Deconstruction Research Articles

On the big silent appositive time in dà NP de construction in Chinese: A compositional approach

This article explores the compositionality of [dà NP de] construction in Chinese. The NP should be a direct time-denoting NPtime or an indirect time-denoting NPitime. Following Kayne (2016), we assume there is a silent TIME following de. Meanwhile, a less-discussed use of de—that is, the equational/appositional use of de (Chao 1968), has been revived to link the silent TIME and NPtime/NPitime. This analysis of de helps explain why the NP is preferably time-related, as it is easier for a time-denoting NP to establish an equational/appositional relation with the silent TIME. Dà 'big' is neither a size-denoting adjective, nor an evaluative morpheme. It is analyzed as an element like the restrictive adjective very (e.g., the very book) in English. Dà modifies the appositive conjunction phrase [NP de TIME], bringing emphasis to the construction, which in turn imposes certain semantic and pragmatic constraints on its subsequent clauses.

Pain and glory: Narrative (De)constructions of older gay men in contemporary Spanish culture and cinema

If (older) gay men have recurrently been stereotyped as hypersexual and as sexually voracious, they have also been represented as weak and effeminate, miserable and lonely, and as less manly than their heterosexual counterparts (Goltz, 2014; Freeman, 2010). Quite often, as Goltz reminds us, the two stereotypes intersect, as in classic films such as Death in Venice, Gods and Monsters, or Love and Death on Long Island, to name but a few, where ageism and homophobia combine to judge intergenerational relations as inappropriate and gay characters as “dirty old men” eager to recover their lost youth. Given these negative images, it is no wonder, then, that both youthism and ableism have become part and parcel of contemporary gay culture, which may also be linked to the few positive cultural images available of aging or disabled gay male bodies (Goltz, 2014). Starting off from the assumption that bodies are shaped and reshaped in complex interactions between physical and symbolic dimensions, the paper will demonstrate, however, how (auto)biographical narratives of older gay men, what we call “egodocuments,” may be useful to rethink such traditional (mis)conceptions. Crossing the traditional divide between the Social Sciences and the Humanities, the study will draw on both life stories and film representations of older gay men in Spain, focusing on Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's (2019) latest film, Pain and Glory, as a (semi-)autobiographical re-vision of traditional representations of gay men's aging. While Almodovar's protagonist and alter-ego, Salvador Mallo, appears as “prematurely aged” (Curtis and Thompson, 2015) due to bodily pain and disability, the film also travels back and forth from Mallos's childhood and youth to his maturity. This shows aging not only as a life-course experience, but also helps redefine it as a “queer” rather than linear or “straight” experience (Halberstam), allowing for both “pain and glory” to coexist in old age. Almodóvar's portraiture of gay aging will be compared to the life stories collected in a number of focus groups with Spanish older gay men, which will provide equally complex, varied, and often contradictory narratives.

Epistemic communities in political ecology: critical deconstruction or radical advocacy?

Recent political ecology scholarship appears to be turning towards de-growth agendas and radical activism, notably in Europe. These postures diverge somewhat from the 'classical' political ecological tradition rooted in a critical deconstruction of dominant ideas and actors and field-based analyses. We posit a heuristic distinction between these two impulses. While both are based in critiques (Robbins' 'hatchet'), as far as the 'seed' one impulse leans more towards critical 'deconstruction', the other towards radical 'advocacy.' Through a systemic review of the political ecology literature, we seek to identify and characterize these impulses, link them to epistemic communities of knowledge production, and explain these trends. Our review incorporates qualitative analysis of key texts, as well as quantitative bibliometric and content analysis of Scopus-indexed publications referring to political ecology (1951-2019) and abstracts from all the articles published in Journal of Political Ecology, from POLLEN conferences in Europe (2016, 2018) and from DOPE conferences in the US (2013-2019). Among other things, we find that even if political ecology has long been divided between deconstructivist and advocacy approaches, the second is becoming preeminent since many political ecologists are taking a radical turn, with strong theoretically rooted attacks on the capitalist system taking place. Some political ecological research increasingly positions itself in socio-political debates related to the greening of unjust societies in the First World. This is most prominent in continental European academia (and some English universities), where political ecology is institutionally more marginal; in the remaining British and North American universities, the more deconstructivist impulse is more dominant but also more pluralistic in its orientations.

