Date: Sat, 29 Jun 1996 18:17:58 -0600 (CST) From: dralfonso-AT-msuvx2.memphis.edu Subject: Re: de(con)struction Hey Diane! First: What is a gulag? I have hear this word about lately, but I cannot find it in a dictionary... What follows is brief commentary on your reply, which did give me a good sense of your perspective. (And forgive my breaking into your text...) On Sat, 29 Jun 1996, D. Diane Davis wrote: > When Heidegger strives for the "clearing," he's not striving for an > archemedian point--no such thing. He takes this idea of "clearing away" > from Nietzsche ('shedding')...it's about collapsing our linguistic > guardrails, one by one...a collective PURGING. Cixous calls for much > the same thing--a disgorging, a metaphorical throwing up of "the basic > structures of property relations" ("Castration" 54). Can you give me a fuller cite on the "Castration" article? And O.K., I follow your logic on the Heidegger-Derrida-Cixous trajectory. > .... I understand your reservations about deconstruction and feminism. > B/c you're obviously right--even feminist politics (in its multiplicity > of forms) will not be safe with it. Deconstruction is no respecter of > poly-tics. Everything is vulnerable to it. But, then, french feminists > like Cixous and an early Irigaray were ok with that. And in the states, > Haraway, Ronell, and, as you say, Butler. They just plop what is called > "feminism" right up there on the chopping block with everytyhing else. > And here's why I like that: feminisim has itself grown out of the stuff > deconstruction is busily hacking up. Feminism is inscribed within > phallocracy in the sense that it's an reaction against it and so depends > upon it. If we would like feminism to become more than an answering > machine for an already reactionary phallogocentric mindset, that is, if > we want it to become more than a reaction to a reaction, I think we'll > have to let it take deconstruction's hits and morph itself, shed it's > old bark, accordingly. I like this, and I largely agree. But my question! What are we (feminists) 'seeking to do,' positively, with deconstruction? I don't feel you have replied to this. Just give me an example of a positive/productive moment *you've* witnessed. Or again, what, in your estimation, has been opened up? And please hurry -- we are running out of trees! rita.
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