De Construction and Poststructuralism

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Literary/Cultural Theory provides concise and lucid introductions to a range of key concepts and theorists in contemporary literary and cultural theory. Each book in the series presents students of humanities and social sciences with exhaustive overviews of theories and theorists, while also introducing them to the mechanics of reading literary/cultural texts using critical tools.

This volume is a concise introduction to the critical theories of deconstruction and poststructuralism. It traces the emergence of these theories, and discusses and critically evaluates thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Levi-Strauss, among many others. Deconstruction and Poststructuralism familiarises readers with all major developments in these fields, and their use in critically evaluating a broad range of texts. The book is an invaluable guide to students of literature, history, cultural studies and other related fields.

Bibhash Choudhury is Professor of English at Gauhati University, Assam. His publications include English Social and Cultural History, Beyond Cartography: The Contemporary South Asian Novel in English and Reading Postcolonial Theory.

Deconstruction as a term emerged in twentieth-century critical theory primarily through the writings of Jacques Derrida across a series of texts, where he referred to it either by example or by drawing out the processes that enable us to see it at work in culture, literature and other discourses. It is commonplace to situate the emergence of deconstruction in the context of some of Derrida's early writings where we see its engagement across genres, genres; which he continued to focus on in his prolific writing career. In texts dealing with seemingly disparate subjects such as mourning and travel, or translation and law, Derrida worked on the relevance of play in textuality, which is an important aspect of deconstruction.

Usually in approaching a subject one starts with the process of definition. Definition is a framing procedure through which the subject or concept is placed and evaluated. Deconstruction, however, is not something which submits itself to definition in a completely closed sense. Derrida argues that 'definition' is limiting in nature as it involves closure. That is why in approaching the question "What is deconstruction?', Derrida refrains from giving an answer that would tie it up in a neat package, as it would entail a form of reduction. This is because deconstruction seeks to demonstrate how meaning is provisional and relative to how one assesses a text. In an interview on the subject, Derrida observed that there is 'no "applied" deconstruction' (Brannigan, et al. 217) because it is not something that can be deciphered by means of any formula. He states that it refers to subjects or concepts whose aporia opens up the many dimensions relating to it. 'Aporia' is a Greek word which refers to an experience of irreducibility as it cannot be subsumed by mere opposites within a concept or a text (Aporias 14). When we consider a subject or a concept, Derrida argues, there is a tendency to look for meaning, which is a form of 'totalization' In Derrida's view, this process of totalisation closes off other possibilities that the text itself can facilitate. In other words, deconstruction refers to the recognition of a text's generative ability to go beyond its immediate and apparent structure.