Re: again ?
WILL HOCHMAN (hochman@uscolo.edu)
Thu, 02 Jul 1998 10:56:34 -0600 (MDT)
On Thu, 2 Jul 1998, Scottie Bowman wrote:
>
> '...One of the things I admire most about deconstruction
> is the way it sublimates the authority of the author...'
>
> What does that mean, Will ?
>
> Scottie B.
>
Deconstruction focuses "on relationships of language, knowledge, meaning
and interpreation . The particular emphasis of Deconstruction is that it
seeks to unwind the thread of authority in a text" I wrote in my l994 NYU
dissertation. Maybe David Leith says it better in his book,
_Deconstructive Criticism_ :
"As a mode of textual theory and analysis, contemporary _Deconstruction_
subverts almost everything in the tradition, putting in question received
ideas of the sign and language, the text, the context, the author, the
reader, the role of history, the work of interpretation, and the forms
of critical writing."
I think your response to Matt's good q about where art ends and crit
begins was not respecting the wisdom of Matt's q, perhaps because you lack
the critical background to really see what he was implying. So before we
play artist vs. critic (a game deconstructed beautifully by Geofrey
Hartman in his book, _Criticism in the Wilderness_), I have to ask you
Scottie if you have read much critical theory in the last few decades, or
if you just like to take pot shots at it?
will