JONATHAN CULLER, ON DECONSTRUCTION
Jonathan Culler. ON DECONSTRUCTION: Theory and Criticism after
Structuralism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND BIOGRAPHIC
The hardback book is 307 pages with index and 21 pages of bibliography. The
bibliography leans toward literary criticism. French studies receive
attention.
There is no biographical information in the book about Culler.
CONTENTS
Preface (p.7)
Introduction (pp. 17-30)
Chapter One. READERS AND READING. This contains three sections:
1. New Fortunes. 2. Reading as a Woman. 3. Stories of Reading. (pp.31-84)
Chapter Two. DECONSTRUCTION. This contains five sections: 1.
Writing and Logocentrism. 2. Meaning and Iterability. 3. Grafts and Graft.
4. Institutions and Inversions. 5. Critical Consequences. (pp.85-226)
Chapter Three. DECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM (pp. 227-280)
MAIN POINTS NOTED
[WORK IS UNDER WAY ON THESE NOTES]
SELECTED QUOTES
C. FOCUSES ON READING RATHER THAN THE STRUCTURAL VS. POST-STRUCTURAL DEBATE:
"...though the most common articulations of recent criticism raise a number of
important problems--about the rellationshipo between literature and the
theoretical languages of other disciplines, about the possibility and status of
a systematic theory of language or of texts--the distinction between
structuralism and post-structuralism is highly unreliable, and instead of
mounting a discussion of post-structuralism within which deconstruction would
be identified as a major force, it seems prefereable to try another
approach....Since most contemporary criticism has something to say about
reading, this topic may offer a better way of establishing a context for a
discussion of deconstruction." Page 30. Emphasis mine.
THE UNDERMINING EFFECT OF A DECONSTRUCTIONIST EXERCISE: "...to deconstruct a discourse is to
show how it undermines the philosophy it asserts, or the hierarchical
oppositions on which it relies, by identifying in the text the
rhetorical operations that produce the supposed ground of argument, the
key concept or premise." page 86. Emphasis mine.
25 December 1995
Commandment IX
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