Module III Vocabulary
Appearance
Butler, Judith
- (1956 - ), Maxine Elliot Chair in Rhetoric and Comparative
Literature at the University of California, Berkeley
- Philosopher, feminist, and queer activist who wrote Gender
Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter (1993)
- The dialectic forms the basis of
Butler's philosophical inquiry because she is interested in
how subjects attain identity. Butler is one of many feminist
critics who argue that gender identity is a construct of
societal norms (94) and "ideal dimorphism" (101).
Deconstruction
- "1b. Philos. and Lit. Theory. A strategy of critical analysis
associated with the French philosopher Jacques Derrida
(1930–2004), directed towards exposing unquestioned
metaphysical assumptions and internal contradictions in
philosophical and literary language" ("Deconstruction," OED).
- Deconstructive analysis identifies a) the differential
relations between terms in a text and b) the contradictory
meanings of each term, in order to c) expose the artificiality
and instability of societal norms, discourses and identities.
Deconstructive analysis often aims to explore the metalinguistic
meanings of a text and to question implied assumptions in
Western culture.
- "
Deconstructionist criticism subscribes to the poststructuralist
vision of language, wherein the signifier (the form of a sign)
does not refer to a definite signified (the content of a sign),
but produces other signifiers instead" (Guillemette and
Cossette).
- "A method of literary criticism and a theory of language.
Deconstruction contends that it is impossible completely to
master the meanings within a literary text because there is an
inherent paradox in the attempt. All meaning arises from the
context of a work of literature (or philosophy), but,
deconstructionists insist, a literary work itself exists in
multiple contexts simultaneously—the language in which it was
written, the genre type, the social milieu of the writer, and
philosophical assumptions, for example. Context is essentially
unlimited. Accordingly, there can be no self-consistent,
determinate meaning for a work.
Deconstruction criticism attempts to show how variable meaning
may become in the melee of “warring forces of signification
within the text,” as literary theorist Barbara Johnson
put it. Jacques Derrida, the philosopher-in-chief of
deconstruction, argued that the absence of an ultimate referent
in literary works or in language itself allowed an endless
interplay of meanings. However, that does not mean that the
criticism is whimsical or a form of relativism. On the contrary,
deconstruction strives for objective analysis—but always based
on an objectivity that refuses to take a text as an isolated
entity. Critical analysis destroys the illusion of self-
containment and demonstrates the shifting, larger influences
occurring within the text and impinging on it from beyond"
("Deconstruction," Literary Reference).
Derrida, Jacques (1930-2004)
- French philosopher and academic famous for deconstruction
- His book, Dissemination, hints at the purpose of
deconstructive analysis: to trace the shifting meanings of
language. He follows variations on and sometimes contradictory
meanings of words related to pharmakos (wizard,
magician, poisoner) in Plato in order to establish the valuation
of the written word in Western philosophical tradition (Derrida
130, 134). Dissemination is thus part of a larger
post-1945 academic movement that explores the iterability of
texts and remains open to outside disciplines, such as
philosophy, oral history, performance, and anthropology (cf.
Walter J. Ong's Orality and Literacy, 1982).
Dialectic
- "2a. In modern Philosophy: Specifically applied by Kant to the
criticism which shows the mutually contradictory character of
the principles of science, when they are employed to determine
objects beyond the limits of experience (i.e. the soul, the
world, God); by Hegel (who denies that such contradictions are
ultimately irreconcilable) the term is applied (a) to the
process of thought by which such contradictions are seen to
merge themselves in a higher truth that comprehends them; and
(b) to the world-process, which, being in his view but the
thought-process on its objective side, develops similarly by a
continuous unification of opposites" ("Dialectic").
- Mode of philosophical thinking most commonly associated with
Hegel.
- thesis --> antithesis --> hypothesis / synthesis
(possibly also: truth, God/transcendence)
Dimorphism
"b. Biol. The occurrence of two distinct forms of flowers,
leaves, or other parts on the same plant or in the same species;
or of two forms distinct in structure, size, colouring, etc. among
animals of the same species.
c. Philol. The existence, in one language, of a word under
two different forms, or of two words of the same ultimate
derivation (doublets)" ("Dimorphism").