Unhappy Dialectics

Unhappy Dialectics

DISENTANGLING PERSIANATE SELFHOOD FROM METHODOLOGICAL NATIONALISM

ABSTRACTFrom the twelfth to the nineteenth century, Persian was used as the language of power and learning across Central, South, and West Asia. Mana Kia's Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin before Nationalism, a searching account of selfhood across this vast region, is novel in its use of Derridean deconstruction to distill shared forms of belonging and affiliation during the political disarray of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Kia is part of a growing and important chorus of scholars who are questioning primordialist conceptualizations of identity by challenging widely held assumptions that Persian is a language that has always belonged to Iran or that its use in India was a foreign import, out of place and unnatural. More broadly, Kia's work holds a mirror up to historians of precolonial contexts, encouraging us to think more carefully about the fundamental conceptual and descriptive language that we use to describe how people inhabited those worlds.

A political ecology of aviation and development: an analysis of relations of power and justice in the (de)construction of Nepal's Second International Airport

In this article, we investigate socio-ecological conflicts surrounding the proposed Second International Airport project near Nijgadh, a town in the southern Terai region of Nepal. Praised by the Nepali government as a gamechanger for Nepal's economy, it has come under scrutiny by environmental activists after plans emerged for extensive clearing of the densely forested project site. While public and political debates have focused on the environmental impacts of the project, the area is also home to nearly 8,000 people, most of whom have no formal land rights and belong to Janajati groups, who face displacement. The apparent lack of attention to the project's consequences for local communities raises questions about the safeguarding of their interests. Drawing on justice theories and political ecology, we conducted a case study to investigate the residents' struggle for justice, recognition, and visibility amidst a strong dichotomy of mainstream developmentalist and conservationist discourses. During two months of fieldwork in Nepal, we gathered empirical evidence, including observations, interviews, and project documentation. Our findings suggest that the misrecognition of local communities, particularly in Tangiya Basti, began long before the airport project, and is intertwined with distributive and procedural injustices, reinforced by power asymmetries of various kinds. Overall, we argue that while the airport project is often framed as an environmental conflict, it is also a conflict over claims to social justice and livelihood security.

Deconstruction of the Other Side of Midun's Protagonist in Novel Sengsara Membawa Nikmat by Tulis Sutan Sati: Jaques Derrida's Deconstruction Discourse Analysis

Deconstruction is a form of a refutation of assumptions that have been considered true. This study aims to deconstruct the protagonist Midun in the novel Sengsara Membawa Nikmat by Tulis Sutan Sati that the protagonist is not always true because this novel has a dominant protagonist. Actually, behind the characterization of the protagonist, there are other characters inherent in the character that should not focus on one domination which is considered the focal point of truth. This research uses the critical analysis method with the Derrida deconstruction approach, initiated by Jacques Derrida. This study uses text analysis methods and techniques to understand the characters of Midun in the Sengsara Membawa Nikmat by Tulis Sutan Sati. Although it often appears in the literary space, that is, in a story, there are protagonists and antagonists, even though each character is a character, there is no specificity between the protagonist and the antagonist. The protagonist has a different side or a bad character, and vice versa. The antagonist character also has a good character. The results showed that the main protagonist, Midun has other characters that are not good.

Terror at the Heart of Sleep – Night Terrors, Nancy, and Phenomenology

ABSTRACT Sleep is soothing, silent, and serene, until it is not. Sleep is often troubled, disturbed, or even “disordered” as the medical literature describes it. This paper begins from an extreme form of such disturbance—terrified sleep. Night terrors (pavor nocturnus), in which sleep is violently interrupted, offer important insights into sleep and the methods by which it is studied. The sanitising nature of the medical classification of night terrors as part of a continuum with sleepwalking and yet strikingly distinct from nightmares, leads us into the arms of a more traditional, first-person, phenomenological investigation of night terrors. Without denying the power of both approaches, this paper offers a deconstructive alternative reading of this troubling of sleep through Jean-Luc Nancy’s rethinking of the body, its suffering and materiality. Nancy, and Derrida, help us tarry with the body terrified and trembling in night terrors. First the paper explores the medical incisions within sleep that carve out night terrors, as a delimited phenomenon. This is followed by a consideration of what phenomenology can, and crucially cannot, add to our understanding of night terrors. Next a deconstructive critique of the phenomenological concepts of Leib and Körper is utilised to return to the material body gripped by the night terror. This in turn leads to an alternative account of this parasomnia through a post-Nancean phenomenology of terror as distinct from fear and Angst. The paper closes by drawing out several conclusions about the body, sleep, and phenomenology’s limits when approaching the somnolent.

