Page 242 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 32: Post-Structuralism, Deconstruction and Cultural Studies

history behind them. Derrida opted for deconstruction over the literal translation destruction to Notes
suggest precision rather than violence. The term “deconstructionism” is sometimes applied as a
title for Derrida’s school of thought, but Derrida is more often classified as a post-structuralist.
Derrida’s work can be reduced to ontological politics.
In describing deconstruction, Derrida famously observed that “there is nothing outside the text.”
That is to say, all of the references used to interpret a text are themselves texts, even the “text” of
reality as a reader knows it. There is no truly objective, non-textual reference from which
interpretation can begin. Deconstruction, then, can be described as an effort to understand a text
through its relationships to various contexts.
According to Rodolphe Gasche, Derrida’s method consisted in demonstrating all the forms and
varieties of this originary complexity, and their multiple consequences in many fields. His way of
achieving this was by conducting thorough, careful, sensitive, and yet transformational readings
of philosophical and literary texts, with an ear to what in those texts runs counter to their apparent
systematicity (structural unity) or intended sense (authorial genesis). By demonstrating the aporias
and ellipses of thought, Derrida hoped to show the infinitely subtle ways that this originary
complexity, which by definition cannot ever be completely known, works its structuring and
destructuring effects.
Deconstruction denotes the pursuing the meaning of a text to the point of exposing the supposed
contradictions and internal oppositions upon which it is founded—supposedly showing that those
foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable, or impossible. It is an approach that may be deployed
in philosophy, literary analysis, or other fields. Deconstruction generally tries to demonstrate that
any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings;
that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations
inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an
interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point.

Did u know? Derrida refers to this point as an aporia in the text, and terms deconstructive
reading “aporetic.”
Derrida initially resisted granting to his approach the overarching name “deconstruction,” on the
grounds that it was a precise technical term that could not be used to characterize his work
generally. Nevertheless, he eventually accepted that the term had come into common use to refer
to his textual approach, and Derrida himself increasingly began to use the term in this more
general way.

Self Assessment
Fill in the blanks:
1. The post-structuralist movement is difficult to summarize, but may be broadly understood
as a body of distinct responses to .................... .
2. The movement is closely related to .................... .
3. .................... emerged in France during the 1960s as an antinomian movement critiquing
structuralism.
4. The term .................... is sometimes applied as a title for derridas' school of thought but
Derrida is more often classified as a post-structuralist.
5. .................... work can be reduced to ontological politics.

32.3 Cultural Studies
Modernist literature is sub-genre of Modernism, a predominantly European movement beginning
in the early-to-mid-20th century that was characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional
aesthetic forms. Representing the radical shift in cultural sensibilities surrounding World War I,
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