Abstract

This dissertation investigates the concept of singularity as an alternative to thinking identity and difference within a metaphysical framework, and explores the political and cultural implications of thinking the singular. It takes its point of departure from Jacques Derrida's exposure of the paradox that provides the foundation of identity: identity appears to stand on its own, but in fact requires an opposite term---difference---by which to define itself and maintain its meaning. Derrida not only exposes this paradox but also affirms the impossibility of pure identity as that which is undecidable, imperceptible, and therefore wholly other---in other words, singular. Many commentators of Derrida, among them John D. Caputo, Peggy Kamuf and John Sallis, point to this gesture in deconstruction. I intervene in their reading to show that what deconstruction affirms is not first and foremost the impossibility of presence; what Derrida in fact desires and dreams of is pure presence as such, a recording of the totality of everything without trace or loss. This rereading is important not only because it shows the complexity of Derrida's thought, but because it allows deconstruction to be read in closer affinity with the work of Gilles Deleuze, whose writings on the post-subjective body are general seen as incommensurate with deconstruction. Against the grain, I suggest that Derrida is also a thinker of presence, perception and body. These theoretical elaborations have practical applicability, and the dissertation attempts to locate singularity in cultural and political developments. To this end, I explore singularity in relation to sexual difference and community, the invention of the telephone, the contemporary rise of allergies, and the emergent phenomenon of transsexuality