I can frighten all by mentioning Derrida's concept of "hauntology": which I understand not a whit. Or indeed wight haha.
Ghosts are often granted more power than the living. -- mark s (mar...), July 30th, 2001.
is the one search item.
this week's voice says that hauntology is so hot right now, it has something to do with music, but fucked if i know what it is, or which bands confirm the concept for those pop-lovin' theory-heads out there.
― Real Goths Don't Wear Black (Enrique), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 11:54 (eighteen years ago) link
the ppl on the dissensus thread seem to be using hauntology to mean 'spooky' and nothing much more, or less - not. v. useful/helpful, imho
i guess i have taken it to mean a LINGERING presence/reminder/trace of something that has otherwise been erased, or has vanished - cultures, ideas, feelings, people. dub, esp. chain reaction/maurizio style dub, seems the most obv example (but yknow did we really need another name for eg. early Palace albs or 70s 'oceanic' Miles??)
I'm sure there's more to Derrida's use/coining of the word, but if it perplexes mark s I don't fancy my chances...
― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 12:13 (eighteen years ago) link
two years pass...
alex thomson wrote this on thread Favourite Literary Critics on board I Love Everything on Jul 26, 2001
OK, I re-read the review this morning. (I'm presuming it's the same one that's reprinted in _Ghostly Demarcations_.) TE's main argument seems to be that JD's philosophising is fine but his politics are crude and simplistic. Secondary points are that JD has only turned to Marx now that it's uncool -- Marx has become so marginal he is acceptable to deconstruction; that Derrida's deconstruction has always been political and therefore better than Yale deconstruction; that Derrida is being opportunistic in turning to Marx now (where was he when we needed him); that the criticism of Fukuyama is a bit obvious really.
My major response to these criticisms, and I'm elaborating / drawing on Derrida's own response ('Marx and Sons'; see also _Marx en Jeu_) here, is a question of context. This is the text of a lecture which Derrida was invited to give. Yes he decided to accept, but the timing -- and the conference title 'Whither Marxism' -- were not his choice. Yes, Derrida himself comments in _Specters_ on the untimely timing of the lecture, but it is at least in part an attempt to re- invigorate "a certain spirit of Marxism" for precisely this reason. It is not, as TE implies, an attempt to claim Marx for deconstruction. Yes, the political position is sketchy, but a convincing context for _Specters_ can be constructed with the aid of the texts around it -- _Politics of Friendship_; 'Force of Law'; 'Passions' -- and Derrida's continued contestation of Heidegger. On this basis, _Specters_ can be made to make sense. I personally don't feel that the ideas are put over particularly clearly in this text, but there is a seriously interesting sketch of a deconstructive politics emerging in it, even if the questions of justice, hospitality, democracy-to-come, hauntology and the critique of historicism are all better presented elsewhere. TE concerns hinself with none of this, relying on anecdotal evidence and polemics instead.
TE is also slightly wrong about Yale deconstruction. I agree with the thrust of his argument, but Derrida has never disowned *anything* done under the name of 'deconstruction.' To do so would precisely undermine his claim that there can be no *proper* inheritance -- of Marxism, of Heidegger, of deconstruction. It's become common to oppose 'French' deconstruction to 'American' deconstruction, but this is generally too crude a division. Besides, the work of Nancy and Lacoue-Labarte, for example, while 'deconstructive' also diverges significantly from that of Derrida. There is certainly a Marxian problematic buried within de Man's work -- there is an essay missing from _Aesthetic Ideology_ on Marx; PdM's debt to Benjamin is crucial; there are interesting correlations between de Man and Althusser on 'ideology'. Moreover, you may not agree with Hillis Miller (I can't stand his work) but there is *a* politics to it.
The sad fact is that there is generally very little useful secondary commentary on Derrida's work. . I'm generally appalled by the standards of mis-representation from those unsympathetic to his work, and obfuscation by those who are sympathetic to it. _Specters_ is a frustrating but powerful text, but it should be approached with caution.
the actual first mention.
It's become common to oppose 'French' deconstruction to 'American' deconstruction, but this is generally too crude a division.
^^ this is an excellent point: it' a binary opposition sorely in need of deconstruction.
― special guest stars mark bronson, Friday, 30 January 2009 14:08 (fifteen years ago) link
one month passes...
nine months pass...
twelve years pass...