Abstract not available

This thesis examines the politics of deconstruction within the interdisciplinary field of Women’s Studies and the question as to whether deconstruction has a politics, or can enhance the political goals of western feminism. This thesis argues that philosophy, and deconstruction in particular, is extremely useful for re-thinking feminist issues, especially around subjectivity and agency, but is not always seen to be so by some Australian feminists. As a result, Australian feminism, like feminism in other Anglophone countries, founded on the dichotomy of sameness-difference, has run out of theoretical and political steam. This thesis explores deconstruction within feminist debates and practices from the mid-1980s to present. In exploring both the contribution of deconstruction to rethinking difference and agency, and the failure on the part of most Australian women’s studies programs to apply the full potential of deconstruction, an argument is put forward for the value of deconstruction as a way of rethinking the question of woman’s subordination. While this is not a new area of study, this thesis focuses on the political efficacy of deconstruction, which is not always directly addressed in feminist texts. The first three chapters focus on the ways deconstruction has been interpreted, often negatively, by Anglo feminists or feminists in the English speaking world. It identifies the central issues taken up by feminist critics of deconstruction; argues that confusion has arisen largely due to interpretative misunderstandings of Derrida’s central tenets; and presents an elucidation of the radical potential of deconstruction for a feminist politics, especially in relation to female subjectivity. The last two chapters turn their attention to the debates over the meaning of deconstruction and the ways deconstruction entered the academy in Australia through Women’s Studies courses. They examine the specific discursive and institutional frameworks that aided or impeded the critical reception of new theoretical directions in Australia; argue that deconstruction entered Australian feminist discourse mainly in response to a dissatisfaction with the philosophy of Marxism/socialism; and detail major influences and theoretical works that made possible a more positive reception of deconstructive tenets within Australian feminism. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the crosscurrents between Australian and international feminist philosophy and outlines how deconstruction might continue to advance feminist understandings of subjectivity and enhance feminist practice. / Thesis(Ph.D.)-- School of Social Sciences, 2007.

Ce texte d'accompagnement a pour but de rendre compte de l'expérimentation de la mise en implication de la déconstruction derridienne et de certains de ses concepts constitutifs dans le processus de mise en chantier de deux sphères fondamentales de l'activité théâtrale, soit l'écriture du texte et la mise en scène, à partir de matériaux textuels existants. Ce mémoire cherche donc à témoigner de la trace de la déconstruction et de l'espace que celle-ci a occupé dans le processus de réécriture et d'adaptation de trois oeuvres (Hamlet, Faust et Punch) ainsi que dans le processus d'élaboration de la mise en scène de cette adaptation. Cette adaptation sous forme de lecture croisée et ce compte rendu de la trace qu'occupe la déconstruction dans notre processus de création sont précédés d'une étude non-exhaustive de la déconstruction comme concept philosophique général, puis comme protocole de lecture et enfin en tant que possible principe moteur à la création d'une oeuvre théâtrale multidisciplinaire ou pluridisciplinaire. Pour réaliser l'étude, Derrida (l'homme et le philosophe) et le parcours de sa pensée à travers ses oeuvres sont au préalable présentés. Puis, la déconstruction est définie de manière générale, ensuite précisée en fonction de son contexte théâtral d'utilisation, et enfin disséminée en neuf concepts ou groupes concepts constitutifs jugés essentiels à l'expérimentation : le joint et le dis-joint, la marge, la trace, la ruine, le texte, la différance, la spectralité, le cadre et la signature. Dans ce document, certaines hypothèses découlent de l'emploi de ces concepts dans le processus d'écriture (ou de réécriture) dramaturgique et de mise en scène, la principale étant que la déconstruction, par le protocole de mise en lecture qu'elle implique, oriente la création en s'avérant génératrice de nouvelles écritures, donc libératrice de nouveaux sens. Il va de soi qu'elle engage une certaine responsabilité du créateur face aux oeuvres qu'il déconstruit, c'est-à-dire non pas celle de la relecture, mais bel et bien celle de la lecture, de la lecture active et responsable, propice à la création d'une oeuvre de théâtre transdisciplinaire. L'utilisation de l'exemple déconstructionnisté de Glas de Jacques Derrida comme expérience d'analyse et d'écriture en lecture croisée contribue également à l'encadrement de l'expérimentation d'un point de vue formel. Le texte Et cetera de Derrida servira quant à lui de guide idéologique à notre définition de la déconstruction derridienne. Afin de définir et de cerner plus avant la déconstruction derridienne, ses concepts constitutifs et leurs possibilités de mise en influence sur le processus d'écriture (ou de réécriture), qu'il soit dramaturgique ou scénique, les travaux de plusieurs auteurs comme Marc Goldschmit, Stratos E. Constantinidis, Nathalie Roelens, Peter Brunette, David Wills, Béatrice Picon-Vallin, André Green, André Dabezies et bien sûr Derrida lui-même (avec principalement Glas et Et Cetera) serviront d'assises théoriques à l'analyse. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Derrida, Déconstruction, Hamlet, Faust, Punch, Théâtre multidisciplinaire, Interdisciplinarité.

