Hi ave4444,
It's always good to see some people interested in philosophy! The more
reading you do the easier it all gets to understand, so hopefully some
of the links I provide you with will spark your interest and inspire
you to keep reading!
Firstly: a brief background on Derrida, his attitudes and ideas can be
found at
http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/derrida/
http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/phil/philo/phils/derrida.html notes that
"His critique of the referentiality of language and the objectivity of
structures founded the school of criticism called deconstruction .
Among his highly influential works are De la Grammatologie (1967, Of
Grammatology), L'écriture et la différence (1967, Writing and
Difference), and La dissémination (1972, Dissemination). His essay
Apories appeared in 1996." All of these texts are worth checking out.
Now, on to your question!
http://www.colorado.edu/English/ENGL2012Klages/1derrida.html contains
a good introduction to Derrida and the idea of deconstructionism and
the philosophical context out of which it arose. If you don't feel
like reading what happened prior to Derrida (it's interesting and may
help you understand), skip down to the paragraph that begins after the
points made under the 'STRUCTURALISM' heading.
A discussion of deconstructionism by non-professional philosophers
(people like you and me) is here:
http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/deconstruct.htm
Sometimes it helps to read what non-academics have to say,and the
language is easier to understand in any case!
A term you'll come accross in your reading of Derrida is
'diffe`rance', a very good explanation of this term can be found at
http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/diffr.html Appologies for my
not being able to place the accent above the e.
Of course, Amazon.com is a great source of books by, and on the
philosophy of, Jaques Derrida. The list I got by searching for Derrida
under 'books' is here:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/102-9716899-2104132
Of particular interest is his "Of Grammatology", which is considered a
classic and his defining works. Perhaps "Derrida in 90 minutes" by
Paul Strathern would be a useful accompanyment to this? If you don't
wish to purchase a book, I would be happy to locate any title you wish
in your local university library - you just need to tell me where you
live.
'Phallo' (phallic), as you probably know, is a term commonly used in
reference to the penis, although it may apply to any other sex organ.
Unsurprisingly, phallodeconstructionism doesn't return any results in
the Google search engine. Searching for phallo on its own results in
advice about interesting surgeries and some pornographic websites.
Having read the texts of the websites above, you should have
aggregated a fair amount of knowledge as to how deconstructionism
'works' - and I'm sure you can guess how this applies to sex, and
penises particularly. Think about the assumptions made about people
who have and don't have penises, the notions of powe associated with
them, the meaning(s) ascribed to sex...
If there's anything you need clarified, or need more detail about,
please don't hesitate to ask.
shananigans-ga
***
Search terms: +jaques +derrida +deconstructionism in Google search
engine, derrida in Hippias search engine (hippias' results for
'derrida' are located at
http://hippias.evansville.edu/search.cgi?derrida ) |
