interventions whereby men and woman make their own history. New historicist tends to focus on the less than ideal circumstances in which they do so. On the ‘power of social and ideological structures’ which restrain them.

                                                                                              

               Cultural materialists see new historicists as cutting themselves off from effective political positions by their acceptance of a particular version of post – structuralism, with its radical scepticism about the possibility of attaining. Secure knowledge. The new historicist defence against this is that being aware of in – built uncertainly of all knowledge doesn’t mean that we give up trying to established truths, we simply move forward conscious the dangers and limitations involved.

Conclusion:

 New historicism and cultural materialism implies that all works of literature are affected by their respective times and that these same things don’t necessarily change from the present.

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