Literature as a mode of thought: Derrida’s institution of différance
In this article, I argue that literature represents a privileged modality for thinking institutionality in Derrida’s work and, moreover, that literature represents a model for institutions. The first section presents Derrida’s understanding of literature as anti-essentialist and a mode of e...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade
2024-01-01
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| Series: | Filozofija i Društvo |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0353-5738/2024/0353-57382404783F.pdf |
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| Summary: | In this article, I argue that literature represents a privileged modality for
thinking institutionality in Derrida’s work and, moreover, that literature
represents a model for institutions. The first section presents Derrida’s
understanding of literature as anti-essentialist and a mode of experience
which resists the transcendence of identity. In the second section, I
propose that literature attends to its own fragility, lacking any definite
foundation or external referent. I then consider the political implications
of this position, demonstrating that literature not only encourages us to
attend to its own fragile foundations, but also the foundations of
socio-political institutions in general. It achieves this attention through
its specific relationship to performative language. In the fourth section, I
argue that literature reveals institutions as an effect of différance;
rather than understanding différance as an infinite delay, institutions
emerge in the process of différance. Literature underscores the
inescapability of institutions. Our aim, as Derrida stresses, should not be
to do away with institutions, but to form a new relation to institutions. I
conclude by outlining some of these implications for literature as an
institution which can serve as a model for the new relation to
institutionality that Derrida valorises. |
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| ISSN: | 0353-5738 2334-8577 |