This thesis is centrally concerned with the texts of Jacques Derrida that have addressed directly the theme of sexual difference. Yet to say the thesis is centrally concerned with a philosophy that positions itself clearly as one that deconstructs centrality and its trajectory of return, is to face the crisis or chiasmus of my concern. The thesis is not returned to Derrida. If the question of feminism for Derrida is a question from the margins, from interruptions, of the trace and of la cendre, ashes, the question of sexual difference is primordially and originarily that of the undecidability of the name, signatory, and textual border. She would not have appeared here. Therefore she cannot return. There are two frames to this research that can be recognized in the chapter sequence of the thesis. Initially I develop a preparatory engagement to a questioning of the ontology of sexual difference, with Chapters 2 and 3, with a questioning that broaches the metaphysics of the feminine with respect to the texts of Derrida, Heidegger and Cixous in particular and further engages with Écriture Féminine, Levinas and feminist responses to Heidegger and Levinas. However, this broader questioning is undertaken in order to develop a sharper focus on the writings of Derrida that address Heidegger’s ontological difference, Levinas’s ethics before being, and a more originary questioning of sexual difference. The second frame and predominant focus of the thesis is on Derrida’s approach to the metaphysics of the feminine with four pivotal texts by Derrida from the late 1970s and early 1980s examined in Chapters 4 to 7. Each addresses a questioning of difference and the metaphysical tradition, under difference’s many names: ontological difference, sexual difference, différance, and engages deconstruction’s encounters with Nietzsche & Heidegger (Spurs); the psychoanalysts Abraham & Torok (“Fors”); Levinas (“At This Very Moment in This Work Here I Am”) and Hegel (Glas). In bringing together these four texts, my aim is to emphasize the significance of a double deconstructive movement of transgression and restoration, as this research’s politico-ethical acts of writing and reading for an otherwise discourse on sexual difference. This otherwise discourse has always already been produced with phallogocentrism and remains critical for the inventing of thresholds across philosophy, literature and their others. The ashen Preface enkindles a paradigmatic figure as deconstructive trace of sexual difference in writing and reading practices. A Postscript questions the binding to institutional laws constitutive of disciplinary practice while the fiery trace in Derrida’s writing on Kafka’s law concludes on the ash-laden edges of Blanchot’s unavowable work.

This thesis is centrally concerned with the texts of Jacques Derrida that have addressed directly the theme of sexual difference. Yet to say the thesis is centrally concerned with a philosophy that positions itself clearly as one that deconstructs centrality and its trajectory of return, is to face the crisis or chiasmus of my concern. The thesis is not returned to Derrida. If the question of feminism for Derrida is a question from the margins, from interruptions, of the trace and of la cendre, ashes, the question of sexual difference is primordially and originarily that of the undecidability of the name, signatory, and textual border. She would not have appeared here. Therefore she cannot return. There are two frames to this research that can be recognized in the chapter sequence of the thesis. Initially I develop a preparatory engagement to a questioning of the ontology of sexual difference, with Chapters 2 and 3, with a questioning that broaches the metaphysics of the feminine with respect to the texts of Derrida, Heidegger and Cixous in particular and further engages with Écriture Féminine, Levinas and feminist responses to Heidegger and Levinas. However, this broader questioning is undertaken in order to develop a sharper focus on the writings of Derrida that address Heidegger’s ontological difference, Levinas’s ethics before being, and a more originary questioning of sexual difference. The second frame and predominant focus of the thesis is on Derrida’s approach to the metaphysics of the feminine with four pivotal texts by Derrida from the late 1970s and early 1980s examined in Chapters 4 to 7. Each addresses a questioning of difference and the metaphysical tradition, under difference’s many names: ontological difference, sexual difference, différance, and engages deconstruction’s encounters with Nietzsche & Heidegger (Spurs); the psychoanalysts Abraham & Torok (“Fors”); Levinas (“At This Very Moment in This Work Here I Am”) and Hegel (Glas). In bringing together these four texts, my aim is to emphasize the significance of a double deconstructive movement of transgression and restoration, as this research’s politico-ethical acts of writing and reading for an otherwise discourse on sexual difference. This otherwise discourse has always already been produced with phallogocentrism and remains critical for the inventing of thresholds across philosophy, literature and their others. The ashen Preface enkindles a paradigmatic figure as deconstructive trace of sexual difference in writing and reading practices. A Postscript questions the binding to institutional laws constitutive of disciplinary practice while the fiery trace in Derrida’s writing on Kafka’s law concludes on the ash-laden edges of Blanchot’s unavowable work.