Поэтика деконструкции текста Р. Йиргля: переводческий аспект

This article explores Reinhard Jirgl’s concept of literary writing, which uses linguistic and textual deconstruction, alphanumeric encoding, and intra- and intertextual strategies. Semiotic and discursive analyses allow identifying lexical, syntactic, and semantic elements of the structural and functional performativity of Jirgl’s texts. His prose exploits the enor­mous poetic potential of the alphanumeric code, the aesthetics of narrative simultaneity and hypertextuality, and the fragmentedness of the agent. The principle of aberrant text produc­tion helps the author stage the process of sense formation and brings to the fore the concept of hierarchical rule destruction, which applies to language, society, and reality. By deconstruct­ing syntax and orthography, Jirgl’s system of language and script generates new senses. It also compels the recipient to destroy customary mental matrices and analyse processes taking place in society. Narrative staging of Jirgl’s texts is performed to identify the main problems that student translators are faced with when decoding the writer’s prose. Rendering a contemporary fic­tional text into a different language requires paying attention to meaning construction and (de)construction, the extralinguistic context, and links and interactions between linguistic and social meanings. Moreover, it is necessary to explore connections between the performa­tive and narrative characteristics of utterances. New literary contexts and the alarmist forms of narrative peculiar to Jirgl’s writing urge the translator to develop specific professional skills and philological competencies.

When is a Qin Tomb not a Qin Tomb? Cultural (De)construction in the Middle Han River Valley

When scholars of early China use terms like "Qin" to interpret archaeological remains, they often conflate three registers of meaning: temporal, political, and cultural. This leads to problematic understandings of history and renders the agency of non-elite people invisible to historical narratives. By conducting exploratory statistical analyses including correspondence and principal component analyses on a cluster of burials from the Wangpo cemetery site in Xiangyang, Hubei, this article demonstrates that the mortuary practices of local communities in the middle Han River valley consisted of much more cultural mixture than current designations suggest. The study proposes an alternative approach to interpreting cemeteries like Wangpo that highlights cultural mixture, leading to a version of history that better incorporates the experiences of non-elites in the formation of early Chinese empire in the middle Han River region.

When is a Qin Tomb not a Qin Tomb? Cultural (De)construction in the Middle Han River Valley

When is a Qin Tomb not a Qin Tomb? Cultural (De)construction in the Middle Han River Valley

AS REPERCUSSÕES DAS AVALIAÇÕES EXTERNAS EM LARGA ESCALA NA ORGANIZAÇÃO DO TRABALHO PEDAGÓGICO: UMA POSSIBILIDADE DE DISCUSSÃO A PARTIR DO ESTÁGIO SUPERVISIONADO

ABSTRACT: This article aims to analyze the presence of large-scale external evaluations in the organization of the pedagogical work of schools oversaw by the mathematics undergraduates from the Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology of São Paulo, Bragança Paulista campus, during their supervised internship, contemplating the reflections created by them from theoretical studies that guided this process. For this purpose, considering the technique of content analysis, 19 reports built in the 2nd semester of 2019 by the undergraduates of the Licentiate Degree in Mathematics were analyzed. It was observed that, during the internships, the undergraduates were faced with the repercussions of external evaluations on the organization of the pedagogical work. Such repercussions permeate the moments of Collective Pedagogical Work Classes (ATPC), Class Councils, Parent-Teacher Meetings, and the planning of activities for students. The analysis of the reports shows that the future teachers reflected on these repercussions about school management, pedagogical practices of teachers, and the training process of students. It is argued that teacher training courses devote time and space to analyze the relationship between assessment and organization of pedagogical work, in order to foster the (de)construction of concepts and practices related to the logic of training and curriculum structure, arising from large-scale external evaluations.

