Request for some assistance

[Ric Knowles]

Hi Conrad,

Hmmm. It's the whole book. It's maybe most clear (if he can ever be accused of clarity) in the chapter on Saussure (pages 27-73 in Spivak's translation). But right off the top (page 3) he talks about the "ethnocentrism" of a structuralist logic that privileges phonetic writing as the supposed record of some mythical "originary" speech that is the supposed language of civilization and intelligence and the basis of metaphysics, while disregarding ideographic or pictographic writing traditions that have nothing to do with phonetics. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sorry, but I think you gotta read the whole book (and Spivak's amazing introduction to it).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ric

Editor, Theatre Journal
Professor of Theatre Studies
University of Guelph
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Conrad Alexandrowicz" <conrada at UVIC.CA>
To: CANDRAMA at LISTSERV.UNB.CA
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 4:52:46 PM
Subject: Request for some assistance

Attention all you Derridettes!

I'm revising an article about my SSHRC-funded project concerned with staging poetry, which is mostly complete, and I need to address the issue of the historical privileging of speech over writing. I gather M. Derrida dealt with this extensively in De la Grammatologie.

Could someone do me the great favour of pointing out where in this massive and daunting slab of text this topic is addressed?

Much appreciated,

--
Conrad Alexandrowicz, Associate Professor
Movement, Acting and Devised Physical Theatre
Department of Theatre
University of Victoria

Cell: 250.580.5524
Office: 250.853.3727