An analysis of Ernest Buckler's novel The Mountain and the Valley using Jacques Derrida's theoretical perspectives on the nature of writing as supplement. David Canaan is a writer who dreams of writing the perfect novel: his failed dream reveals that writing cannot capture perfection or presence.

Derrida’s deconstruction of the philosophic tradition shows us not only the importance of pursuit of knowledge, but also the importance of questioning the assumptions on which such a pursuit is based. He argues that the metaphysical tradition is built from the privileging of the logos (speech, thought, and logic,) over it’s opposite, and while Derrida does not object to the societal results of such a privileging, he questions why we allow ourselves to make such an assumption in the investigation of the origin event, and in the nature of reality. I chose to study deconstruction because through the course of my studies at Claremont I found myself raising similar objections to the philosophic tradition, and have a great interest in the arts and culture resulting from deconstructionist philosophy. Through my study I’ve learned to better examine not only the reasons for my own interest in philosophy and the arts, but the importance (or un-importance) of such a pursuit. I believe Derrida’s work could be important in teaching us the absurdity of sacred pursuit, and the importance of finding said sacredness in everything.

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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.

La translittération est la transcription, signe par signe, d’un système d’écriture vers un autre. Relevant à la fois de l’histoire, de la linguistique et de la science des écritures – ou grammatologie –, ce travail vise à dégager les enjeux de la notion récente de translittération, appliquée à une période où elle n’était pas encore formulée ainsi, la Renaissance française. Il délimite les domaines respectifs de la translittération, de la transcription, de la traduction et du saut de code. Cette thèse prend pour point de départ les découvertes récentes sur l’hébreu dans l’humanisme français et met à profit les avancées en archéologie et en sciences cognitives concernant l’histoire de l’alphabet latin et son appréhension par ses utilisateurs. Elle s’appuie sur un corpus d’alphabets, de grammaires et de bibles du XVIe siècle pour mettre en relation les dimensions diachronique et diatopique des systèmes d’écriture. Elle montre que la pratique de la conversion d’écriture s’appuie moins sur les caractéristiques de l’écriture d’origine que sur une extension considérable de l’écriture d’arrivée. / Transliteration is the transcription sign by sign from a writing system to another. Being a matter of history, linguistics and study of writing systems – or grammatology – this work aims at identifying the issues of the quite recent notion of transliteration, as applied to a period when it was not formulated in this way, the French Renaissance. It delineates the respective fields of transliteration, transcription, translation and code-switching. This thesis takes as a starting point the recent findings on Hebrew in the French humanism and makes use of the advances in archeology and in cognitive science regarding the history of the Latin alphabet and its understanding by its users. It relies on a corpus of alphabets, grammars and bibles of the 16th century to link the diachronic and diatopic dimensions of writing systems. It shows that conversion of scripts as a practice relies less on the specific features of the source script than on a considerable extension of the target script.

This research project explores the creative and critical functions of editing in art, film and writing. The written component analyses the histories and discourses of 'cutting and splicing' to examine their various roles in processes of signification. The artistic practice uses more speculative and open-ended methods to explore the social 'languages' that inform our inter-subjective experiences. This project argues that editing is a creative methodology for making meaning, because it allows existing symbolic systems to be appropriated, revised and rewritten. By emphasising the operations of spacing, questioning and play, it also identifies editing as an essential tool for critically engaging with the potentials of art and theory.