Warning: this might be the most challenging essay we read all term. It is characteristic of the “poststructualist” work of literary “deconstructionists” (like Derrida, Paul de Man, the late J. Hillis Miller, and Barbara Johnson). As such, it is steeped in the long history of Western philosophy from Plato to the present, it embraces a playful relationship to language that is fun if you know the “rules” and reference points but quite frustrating for novices, and it is extremely sophisticated, taking the insights of Nietzsche, Saussure, and others and giving them another turn of the screw (at least).

Here, Derrida is reflecting on what he perceived as an “event” or “rupture” in cultural history (he delivered the paper in 1966, so we might see this language as anticipating the revolutionary events on a global scale that characterize 1968), one that has many thinkers posing foundational questions about the nature of reality and our knowledge of it. The questions you might consider are below. I’ll also refer you to an excellent gloss of the argument here and the actually fantastic Wikipedia entry on the essay as well.

The essay starts, after a brief gesture towards the historical “rupture” or “event” of 1968, with a long riff on the problem of the “center” in structuralist thinking. By “structuralism,” JD means the intellectual tradition that grew out of de Saussure’s theory of “semiotics” around 1900, a tradition that gave us structuralist literary analysis (Jakobson), anthropology (Geertz, Levi-Strauss), musicology (Guenter Schueller), etc. How does this mode of analysis, for Derrida, posit a “center” to ground its work, and what are some of the problems that this “center” or “centering” creates?

1. The essay starts with a long riff on the problem of the “center” in structuralist thinking. By “structuralism,” JD means the intellectual tradition that grew out of de Saussure’s theory of “semiotics” around 1900, a tradition that gave us structuralist literary analysis (Jakobson), anthropology (Geertz, Levi-Strauss), musicology (Guenter Schueller), etc. How does this mode of analysis, for Derrida, posit a “center” to ground its work, and what are some of the problems that this “center” or “centering” creates?
2. What does Derrida mean by the “play” of the structure? Why is play so important to Derrida? Is there such a thing as “play” outside of the structure?
3. On pp. 280-1, JD wrestles with the question, when did the “center” get decentered? He resists the impulse to give it a date or credit an individual, but he does mention our old friend Nietzsche, our soon-to-be acquaintance Freud, and Heidegger as well. All of these thinkers, in different ways, have questioned the integrity of a “center” that grounds their systems (“metaphysics” for N and Heidegger, the integrity of the self or psyche for Freud). What are some problems he identifies with these prior attempts to “decenter” the idea of a stable structural point to ground systems of thought?
4. From 282 onward, JD engages in a strenuous critique of the pioneering anthropologist (JD uses the term “ethologist”) Claude Levi-Strauss. Why is Levi-Strauss so relevant for the topic of the “center” in structuralist analysis? Take a close look at JDs reading of Levi-Strauss’s discussion of the “incest prohibition” that’s common to all cultures. How does the seemingly universal prohibition of incest create theoretical problems for Levi-Strauss?
5. What are the “two paths” available to Levi-Strauss, once he confronts the implications of the universality of the incest taboo? Which one does he take, according to JD? What are the dis/advantages of this “path” in JDs view?
6. What is a “bricoleur” and what is an “engineer” in Levi-Strauss’s famous formulation? What does JD do with the idea of the “bricoleur” to put pressure on Levi-Strauss’s methodology?
7. To (re) state the fundamental problem facing Levi-Strauss, both in JD view and in Levi-Strauss’s own, to a great extent, the “language” of anthropology claims priority as a “metalanguage” that can analyze the various semiotic “languages” of the people being studied. Thus, I can write books on kinship practices among (say) Inuits, explaining the “inner meaning” of their marriage rituals in my “neutral” or “master” or “meta” language of anthropology. But what if, as L-S puts it, “my book on myths is itself a kind of myth” (287)? What does JD say about this problem?
8. What are the “two interpretations of interpretation” that close the essay? Which thinkers are associated with each interpretation? How does each engage the themes of the “supplement” and of “play”?