<p>Thomas Pynchon’s <em>V.</em> is often criticized for its preoccupation with meaninglessness and the  inability to make sense of ‘who’ or ‘what’ <em>V</em>. is about. The failure to make sense of <em>V</em>. is thematized within the novel particularly during the sacred moments or epiphanies which critics describe as ‘bizarre’, ‘disturbing’ or ‘unsettling’. These sacred moments raise issues that cannot be answered by traditional tools. Yet, critics and readers have responded to the novel with readings that reinscribe conventional modes of making sense and show a resistance to the inadequacy of traditional tools. This dissertation examines how Pynchon undermines modernist notions of the sacred moment as “moments of vision” which yield a higher knowledge or revelation. I argue that the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. allude to George Bataille’s notion of waste within a restricted and general economy. The violence of the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. are examined in relation to waste, sacrifice, the erotic, the inanimate, sovereignty and laughter. I conclude that rather than bringing about death, entropy and apocalyptic endings, the epiphanies’ violence and wasteful expenditure reveal the power structures at work in the literary use of the sacred. Paradoxically, the necessary existence of wasteful expenditure increases sense-making and offers the critic/reader the possibility of confronting waste, “the accursed share”.</p>

本論文研究的是巴塔耶的普遍經濟論，它主要分四部分來探討。它首先從時間的瞬間性和能量的耗費兩個原理出發來說明什麼是普遍經濟。接著說明的是聖世界與俗世界二分的原理，這又可分兩部分來討論。從勞動與消盡的第一組對立可以產生聖俗的區分判隼，一者是勞動的超越性世界，一者是獻祭暴力的內在性世界。從禁忌與越度的第二組對立可以導出聖俗的再次區分，一者是禁忌所管轄的俗世界，一者是人性逾越的歡慶狀態。此外，普遍經濟論可以充分說明各種笑的型態，最終導向對超越的虛無性的笑。最末，本論文從死亡共同體的角度提出一種普遍經濟的友情論。 / This study is to discuss the theory of general economy of Georges Bataille. The argument falls into four parts. First, it accounts for what general economy means by inspecting two principles: that of instant and that of expenditure. Next, the discussion goes to what separates the sacred from the profane world. On the one hand, the profane world is dominated by work and labor which make it transcendent while the sacred immanent world is liberated from within by the representation of sacrificial violence. On the other hand, while the taboo has a command of the profane, human beings achieve and celebrate their sovereignty by transgressing the interdiction. Then, the discussion shows that general economy can have sufficient and satisfactory explanation of the morphology of laughter. Finally, it proposes a new meaning of friendship from the economic view.

Thomas Pynchon’s V. is often criticized for its preoccupation with meaninglessness and the  inability to make sense of ‘who’ or ‘what’ V. is about. The failure to make sense of V. is thematized within the novel particularly during the sacred moments or epiphanies which critics describe as ‘bizarre’, ‘disturbing’ or ‘unsettling’. These sacred moments raise issues that cannot be answered by traditional tools. Yet, critics and readers have responded to the novel with readings that reinscribe conventional modes of making sense and show a resistance to the inadequacy of traditional tools. This dissertation examines how Pynchon undermines modernist notions of the sacred moment as “moments of vision” which yield a higher knowledge or revelation. I argue that the sacred moments in V. allude to George Bataille’s notion of waste within a restricted and general economy. The violence of the sacred moments in V. are examined in relation to waste, sacrifice, the erotic, the inanimate, sovereignty and laughter. I conclude that rather than bringing about death, entropy and apocalyptic endings, the epiphanies’ violence and wasteful expenditure reveal the power structures at work in the literary use of the sacred. Paradoxically, the necessary existence of wasteful expenditure increases sense-making and offers the critic/reader the possibility of confronting waste, “the accursed share”.