Essentialism
- "1a. Philos. The belief in real essences of things, esp. the
view that the task of science and philosophy is to discover
these and express them in definitions" 2a. A doctrine that
concentrates on the existence of the individual, who, being free
and responsible, is held to be what he makes himself by the
self-development of his essence through acts of the will (which,
in the Christian form of the theory, leads to God). b.
[tr. French essentialisme.] The doctrine that essence is
prior to existence (opp. to existentialism n.)"
("Essentialism").
Existentialism
- Sartre: "Existence Precedes Essence."
- " . . . the philosophical theory which holds that a further
set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity,
is necessary to grasp human existence . . . themes popularly
associated with existentialism—dread, boredom, alienation, the
absurd, freedom, commitment, nothingness, " (Crowell).
- Works
of Sartre, Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (Frygt
og Bæven, 1843); Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals
(Zur Genealogie der Moral, 1887); Martin Heidegger, Being
and Time (Sein und Zeit, 1927),
Gender and/vs. Sex
- Gender "3
b. Psychol. and Sociol. (orig. U.S.). The state of being male or female as
expressed by social or cultural distinctions and differences,
rather than biological ones; the collective attributes or traits
associated with a particular sex, or determined as a result of
one's sex. Also: a (male or female) group characterized in this
way."
- Sex "
1a. Either of the two main categories (male and female) into
which humans and many other living things are divided on the basis
of their reproductive functions; (hence) the members of
these categories viewed as a group; the males or females of a
particular species, esp. the human race, considered
collectively."
- Butler, however, rejects these distinctions b/c they stress
normative gender traits; gender is necessarily performative
and produced through repetitive acts: "If the inner truth of
gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy
instituted and inscribed on the surface of bodies, then it seems
that genders can be neither true nor false, but are only
produced as the truth effects of a discourse of primary and
stable identity" (Butler 111). See also the last page (Butler
115).
Hegemony / Hegemonic Power
- "Leadership, predominance, preponderance; esp. the leadership
or predominant authority of one state of a confederacy or union
over the others: originally used in reference to the states of
ancient Greece, whence transferred to the German states, and in
other modern applications" ("Hegemony").
- Mentioned in Butler 106-07 + 112.
Logocentrism
- The primacy of the written word in Western thought, according
to Derrida. Feminists have used this idea to discuss
phallologocentrism.
Performativity
- In general: The study of gesture and speech acts and the way
they relate to the formation of identities.
- Performativity is "the notion that gender is not inherent but
is engendered by disciplinary pressures that coerce us into
performing, that is behaving, in a way society assumes is
appropriate for a certain gender" (Miller 224); performativity
assumes "that human beings have no innate selfhood or
subjectivity but become what they are through more or less
forced repetition of a certain role" (Miller 225).
- J. L. Austin, in How to Do Things with Words (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1962), established the notion of performative
utterances. "I pronounce you man and wife," or "I promise
to finish this essay" are words that constitute performative
speech acts.
- "In what sense," Butler asks, "is gender an act?" (114). For
Butler, "The iterability of performativity is a theory of
agency" (101). Performativity helps to widen Butler's concept of
gender because it avoids essentialism and is
based on "the irreducible complexity of sexuality and its
implication in various dynamics of discursive and institutional
power" (102). Performativity is central to Butler's definition
of gender: "If gender attributes and acts, the various ways in
which a body shows or produces its cultural signification, are
performative, then there is not preexisting identity by which an
act or attribute might be measured; there would be no true or
false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of
a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory
fiction" (Butler 115).
Phallocentrism
- Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous's critique of
patriarchal control over language and thought (consider the
patriarchal roots of the word dissemination)
Phenomenology
- "1b. c. Philos. A method or procedure, originally developed by
the German philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), which
involves the setting aside of presuppositions about a phenomenon
as an empirical object and about the mental acts concerned with
experiencing it, in order to achieve an intuition of its pure
essence; the characteristic theories underlying or resulting
from the use of such a method. In more recent use: any of
various philosophical methods or theories (often influenced by
the work of Husserl and his followers) which emphasize the
importance of analyzing the structure of conscious subjective
experience" ("Phenomenology").
- Asks questions like: What is truth? What is appearance? What
is reality? How does the individual become a subject?
