<p>The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric.</p><p>In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole.</p><p>The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.</p>

<p>Dag Wellander: Meaning – memory: oblivion. A reading of Birgitta Trotzig’s The mud kings daughter. Master of Arts paper. Written in Swedish. 115 pp. Department of Literature and History of Ideas, Stockholm University, SE – 106 91 Stockholm</p><p>The purpose of the paper is to treat one question, including the consequences of it’s answer, the question if The mud kings daughter is a text that has meaning. The question is in a first series of steps being approached by the way of scrutinizing the meaning found in the text in accordance with the methodology applied by those four dissertations that are available on the subject, i.e. on The mud kings daughter. These examinations do not find that the alleged forms of meaning stated by the dissertations is being produced by the text. On the contrary striking similarities is being found between these alleged forms of meaning on the one hand, and on the other the unfounded, disambiguated meaning that, according to Shoshana Felman, Freudian and anti-Freudian critics alike, have said is to be found in Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw. In a following series of steps – some of which are being taken on Jacques Derrida’s advice – the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity is observed and often found to be enchanting, whereupon the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity is found to be affliction.</p><p>This split between the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity as rather enchanting, and the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity being affliction, is then treated as something that hardly could be understood, and, accordingly, as something that might be understood as something that could not be understood. The idea is being put in that this split could be thought of as an inversion of oblivion into a living memory of a forgotten reading impression, an idea that is being inspired by the inversion of oblivion into a living memory in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time.</p><p>Keywords: Birgitta Trotzig, Shoshana Felman, Jacques Derrida, Marcel Proust, meaning, ambiguity, memory, oblivion.</p>

<p>Äktenskapsbegreppet har under 1990- och 2000-talet varit under het debatt. Debatten har gällt om äktenskapsbegreppet kan innefatta samkönade parrelationer eller inte. I debatten har argument framförts som verkar mena att äktenskapsbegreppet har en absolut bestämd innebörd och att äktenskapsbegreppet därför är någonting givet som människan kan upptäcka. I uppsatsen problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp utifrån två inte helt åtskilda perspektiv, nämligen ett historiskt och ett filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiskt. Historien verkar vittna om att äktenskapsbegreppet har varit under förhandling förr. Att äktenskapsbegreppet faktiskt har varit under förhandling förr indikerar att ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp kanske aldrig har existerat.</p><p>Genom det filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiska perspektivet problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ur detta perspektiv verkar det som om äktenskapsbegreppet varken i sig själv kan vara fullständigt, ha en ursprunglig innebörd, eller vara evigt gällande. Dessutom verkar det inte som om människan kan få direkt tillgång till ett eventuellt absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp.</p><p>Ett alternativ till att äktenskapsbegreppet skulle vara någonting på förhand absolut bestämt presenteras under uppsatsens gång. Alternativet är att äktenskapsbegreppet är någonting av människan konstruerat, d.v.s. en mänsklig konstruktion. Innebörden i äktenskapsbegreppet är ur det perspektivet inte absolut bestämt utan istället provisoriskt bestämt.</p><p>Idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och idén om att vissa människor skulle kunna få direkt tillgång till detta leder uppsatsen vidare till dess avslutande diskussion om fundamentalism. Idén om att det skulle existera absolut bestämda begrepp, som t.ex. ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och att vissa människor skulle kunna ha direkt tillgång till dessa verkar nämligen ha ett fundamentalistiskt karaktärsdrag i sig. Detta kan vara en fara i ljuset av att människor faktiskt inte är överens.</p>

The following inquiry begins with one simple question: who is the margin? In other words, what is the referent of the term margin? Is it possible for language to capture connotations of an intended and supposed reality beyond its own limits? My supposition is that margin is a valuable concept to critical studies of the hegemonic order and dominant culture in various contexts. It is therefore necessary to expose the term itself to a critical analysis by attempting to trace its position in different discourses. The intention is to illustrate that the term margin is not merely an abstraction, confined within the framework of intricate theoretical rhetoric. In a deconstructive analysis of Gender Trouble by Judith Butler and Can the Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, based on the work of Jacques Derrida, I study the significance of the term margin and explore how the use or non-use of concrete examples affects the reception of both the term margin and ultimately the text as a whole. The study of these two texts reveals that some of the very same critique raised by Butler and Spivak is itself applicable to the authors’ own theory production. Consequently, the authority of Butler and Spivak is put to the test through deconstructive analysis by disclosing the discrepancies between concrete examples, the authors’ philosophical stance as well as statements and positions found in other examples of their intellectual work.

Äktenskapsbegreppet har under 1990- och 2000-talet varit under het debatt. Debatten har gällt om äktenskapsbegreppet kan innefatta samkönade parrelationer eller inte. I debatten har argument framförts som verkar mena att äktenskapsbegreppet har en absolut bestämd innebörd och att äktenskapsbegreppet därför är någonting givet som människan kan upptäcka. I uppsatsen problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp utifrån två inte helt åtskilda perspektiv, nämligen ett historiskt och ett filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiskt. Historien verkar vittna om att äktenskapsbegreppet har varit under förhandling förr. Att äktenskapsbegreppet faktiskt har varit under förhandling förr indikerar att ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp kanske aldrig har existerat. Genom det filosofiskt dekonstruktivistiska perspektivet problematiseras idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ur detta perspektiv verkar det som om äktenskapsbegreppet varken i sig själv kan vara fullständigt, ha en ursprunglig innebörd, eller vara evigt gällande. Dessutom verkar det inte som om människan kan få direkt tillgång till ett eventuellt absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp. Ett alternativ till att äktenskapsbegreppet skulle vara någonting på förhand absolut bestämt presenteras under uppsatsens gång. Alternativet är att äktenskapsbegreppet är någonting av människan konstruerat, d.v.s. en mänsklig konstruktion. Innebörden i äktenskapsbegreppet är ur det perspektivet inte absolut bestämt utan istället provisoriskt bestämt. Idén om existensen av ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och idén om att vissa människor skulle kunna få direkt tillgång till detta leder uppsatsen vidare till dess avslutande diskussion om fundamentalism. Idén om att det skulle existera absolut bestämda begrepp, som t.ex. ett absolut bestämt äktenskapsbegrepp och att vissa människor skulle kunna ha direkt tillgång till dessa verkar nämligen ha ett fundamentalistiskt karaktärsdrag i sig. Detta kan vara en fara i ljuset av att människor faktiskt inte är överens.