Construções e desconstruções epistemetodológicas de/em uma pesquisa participante - um fazer coletivo com o povo Laklãnõ/Xokleng

ABSTRACT This article presents records of (de)construction, in different times/spaces/places, as experienced in a participatory research study developed with the Laklãnõ/Xokleng people residing in the Indigenous Territory Ibirama, in Santa Catarina, Brazil. The objective is to disclose some traces of the paths, mishaps and theoretical-practical results identified in the study, highlighting the role of indigenous subjects. Along the way, we try to keep the research in the perspective of critical interculturality, recognizing the potential to promote processes of decolonization, as the subjects who participate in the process acquire knowledge about their context and reinterpret it in interactive practices. The experience with participatory research has shown that the commitment to work with populations historically placed in vulnerable conditions by colonial processes should not be limited to the timespan of an academic work in order not to become an instrument of exploitation.

HOW FAR CAN A DEAD AUTHOR GO?

This article centers around the issue of “the death of the author” proposed by Roland Barthes, a French semiologist, in one of his essays. Three novels to a great extent “probabilistic” by two contemporary French novelists are chosen to verify the possibility of the “resurrection” of the author in the blended narratives overloaded with intertextual units both structural and semantic. These novels are: a detective story « La Police des Fleurs, des Arbres et des Forểts » by Romaun Puertolas, a “semiotic” detective novel « Qui a tué Roland Barthes ? La septième fonction du langage » by Laurent Binet and his “would-have-been” « Civilization ». The methodology rests upon Derridean deconstruction including « diffrance » principle, based upon two ideas: all things defer to the same field and differ at the same time. Several other approaches used concern the interrelation of the categories of the author, text and the reader. These approaches include theories by M. Bakhtin, R. Jakobson, D. Lodge etc. The analysis reveals that a vectoral outline of probable regressive or progressive development shapes the narrative chain. Another property is to be found in the fusion of genre forms, each evolving according to its rules. Communication practices in these novels obtain greater importance than physical events… That tendency in its turn has caused the revival of the Syncretic truth.

REVEALING DAYANG SUMBI’S SHAMEFUL SIDES AND QUESTIONING THE MORAL VALUE OF THE LEGEND OF SANGKURIANG

Indonesia’s folklore has been categorized as parts of sacred legacy. As parts of legacy, they contain moral values which have been passed down through many generations. Therefore, since they have been told and given from one generation to the next generation, societies universally agree that the moral values must not be questioned. Sangkuriang, as an example of folklore, also contains sacred moral value which must be agreed widely and not be criticized. The moral value of the legend of Sangkuriang says that a son must not marry his mother. This moral value is agreed by most Indonesian readers. It is largely approved that Sangkuriang’s mother, named Dayang Sumbi, is struggling and must be supported by the readers. On the other hand, readers have been told to disagree with Sangkuriang. However, by paying close attention, readers can actually find some violence done by Dayang Sumbi and illogical values written within the story of Sangkuriang which ironically have been widely agreed and recognized as universal moral values which must be followed by the society of Indonesia. This paper reveals that Dayang Sumbi is not a role model by applying the Transitivity theory as the linguistic evidences to show her shameful sides. To question and criticize the moral values, the writer applies Derrida Deconstruction. Since this paper aims to describe and analyze the findings in a narrative form, the writer applies qualitative research method. Based on the findings, there were some shameful sides shown by Dayang Sumbi and illogical values within the story.

“She Lives in the Temporary”: Bodies without Organs, “Engendered Opposites,” and Dao-Time in Han Bo’s China Eastern Railway Cycle