Poststructuralism
-
"This term concerns several schools of literary criticism that
apply the structural linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure
and his followers. For these theorists, literature is a system
of arbitrary signs that, if analyzed, serve to expose the basis
of concepts behind them. These thinkers were also influenced by
the Marxist view that human beings are constructs of the
socioeconomic conditions around them and by the Freudian view
that human consciousness is driven wholly or in part by
subconscious forces. In a synthesis of these ideas,
poststructuralists denied the existence of either an abstract
source of value outside of human consciousness or the ability of
consciousness to determine value on its own (as the
existentialists had proposed) because understanding arises from
use of language, which is arbitrary and ambiguous. Among the
proponents of such ideas were Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes,
and Jacques Derrida" ("Poststructuralism").
Queer Theory
- The study of gender relations as they pertain to sexuality
(heterosexuality, homosexuality, transgender, bisexual,
etc.).
Reality
Semiotics
- "The science of communication studied through the
interpretation of signs and symbols as they operate in various
fields, esp. language" ("Semiotics," OED).
- "The study of signs as social phenomena. The signs include
facial expressions, gestures, body language, music, pictures,
nonverbal sounds, and words. Signs convey meaning because of a
natural resemblance to what they signify (iconic signs), a
causal relation (indexical signs), or an arbitrary conventional
association (symbolic signs). Semiotics is thus important in
sciences focusing on social behavior—linguistics, psychology,
sociology, and anthropology. In literary criticism, semiotics
addresses the third type of signs, symbols. They are regarded as
an underlying code that creates meaning and include generic
forms, modes of discourse, and literary conventions as well as
diction" ("Semiotics," Literary Reference).
Structuralism
"Structuralism began with the publication in 1916 of Ferdinand de
Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale (1916;
Course in General Linguistics, 1959). In it, Saussure focuses on the
underlying system of language rather than speech, speakers, or the
history of language, all of which he held to be secondary. Language,
according to Saussure, consists of a interrelation of arbitrary,
conventional signs that produce meaning. Claude Lévi-Strauss
applies this idea to anthropology in Les Structures
élémentaires de la parenté (1949; The
Elementary Structures of Kinship, 1969), studying the underlying
systems that produce culture. By the 1960's, structuralism was
influencing literary criticism as well, at first in France but later
in the United States. Its two leading proponents were Roland Barthes
and Jacques Derrida" ("Structuralism," Literary Reference).
Tautology / Tautological
"also PLEONASM. A term in RHETORIC for unnecessary and ineffective
REPETITION, usually with words that add nothing new: She was alone
by herself. Many tautological (or tautologous) expressions occur in
everyday usage. The tautology in some is immediately apparent: all
well and good; cool, calm, and collected; free, gratis, and for
nothing. In others, it is less obvious, because they contain archaic
elements: by hook or by crook; a hue and cry; not a jot or tittle;
null and void; rack and ruin. Compare CIRCUMLOCUTION, REDUNDANCY"
("Tautology").
Works Cited
Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford:
Clarendon, 1962.
Butler, Judith. "Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions." The
Judith Butler Reader. NY: Blackwell, 2004. 90-118.
Crowell, Simon. "Existentialism." Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Aug. 23, 2004.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/existentialism/ Oct. 11, 2010.
Web.
"Deconstruction," Literary Reference Center Glossary. 2012.
Web.
"Deconstruction." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012.
Web.
Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination. Trans. Barbara
Johnson. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1981.
"Dialectic." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Essentialism."
Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Existentialism." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012.
Web.
"Gender." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Hegemony." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
Guillemette,
Lucie and Josiane Cossette. "Deconstruction and
Différance." Sign. 2006. Web.
Miller, J. Hillis. "Performativity as Performance / Performativity
as Speech Act: Derrida's Special Theory of Performativity."
106.2 (Spring 2007): 219-35.
"Poststructuralism."
Literary Reference Center Glossary. 2012. Web.
"Phenomenology." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Semiotics." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Semiotics." Literary Reference Center Glossary. 2012. Web.
"Sex." Oxford English Dictionary. 2012. Web.
"Structuralism." Literary Reference Center Glossary. 2012.
Web.
"Tautology." Concise Oxford Companion to the English
Language. Ed. Tom McArthur. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Web.
Wendy C. Nielsen, Oct. 2012