Getting Ready to Have Read Derrida

English 399 Web Assignment 1 • April 14, 2004

text: Jacques Derrida, Dissemination

This assignment is divided into three parts.

First Task: How does Barbara Johnson define or elaborate on the following terms or phrases or questions in her "Translator's Introduction" to Dissemination?
p. viii

1. Western Metaphysics
2. binary oppositions ("dichotomies or polarities")

  • What oppositions does she list?
  • What is the value or function of the second binary term?
  • What is the value or function of the first binary term?

3. Being
4. Privilege of spoken word over written word
p. ix
 

   5. logocentrism

   6. Why is the very possibility of opposing the two terms of binary oppositions an illusion?

   7. What is language according to Saussure?
   8. différance
   9. grammatology
pp. x-xiii

10. Why is Derrida uncomfortable?
11. trace
12. supplements
13. writing and masturbation
14. presence vs. absence
15. supplement
16. What does Derrida's reading of Rousseau show? (p. xiii)
17. What does Derrida mean by saying that there is no outside of the text?
p. xiv

18. How are the words "deconstruction" and "analysis" related? (p. xiv)
19. How does the deconstruction of a text proceed?
p. xv

21. critique

p. xvi

22. The four assumptions of a deconstructive reading

Second Task:

Now read Johnson's summary of Derrida's moves in "Plato's Pharmacy" (pp. xxiv-xxvi).

Third Task:

Now read the following web site:
For more help see: English 399 Derrida Links

George Hartley • English 399 • Ohio University • Athens, Ohio