Hypertext And Derrida - I Link, Therefore I am
Hypertext And Derrida - I Link, Therefore I am
Discovering hypertext radically altered my perspective and perception of Jacques Derrida’s work. Derrida’s writing was not unfamiliar to me before this event but the texts were often difficult to read or ungraspable. I had read about resistance to Derrida’s honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1992, which provoked a strong response in me. I really wanted this man (whom I knew hardly anything about) to get his honorary doctorate and shove it right up the establishment’s derrière. I duly aligned myself (in a rather distorted form of identification) with the apparently disenfranchised and I have wanted to love this man’s work ever since. Deconstruction as a concept was formally introduced to me at undergraduate level, along with logocentrism, différance and sous rature. I am going to discuss these Derridean terms in relation to hypertext and their meaning in relation to me – the beginning of my universe, as I know it. I will argue that the convergence of hypertext and Derrida in contemporary critical theory offers interesting possibilities for the reconstruction of sexual difference in this feminist project.
I will outline hypertext as a concept before I advance a number of connections between Derrida, hypertext and feminism. The Derridean text that provides the main focus for this paper, which I will link to my analysis of hypertext, is Circumfession in Derridabase by Geoffrey Bennington (1993). There are several texts by Derrida, which arguably link more obviously to the concept of hypertext and its ability to demonstrate critical theory. I will elucidate this point about critical theory as I work through the analysis of hypertext. Choosing Circumfession as the primary text for this paper is connected partly to the desire I expressed earlier to “love this man’s work”. The expression of love in Circumfession was a theme that I found compelling and compulsive, to the exclusion of other Derridean texts. Circumfession invited my engagement and attention rather than a detached and clinical investigation of the material. This was a roller coaster ride of an experience that moved, and moved me, in different ways and at varying intervals between the words, but always in a circular motion. It is the circular theme(s) and movement in Derrida’s narrative that I want to explore.
Hypertext and Derrida do not seem out of place in the same sentence; let me explain this statement. George Landow (1993)...