This thesis examines how context in Derridean signature theory is taboo and underutilized, and calls signature theory to embrace the contaminating mark of context. Signature theory, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Peggy Kamuf, offers a mere glimpse into Romanticism’s strained relationship with the signature, with a close reading limited to Rousseau. This thesis widens the scope of existing signature scholarship, and expands the context of the signature by focusing on a variety of signatures, events and contexts to reveal that the slipperiness of the signature is a pervasive problem, irreducible to simply just Rousseau. This thesis does not involve a return to the origin, or a search for origins; Part I is a return to the period which Derridean signature theory investigates, in an attempt to interrogate Derrida, Kamuf, and the signature itself; expanding the concept of the signature through its various manifestations of handwork and linework, and weaving together a more complicated, contaminated, and ultimately convincing context for signature theory to begin (again) from. Part II forces signature theory to begin again by putting it into practice. Here, I take Kamuf to task for her failure to fully ‘contract’ the signature. She completely ignores the physical dimension of the word ‘contract.’ Going one step further than simply critiquing her signature practices, I ‘contract’ the signature by having Derrida’s signature tattooed on my body. The tattoo and its location comment on the current limitations of signature theory, and perhaps of academic practice generally; of contracting without touching, and fearing contexts.

This thesis examines how context in Derridean signature theory is taboo and underutilized, and calls signature theory to embrace the contaminating mark of context. Signature theory, as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Peggy Kamuf, offers a mere glimpse into Romanticism’s strained relationship with the signature, with a close reading limited to Rousseau. This thesis widens the scope of existing signature scholarship, and expands the context of the signature by focusing on a variety of signatures, events and contexts to reveal that the slipperiness of the signature is a pervasive problem, irreducible to simply just Rousseau. This thesis does not involve a return to the origin, or a search for origins; Part I is a return to the period which Derridean signature theory investigates, in an attempt to interrogate Derrida, Kamuf, and the signature itself; expanding the concept of the signature through its various manifestations of handwork and linework, and weaving together a more complicated, contaminated, and ultimately convincing context for signature theory to begin (again) from. Part II forces signature theory to begin again by putting it into practice. Here, I take Kamuf to task for her failure to fully ‘contract’ the signature. She completely ignores the physical dimension of the word ‘contract.’ Going one step further than simply critiquing her signature practices, I ‘contract’ the signature by having Derrida’s signature tattooed on my body. The tattoo and its location comment on the current limitations of signature theory, and perhaps of academic practice generally; of contracting without touching, and fearing contexts.

Texte remanié de : Thèse de doctorat : Philosophie : Paris X - Nanterre : 2004. / Titre provenant de l'écran d'accueil. Pagination de l'édition imprimée, 246 p. Collection de l'édition imprimée : "Ouverture philosophique" Bibliogr. p. [231]-244.

In this thesis, I argue that identity construction is a postal effect: it results from a transmission of some sort, received or sent. I examine three instances of postal effect. In a chapter on Jacques Derrida's "Envois," a collection of fragments presented as if transcribed from a one-way love letter correspondence, I explore the performative force of relayed address. Working from Derrida's account of the literary performative, I point out that the "Envois" letters are addressed to "you" in the singular, which implies an address reserved for a particular subject, but that the postal relay of the collection enacts a repetition of their address. For the reader of the book, this repetition has evocative force which I compare with the force of transference in the context of the psychoanalytic situation. In a second chapter on the "Envois" letters, I examine their haunting effect. The "Envois" letters have an I/we signature that intimates pluralities in the writing subject. I argue that this signature is the effect of a postal relay of another order: a phantom, which Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok define as a gap in the psychic topography of the subject caused by a secret unwittingly received along with a legacy. To a certain extent, the "Envois" letters are written by Plato's "in-voices." In a chapter on J. M. Coetzee's epistolary novel Age of Iron, I explore the gift effects of a posthumous letter. Age of Iron is an epistolary novel consisting exclusively of a single letter written by a dying South African woman, Mrs. Curren, to her daughter, a political objector who has emigrated to the United States. Writing her letter in the knowledge that her death is imminent, Mrs. Curren anticipates her daughter's mourning. Working with J. L. Austin's doctrine of illocutionary forces and Derrida's analysis of the gift event, I postulate two effects of Mrs. Curren's letter, one that annuls the gift in a circular return and another that surpasses this circuit with textual diss

This thesis contributes to critical theoretical interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone. Analyzing texts by Kelly Oliver, Jacques Lacan, and Judith Butler, the thesis demonstrates how the work of these writers re-installs oppositional binarism, the form of thought that undergirds the hierarchical structure of Western metaphysics as exemplified in the dialectical philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. Focusing on texts by Carol Jacobs, Martin Heidegger, and Jacques Derrida, the thesis analyzes the performative effect of Antigone, as sister figure, in the graphics of these works. Employing a deconstructive and performative critical approach, the thesis explores the theoretical productivity of a "sororal" graphics, that, dispersing and subverting binarism, opens the texts and their interpretation to alterity. The thesis demonstrates how critical reading of the performativity of Antigone as sister figure implicates ethicological discussion on justice in relation to family, genre/gender, classification, and inheritance.

Ingolstadt, Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Eichstätt, 2007.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2007. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2858.