Re: deconstruction v. genealogy

On Wed, 23 Aug 1995, Sam Vagenas wrote:

>
> There is obviously a different approach in Derrida and de Man than Foucault
> and Baudrillard. The former spend time analyzing in far greater depth the
> text than the latter whose interest in institution, power, and cultural
> practices take the far afield from the text.
>
>
Sam,

I know I'm splitting hairs, but that's what this discussion is, it seems
to me, largely about. The importance of this hair splitting *might* be
apparent in my response to your next post. I think that textual
deconstruction (or literary deconstruction) naturally has a different
object of inquiry, but with a similar "approach." I see literary
deconstruction as providing an allegory for the sort of work that
Baudrillard and Foucault do, for they treat institutions, power, and
cultural practices *like* a text. The benefits of deconstruction, I
think, is the self-reflexive energy with which it makes us think about
HOW we read (reading as opposed to consciousness as there vehicle for
change [or whatever])

Erik

Erik D. Lindberg
Dept. of English and Comparative Lit.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Milwaukee, WI 53211
email: edl@xxxxxxxxxxx


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