Derrida: Philosophy of Language, Misc

Donald Davidson denies that there are incommensurable scientific languages: languages which cannot be translated into our contemporary language. What about Derrida? What is his perspective on this matter? This paper presents a broadly Derridean objection to Susan Carey’s argument for incommensurability.

In this 2004 interview — translated into English and published in its entirety for the first time — Jacques Derrida reflects upon his practices of writing and teaching, about the community of his readers, and explores questions related to corporeity and textuality, sexual difference, desire, politics, Marxism, violence, truth, interpretation, and translation. In the course of the interview, Derrida discusses the work of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Maurice Blanchot, Hélène Cixous, Jean Genet, Paul Celan, and many others.

Amidst the constantly augmenting gastronomic capital of celebrity chefs, this study scrutinizes from a critical discourse analytic angle how Jamie Oliver has managed to carve a global brand identity through a process that is termed (dis)placed branding. A roadmap is furnished as to how Italy as place brand and Italianness are discursively articulated, (dis)placed and appropriated in Jamie Oliver’s travelogues which are reflected in his global brand identity. By enriching the CDA methodological toolbox with a deconstructive reading strategy, it is (...) shown that Oliver’s celebrity equity ultimately boils down to supplementing the localized meaning of place of origin with a simulacral, hyperreal place of origin. In this manner, the celebrity’s recipes become more original than the original or doubly original. The (dis)placed branding process that is outlined in the face of Oliver’s global branding strategy is critically discussed with reference to the employed discursive strategies, lexicogrammatical and multimodal choices. (shrink)

The dissertation conducts an aesthetic inquiry that allows both Hermeneutics and Deconstruction to support a new reading of the Modernist text. Chapters one and two examine how both schools of thought oppose Kant's aesthetic theory to the question of artistic truth and also offer critiques of modernity that sustain postmodern conceptions of Modernism. Chapters three and four relate this discussion to the development of the Modernist text and the function of the self in Modernist poetry. -/- Chapter one centers around (...) Gadamer's conception of the work of art as discussed in Truth and Method. Gadamer's criticism of Kant is presented on the basis of a reading of Heidegger that favors a new conception of artistic truth. Structure and experience are re-defined with respect to the possibility of self-understanding. Vattimo's interpretation of history is then offered as the key to a postmodern approach to Hermeneutics. -/- Chapter two emphasizes Derrida's contribution to the theory of the text as an alternative to Hermeneutics. The limitations of Kant's aesthetic theory emerge in terms of the linguistic notion of differance. Derrida's discussion of Heidegger's conception of art entails a dialogue between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction. This dialogue, however, was anticipated by Nietzsche, who also figures as a forerunner of Modernism. Finally, Lyotard's postmodern aesthetics involves a new view of Modernism. -/- Chapter three explores the hidden structure of the Modernist text on the basis of four "archeological" surveys. Mallarme and Rimbaud are identified with different but compatible versions of Modernism. Eliot's interpretation of Hamlet is contrasted with the content of his early poetry. Eliot and Pound are then shown to have appropriated Dante in the use of epic writing. The function of the self in Joyce's Ulysses ultimately supports a semiotic reading of the Modernist text. -/- Chapter four offers readings of Modernist poetry that clarify the relationship between Deconstruction and poetic truth. The poetry of Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens demonstrates the Modernist poet's advance from aesthetics to history and also the dynamic structure of Modernist form. Ashbery's poetry provides the final occasion for a philosophical challenge to Modernist precedent. (shrink)