Preface to New Edition. Preface to First Edition Introduction Chapter 1: Readers and Reading 1. New Fortunes 2. Reading as a Woman 3. Stories of Reading Chapter 2: Deconstruction 1. Writing and Logocentrism 2. Meaning and Iterability 3. Grafts and Graft 4. Institutions and Inversions 5. Critical Consequences Chapter 3: Deconstructive Criticism Bibliography. Index

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism

Worship as Meaning: The liturgical sign (ii)

these American literary representations; and in the seven years since that bibliography has been published, only the single, special issue of Melus devoted to "Asian Perspectives" has taken up the subject.1 The present essay in "reader-response" criticism aims to give Chinese in Hong Kong a voice in response to works of Chinese American literature?particularly The Woman Warrior, M. Butterfly, and The Joy Luck Club?and to draw Chinese American interpretations of Chinese culture and native Chinese interpretations into mutually illuminating relations. An underlying project will be to suggest how in a native Chinese context, no less than in the United States, "contemporary readings of Asian American texts are usually positioned in an ideological and politically charged subtext," as Shirley Geok-lin Lim has argued in one of the metacritical analyses to which I have alluded. These subtexts "cover gender, race, ethnic and class interests, and . . . intersect in multiple combinations."2 The nature and influences of these subtexts differ in a native Chinese context, however. To articulate these differences, the central concept in Jauss's theory of reception?"horizons of expectation"?has been helpful, for with it Jauss suggests that both within a work of literature and intrinsic to an interpretive community that encounters it are backgrounds of assump tions about literature and life that foreground anything new or "other" that becomes inscribed within them. This foregrounding can disturb complacency or defeat expectations; and coming to terms with novelty and alterity, for both writers and readers, involves taking (or refusing) the opportunity "to measure and to broaden the horizon of one's own experience vis-?-vis the other."3 Although many of the patterns of New Literary History, 1996, 27: 313-328

Chinese American Literature Beyond the Horizon

This essay asserts that it is impossible to understand any communica- tive utterance outside the context in which it is uttered. Within this context, I expound a conception of communication based on ideas in information theory and on Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, which provides a theoretical founda- tion for the context dependency of utterances. At the same time, I introduce readers to Luhmann's version of systems theory, which is becoming more and more influential in German literary theory. The view of communication ex- pounded here implies that as all meaning is founded on difference, an utterance can acquire meaning only by differing from other utterances, that is, by negat- ing other positions. Therefore, the context is always part of the utterance; it enters, so to speak, into the utterance. At issue here is a specific type of con- text, a specific axis of difference, correlated with the utterance in a particular way. I try to show exactly how this specific conceptualization of the relation be- tween meaning and context, between communication and difference, is to be understood. First, I discuss the systems theoretical concept of communication and illustrate it with several examples taken largely from political and literary communication. Next, I address the way this concept of communication and difference diverges from (post)structuralist theories, to which it might seem to bear some resemblance. Finally, I examine the difficult question of the relation- ship between communicative utterances, contexts, and their place within social systems, focusing especially on Luhmann's conceptualization of the art system. The first thing the pope asked on his arrival in Chicago was, "Where are the prostitutes in this city? I want to visit them first." A rather surprising

A Systems Theoretical Perspective on Communication

This is an orthodox thesis in that it is a “book”. However, it is also the practice element of the PhD by part-practice; i.e. it is presented as the practice and the theoretical aspects of the PhD submission. In a sense, it stands for a thesis, in which instance it has become a “stereotypical” thesis, a “straw man” at which the theoretical arguments are launched. The written text describes itself as a self-reflexive paradox, using the well known illusion of the duck-rabbit as an example of its undecidable nature. As a “test” for the representatives of the awarding institution the problem set is whether to regard the thesis as art-work or as theoretical exposition. In order to drive the point home a “version” of the thesis is presented with a spine binding on both ends thus making it impossible to open – literally, a “double-bind”. Much of the discussion is centred on current debates over whether “knowledge” can be extracted from art works — that is to say, knowledge that can be communicated and that could be called “reliable” as a pre-requisite for a PhD. The thesis argues that the available literature on the subject seems to be continually “in pursuit” of a satisfactory answer — a pursuit much like that in Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark. Interpretation of art works is the mainstay of this literature and it is the hermeneutical approach that is given most critical attention from a deconstructive angle. The ontological status of “art” is examined as a consequence of the Duchampian readymade, which is often overlooked as the transparency of art works is often assumed in order to “contain” subject-matter that “embodies” knowledge. This, the thesis argues is a non sequitur and only leads to a dissemination of possible, equally valid knowledge claims and is thus a specious epistemological enterprise. By enunciating the thesis as a work of art, there forms a duality of text and object/image where each reinforces the other at the same time as each cancels the other out. The text fictionalizes the art aspect and the art aspect objectifies the text into a kind of calligram. It is anticipated that claims for the irresolvable nature of the “pursuit” lead to a sense of the uncanny which is characterized by repetition (of themes that result in circular arguments) and disembodiment — separating knowledge from aesthetic judgement and separating textual theory from the readymade that calls itself a Thesis.

On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism

Citations

Worship as Meaning: The liturgical sign (ii)

Chinese American Literature Beyond the Horizon

A Systems Theoretical Perspective on Communication

The hunting of the duckrabbit : in pursuit of an aesthetics of knowledge

Pirating human rights

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