Derrida Post Class

Without question, Derrida was the author I have had the most trouble with this semester, so I think it is important to go back and reflect on our in class discussion of his work in order to illustrate a couple key points I thought were significant. I think the most essential part of our discussion came in part due to Derrida’s multiple connections to a number of our previous theorists and how his theory summed up much what we have already explored throughout the semester. First, we can look at Derrida’s idea that language exists as a system, in which a word’s meaning is only constructed in relation to other words and the context in which exist. This notion of system is reminiscent of Foucault because it is a system that depends on the intertextuality in which a “systematic play of differences” abounds (127). This idea of difference can be directly connected to Zizek’s notion of Othering, a notion that pits ‘us’ versus ‘them,’ and in relation to Derrida, suggests everything (or rather everyone) is about difference. This is, of course, a concept borrowed from Edward Said’s Orientalism, and it can be said, us a reflection of Derrida, that language, not just people, is about Otherism. Moreover, with Derrida comes the advent of “differAnce,” which he declares is a term that is multivalent, meaning it may have many values assigned to it. “Multivalence” is an extremely important concept for Charles Jenks and his study of postmodern architecture, architecture that is often the culmination of many different origins, different styles, and a reflection of different historical themes. Both authors, Jenks and Derrida, take to heart the postmodern tendency of destabilization in which everything, whether it be a word’s meaning or an architect’s style, is fluid and always up to change. Along with traces of Jenks, Zizek, and Foucault, Derrida also makes a clear connection to our literary theorist Pierre Macharay in his expression that it is an absolute impossibility for anything to be conceived outside of the text and, as a result, there is no way to escape. Beyond simply literature, this can all be traced backed to Althussar’s theory of ideology, and the fact that, in the end, no one can get out of this overbearing system. Clearly, although I might have not been able to completely grasp Derrida in and of himself, like his own theory, I can understand him in relation to many of our other theorists, and his theory in the context of our previous discussions.