Post-structuralism questioned rather than affirmed the reduction of everything to language.
Evidence
I don’t think these people who are sort of working with speed-reading and criticism by hearsay have tumbled onto the fact yet that these three names, and a general movement after structuralism, was precisely to question the privileging of language and to question the notion that the best way to understand everything was to reduce it to sign-systems. This is something that I think has still to be brought to people’s attention. I think in the case of Derrida that the word “text,” although it has been the robust notion of text, coming from textile, texere, rather than the already secondary text, verbal text; although this has been explained in one way or another for the last thirty years, the criticism-by-hearsay groups still launch this as a regular kind of very holier-than-thou [laughter] kind of critique—constantly! — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2389
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies that Derrida’s ‘text’ derives from textile/texere and denotes a woven textuality broader than verbal language.
- XREF: Connects to the anti-reductionist reading of Derrida’s ‘il n’y a pas de hors-texte’ relevant to Spivak’s own account of textuality. — connects to: The discursive perspective reintroduces non-unitary subjectivity that structuralism had abolished; Poststructuralist theory is itself a postmodernist symptom, not a neutral tool — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 63; Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 88 (+1 more)
- QUESTION: Useful corrective tracing how ‘strategic essentialism’ itself may suffer a similar hearsay flattening — parallels to the claim about critics by hearsay.
Broader Connections
- The discursive perspective reintroduces non-unitary subjectivity that structuralism had abolished
#expands(0.80) - Post-structuralist philosophy rejected lived experience and active human subjects
#contradicts(0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 88 - Poststructuralist concepts drop the ideological dimension that social analysis needs.
#contradicts(0.80) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 722 - Poststructuralist theory is itself a postmodernist symptom, not a neutral tool
#complicates(0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 63