Deconstruction Is/In America: A New Sense of the Political

by Anselm Haverkamp, H. R. Dodge

Overview

What impact has deconstruction had on the way we read American culture? And how is American culture itself peculiarly deconstructive?

To address these questions, this volume brings together some of the most provocative thinkers associated with deconstruction, among them Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, and Avital Ronnel. Ranging across a wide field, from the ethics of reading to the rhetoric of performance, the contributors offer provocative insights into a new sense of the political. The America of the volume's title turns out to be the place where the politics and poetics of responsibility meet. It is also the place where we confront the tension between difference and profound otherness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814773161
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	01/01/1995
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	274
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Anselm Haverkamp is Professor of English and Director of the Poetics Institute at New York University.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Deconstruction is not like foreign imports now 'made in America' but claims a more original relation to American literary and critical thought. These essays, which include a fascinating deconstructive analysis of a recent Supreme Court decision on hate speech, are engaging and provocative dispatches from practitioners of this controversial movement, and take up crucial issues in architecture, law, feminism, philosophy and literature."

-Geoffrey Hartman,English and Comparative Literature, Yale University

"Written by some of the most accomplished critical theorists in the world, including Derrida himself, Deconstruction is/in America is more of a celebration than a defense. Excellently edited, {Niko, I think this is a dangling participle - KS} one reads of new horizons and of fresh dislocations. The resilience and pointedness of the contributions set the tone for the volume as a whole."

-Henry Sussman,author of Afterimages of Modernity

It has become common to speak of deconstruction as having been simply displaced by political concerns. The essays in this volume seek to bring out what was—dare I say?—always already political in deconstruction, while at the same time suggesting that politics is, or could be, deconstructive. Deconstruction Is/In America offers a provocative vision of a different politics."

-Steven Rendall,Editor, Comparative Literature

Editorial Reviews

Addresses what impact deconstruction has had on the way we read American culture and how American culture might be itself peculiarly deconstructive. Contains 18 essays by prominent thinkers associated with deconstruction, among them Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, and Avital Ronell. Lacks an index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

It has become common to speak of deconstruction as having been simply displaced by political concerns. The essays in this volume seek to bring out what was—dare I say?—always already political in deconstruction, while at the same time suggesting that politics is, or could be, deconstructive. Deconstruction Is/In America offers a provocative vision of a different politics."

-Steven Rendall,Editor, Comparative Literature

"Deconstruction is not like foreign imports now 'made in America' but claims a more original relation to American literary and critical thought. These essays, which include a fascinating deconstructive analysis of a recent Supreme Court decision on hate speech, are engaging and provocative dispatches from practitioners of this controversial movement, and take up crucial issues in architecture, law, feminism, philosophy and literature."

-Geoffrey Hartman,English and Comparative Literature, Yale University

"Written by some of the most accomplished critical theorists in the world, including Derrida himself, Deconstruction is/in America is more of a celebration than a defense. Excellently edited, {Niko, I think this is a dangling participle - KS} one reads of new horizons and of fresh dislocations. The resilience and pointedness of the contributions set the tone for the volume as a whole."

-Henry Sussman,author of Afterimages of Modernity

From the Publisher