This question usually arises out of Derridean
deconstruction: what is the relationship between writing and
death? This dissertation, however, explores Jacques
Derrida's evocation of the living-dead for purposes of
theorizing what might be thought of as Derrida's "poetics of
the crypt." The first section, "The First Partition: Without
the Door," proposes the term "cryptomimesis" to describe
how, in Derrida's writing, (the) "crypt" functions as the
model, method and theory of a formal poetics based upon the
fantasy of incorporation. Cryptomimesis is a writing
practice that leads one to understand language and writing
in spatial terms of the crypt-a contradictory topography of
inside/outside. Such writing also produces a radical
psychological model of the individual and collective "self"
configured in terms of phantoms, haunting and (refused)
mourning.
This dissertation also argues that Derrida's poetics of
the crypt exist in a certain relationship of correspondence
with the Gothic and examines how Derrida's writing
intersects or "folds" into that genre, taking as a premise
that each is already inhabited, even haunted, by the other.
Sections such as "'Darling,' It Said": Making a Contract
With the Dead," and "The Question of theTomb," develop this notion of "correspondence" by examining a set of texts
written by two American Gothic writers. The discussion
posits that the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King
give insight into Derrida's preoccupation with inheritance
and legacy while illuminating his concern, in terms of
writing, with the uncanny institution of architecture.
This dissertation attempts to theorize Derrida's
writing practice in spatial terms by drawing upon Nicolas
Abraham and Maria Torok's theory of the phantom and the
crypt. It demonstrates how cryptomimesis involves the
production of an uncanny imaginary space by playing with
thetic referentiality. Final sections, "An Art of Chicanery"
and "Inscribing the Wholly Other: No Fixed Address," develop
the notion that to suspend the thetic relation is to
confound (classical) distinctions between subject and object
or "self" and "other." Above all, this dissertation attempts
to demonstrate how, in Derrida's work, cryptomimesis is
about writing the other and how such writing, predicated
upon revenance and haunting, problematizes notions of the
"subject," "autobiography," and "transference" and,
therefore, problematizes textuality itself. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/6691 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Castricano, Carla Jodey |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 10670651 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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