Dag Wellander: Meaning – memory: oblivion. A reading of Birgitta Trotzig’s The mud kings daughter. Master of Arts paper. Written in Swedish. 115 pp. Department of Literature and History of Ideas, Stockholm University, SE – 106 91 Stockholm The purpose of the paper is to treat one question, including the consequences of it’s answer, the question if The mud kings daughter is a text that has meaning. The question is in a first series of steps being approached by the way of scrutinizing the meaning found in the text in accordance with the methodology applied by those four dissertations that are available on the subject, i.e. on The mud kings daughter. These examinations do not find that the alleged forms of meaning stated by the dissertations is being produced by the text. On the contrary striking similarities is being found between these alleged forms of meaning on the one hand, and on the other the unfounded, disambiguated meaning that, according to Shoshana Felman, Freudian and anti-Freudian critics alike, have said is to be found in Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw. In a following series of steps – some of which are being taken on Jacques Derrida’s advice – the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity is observed and often found to be enchanting, whereupon the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity is found to be affliction. This split between the rhetorical functioning of the textual ambiguity as rather enchanting, and the rhetorical necessity of the textual ambiguity being affliction, is then treated as something that hardly could be understood, and, accordingly, as something that might be understood as something that could not be understood. The idea is being put in that this split could be thought of as an inversion of oblivion into a living memory of a forgotten reading impression, an idea that is being inspired by the inversion of oblivion into a living memory in Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. Keywords: Birgitta Trotzig, Shoshana Felman, Jacques Derrida, Marcel Proust, meaning, ambiguity, memory, oblivion.

Den allvarsamma leken (1912) by Hjalmar Söderberg has been regarded as one of the greatest love novels of Swedish literature. The story about Arvid Stjärnblom and Lydia Stille and their extramarital love is marked by timeless universality. In this essay, I will examine this notion of love as a prediscursive value, by means pro¬vided by foremost poststructuralist theory. With Derrida’s conception of deconstruction, the analysis will reveal the constructedness of the true love in Söderbergs novel. Examinating typi¬cal logocentric binarisms the essay will show that the notion of true love is constituting a term in an oppositional relation with, in this specific case, the marriage sanctioned by society. This binarism is itself founded with the same principles as the by Derrida much disputed opposi¬tional pair of the spoken and written word. Further, with true love understood as a discursive construction, the inquiry will show that this construction presuppose the notion of the public and private spheres of bourgeois society, where the public is reserved for the male and the private for the female. This will lead to a discussion of the constructedness status of sex and gender, which will show that the love ex¬pressed in the relationship of Arvid and Lydia is to be understood as a considerable part of heterosexual matrix, that is, the regulative framework which, according to Judith Butler, consti¬tute the rules for how intelligible sex and gender is to be produced.

<p>Den allvarsamma leken (1912) by Hjalmar Söderberg has been regarded as one of the greatest love novels of Swedish literature. The story about Arvid Stjärnblom and Lydia Stille and their extramarital love is marked by timeless universality.</p><p>In this essay, I will examine this notion of love as a prediscursive value, by means pro¬vided by foremost poststructuralist theory. With Derrida’s conception of deconstruction, the analysis will reveal the constructedness of the true love in Söderbergs novel. Examinating typi¬cal logocentric binarisms the essay will show that the notion of true love is constituting a term in an oppositional relation with, in this specific case, the marriage sanctioned by society. This binarism is itself founded with the same principles as the by Derrida much disputed opposi¬tional pair of the spoken and written word.</p><p>Further, with true love understood as a discursive construction, the inquiry will show that this construction presuppose the notion of the public and private spheres of bourgeois society, where the public is reserved for the male and the private for the female. This will lead to a discussion of the constructedness status of sex and gender, which will show that the love ex¬pressed in the relationship of Arvid and Lydia is to be understood as a considerable part of heterosexual matrix, that is, the regulative framework which, according to Judith Butler, consti¬tute the rules for how intelligible sex and gender is to be produced.</p>

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

By framing his deconstruction of Plato’s Phaedrus and Timaeus as a response to Platonism, Jacques Derrida overlooks the possibility of a Platonic philosophy beyond dogma and doctrine. This thesis argues that Derrida’s deconstructions target a particularly Platonist abstraction of the dialogues, and thus, his critique relies on the underlying assumption that Plato defends the metaphysics of presence. Derrida attempts to show how the thesis that Being is presence undermines itself in both dialogues through hints of différance like pharmakon and khôra. To answer the Derridean critique, I analyze the hermeneutics of Derrida’s deconstruction of Plato and identify what in the dialogues lies beyond the limits Derrida’s reading, for example Derrida’s notable exclusion of ἔρως.