Han Bo’s 2011 China Eastern Railway nine-poem cycle begins and ends with the figures of two different women, initiating and then intensifying via the cycle’s structure of a circuit, or loop, a reading of the poems in which conceptual binaries are scrambled and undone. Gender binaries are at the root of the larger structure of binary pairs, and as such gender serves as a particularly intense site of a critique that may be read in coproductive terms by way of both contemporary critical theory and China’s deep philosophical traditions. In this essay’s reading of the poems, modernity—in both Western and Chinese forms—is deconstructed in ways that are legible in terms of aspects of 道 Dao as well as concepts drawn from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. Further in this regard, Kyoo Lee’s analysis of xuanpin (“dark female animal”) in the Daodejing helps bring this deconstructive critique into a space of “ontologically interfused or fermented thoughts” that challenge gender itself as a stable and stabilizing category, positing instead a “contemporized” conception of Dao as ceaseless dynamic flux and flow with respect to gender as well as all received and constructively “natural”-ized binaries. The poems gesture toward a dissolution of conceptual binaries, and further toward a state of generative flux, that is not only obliterative of “modernity” (with an emphasis on time and temporalities) but also radically productive of capacities for new, creative apprehensions and articulations of relations between humankind and nonhuman nature. This analysis has broad application ranging from concrete historical moments and events (the history of the 中东铁路, the China Eastern Railway) to ideological formations, national and civilizational projects and identities, and ongoing planetary ecological crisis. Finally, it points toward possible productive entanglements and fusions of lines of Chinese thought (Dao as an aspect not only of Daoism but also of Confucian thought and, in less direct ways, forms of Chinese Buddhism) with lines of Western philosophical endeavor.

Deconstruction and Reconstruction: How Did Shirley Lim Build Her Asian American Identity on American Soil

Shirley Lim is an Asian American writer of multiple identities. By doing textual analysis of her book Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands, this paper applies deconstructive criticism to analyze Shirley’s identity formation. The puzzling plural form of “homelands” in the subtitle of her memoir is unriddled by detailed demonstration of how Shirley’s wishful thinking about the U.S. was deconstructed and her American identity constructed on the one hand, and how her disillusion of Malaysia was deconstructed and Malaysia as her homeland reconstructed on the other. By taking the initiative to help, Shirley managed to assimilate herself into the American society; by taking the responsibility of her Malaysian family, she retained her Asian bond; on top of that, the two seemingly incompatible elements ---“Asian” and “American” are incorporated and reconciled by Shirley in her own identity building, thus she achieves in becoming an accomplished Asian-American with two homelands.

A Critical Deconstruction of the Okishio Theorem

As part of the literature denying Marx’s Law of Tendency of Rate of Profit to Fall, the Okishio theorem exerts extensive influence. This theorem uses rigorous mathematical methods in an attempt to prove that the introduction of advanced technology in the basic goods sector of capitalism leads inevitably to an increase in the general rate of profit. In the literature criticizing the Okishio theorem, there are two main flaws identified. One is that the literature fails to investigate the validity of the production price, which forms the basis of the theorem. The other is that it does not examine the authenticity of the economic theory underlying the theorem. The analysis set forward here shows that the Okishio theorem’s “production price” amounts to a complete departure from Marx’s definition and is simply a product of the commodity circulation markup. The theorem follows the vulgar components of Smith’s theory of value and Ricardo’s theory of transformation. Okishio does not understand that the decline of the general rate of profit is precisely the compound result of individual capital pursuing excess profit, which represents the “prisoner’s dilemma” of capitalists.

On the big silent appositive time in dà NP de construction in Chinese: A compositional approach.

On the big silent appositive time in dà NP de construction in Chinese: A compositional approach.

The Impact of Deconstruction on the Lithuanian Literary Criticism

In the article I discuss how deconstruction (Jacques Derrida and other Yale School participants) came to Lithuanian literary criticism and how it changed habits of humanitarian thinking during the three decades after independence. The most unusual and radical deconstruction critique of essentialist metaphysical thinking, new terminology (inter-text, elimination of center, footprint, writing, difference, blinding, labyrinth narrative, guest / enemy, etc.) and new strategies for interpreting texts were very important for Lithuanian humanities liberated from Soviet ideology. Literary critics have noticed and discussed the undoubted connection between postmodernist literature and its deconstructive reading.We can find three tendencies in the deconstructive criticism of Lithuanian literature. The first tendency is the interpretation of general theoretical concepts of deconstruction, second tendency - searching the deconstructive features in literary works and the third tendency of criticism, expanding its own self-criticism and self-irony, is discussing chrestomathic and structuralist interpretations of the literary works or deconstructing icons of Soviet culture. We know very well, that many feminist, postcolonial, historiographic, anthropological, or interdisciplinary researches of literature cannot escape the effects of deconstruction.