the architecture of deconstruction - monoskop...preface xii architecture appears to emerge for the...

The Architecture o f Deconstruction: D errida’s Haunt

M ark Wigley

The M IT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

Fifth prin ting, 1997First M IT Press paperback edition, 1995© 1993 M IT Press

Ml rights reserved. No part o f this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or inform ation storage and retrieval) w ithout permission in w riting from the publisher.

This book was prin ted and bound in the United States o f America.

Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wigley, Mark.The architecture o f deconstruction : Derrida’s haunt / Mark Wigley.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-262-23170-0 (HB), 0-262-73114-2 (PB)1. Deconstruction (Architecture) 2. Derrida, Jacques—Philosophy.

I. T itle.NA682.D43W54 1993 720'. 1—dc20 93-10352

CIP

For Beatriz and Andrea

Any house is a far too complicated, clumsy, fussy, mechanical counterfe it o f the human body . . . The whole in terior is a kind o f stomach that attempts to digest objects . . . The whole life o f the average house, it seems, is a sort o f indigestion. A body in il l repair, suffering indisposition—constant tinkering and doctoring to keep it alive. It is a marvel, we its infesters, do not go insane in it and with it. Perhaps it is a form o f insanity we have to put in it. Lucky we are able to get something else out o f it, thought we do seldom get out o f it alive ourselves.

—Frank Lloyd W right ‘The Cardboard House,” 1931.

Contents

Preface xi

1 The Translation o f Deconstruction 1

2 Unbuilding Architecture 35

3 The Slippery A rt o f Space 59

4 The Domestication o f the House 97

5 Throwing Up Architecture 123

6 Doing the Twist 149

7 Dislocating Space 177

In-Conclusion 205

Notes 221

References 263

Index 273

Preface

In 1985 the architect Bernard Tschumi called Jacques Derrida with an invitation. Architecture called on philosophy. For what? Philosophy? Not simply. The philosopher was asked i f he would be interested in collaborating w ith an architect on the design o f a section o f the Parc de la Vilktte in Paris, a project that already had its own “design-philosophy” and even presented itself as being no more than this philosophy, a conceptual structure rather than a single material form . But clearly the architect thought that something was missing, that there was some kind o f gap in the argument that could be filled by a philosopher, an opening that could be exploited, some kind o f pocket w ithin which another discourse could be elaborated. So Derrida was invited into the space o f the project, and hence the space o f architecture, which is not yet to say an architectural space.

The philosopher accepted the invitation and soon wrote an essay about the project entided Point de folie—maintenant Varchi- tecture in which the architect’s material is at once incorporated, rearranged, and extended, or, rather, the essay inhabits the architect’s material; teasing, testing, tasting, but not judging. In no way presenting itse lf as criticism, the text, in a kind o f strategic transference, assumes the form o f what it describes. It both rehearses many o f the architect’s arguments and literally begins to shape itself according to the spatial logic o f the architectural design in order to articulate the somewhat uneasy relationship between a certain kind o f thinking and a certain kind o f space.

Prefacex ii

Architecture appears to emerge for the first time as a distinct subject in Derrida’s writing. After twenty years, he turns to architecture—or so it would seem.

The essay was first published in the architect’s 1986 collection o f drawings o f the project and then in the philosopher’s 1987 collection o f essays, which includes other writings on architecture. By then Derrida was collaborating with the architect Peter Eisenman in the detailed design o f a particular section o f the La Villette project. He was occupying all the spaces o f that architecture: legal, philosophical, technical, methodological, political, and interpersonal, to name but a few, in addition to what is traditionally considered to be the physical site and whatever m ight be projected onto it or from i t

In accepting the invitation, Derrida’s work changed the architecture it occupied in a number of ways, each of which need to be carefully traced through their various complications and implications. But equally, his writing was changed by this occupation, even i f it was such a brief stopover in what has become an extended itinerary through so many different discourses. The perceived lim its o f both architecture and philosophy were disturbed by a convoluted exchange that, like most designs, took the form o f an extended negotiation. Long after the design was completed, this negotiation is still going on and is opening up on several new fronts. Some of the negotiated changes were temporary and the respective institutional spaces have already been restored and their furniture rearranged to accommodate fam iliar assumptions, but other spaces are, as they say, just not the same.

Spurred by this event, a vigorous discourse has developed around the question o f “deconstruction and architecture” involving many names from both inside and outside the traditional institutional lim its o f architecture and philosophy. Just as a number o f architectural theorists have turned to “deconstructive” theory, theorists o f deconstruction have increasingly turned to “architecture.” A m ultiplicity of exchanges have taken place: conferences, exhibitions, essays, special issues o f journals, books, reviews, interviews, newspaper articles, editorials, debates, letters to the editor, published correspondence, dissertations, research grants, fellowships, architectural projects, architectural criticism,

Prefacex iii

interdisciplinary collaborations, academic appointments and disappointments, and various forms o f censorship. In these ongoing transactions, more aspects o f the respective institutions have been consolidated than have been displaced, and even then some of those displacements have themselves been subsequently institutionalized according to the all too fam iliar economy o f domestication. But still, I th ink a lo t o f im portant work has been done. The philosophers have had a lo t to say to the architects and the architects have had a few surprises fo r the philosophers. Everyone has had to th ink again, and then again. The effects o f this rethinking are considerable, i f not obvious.

It is not possible to sift through all this material here, tracing the elaborate weave o f heterogeneous trajectories to adequately address the question o f “deconstruction and architecture.” My only concern w ill be to trace some o f the preconditions for this engagement, conditions that both made it possible and produced the sense o f an event inasmuch as they are variously brought to the surface, suppressed, or displaced.

Immediately, i t must be noted that this discourse, which began with the question o f deconstruction and architecture and has developed in recent years into other questions in which the word “deconstruction” plays no role, did not simply emerge out o f the public event of Derrida’s involvement in a specific design project On the one hand, several projects o f reading Derrida’s work w ithin architectural discourse were already highly developed and would become increasingly nuanced. On the other hand, the question o f architecture did not simply emerge in Derrida’s work with his first essay “about” architecture. His writing already depended on a certain thinking o f architecture that even surfaces in the word “deconstruction.” So it is necessary to step back, to retrace some steps and identify the role o f architecture in Derrida’s writing before his apparent tu rn to i t The earlier texts need to be reread to locate the architecture that is written into them and cannot be detached, the architecture that makes those texts possible and, indeed, makes the eventual turn to architecture possible, even i f that turn ignores or transforms i t

A t the very least, this involves patiently tracing an interm ittent subtext inscribed w ith in Derrida’s texts and following its indistinct and often circuitous trajectories. I t requires a close atten-

XIVPreface

tion to the letter o f those texts, citing, reciting, repeating, and rehearsing them—not by following their more obvious lines o f argument, but by locating one o f the threads that passes between them and unpicking it see what it holds together, exploring the unique way in which the visible pattern and strength o f Derrida’s writing is maintained by this rarely visible and seemingly tenuous architectural thread.

To step back into Derrida’s work to address this question w ill be, at the same time, to step back into the writings o f Martin Heidegger, not only because Heidegger is perhaps the most rigorous thinker o f the relationship between philosophy and architecture, but also because Derrida’s work is itself an incessant stepping back into Heidegger, and perhaps more than anything else, it is a stepping back into Heidegger’s account o f the necessity o f such a stepping back, an account that is itself presented in architectural terms. And this return to Heidegger needs to be made precisely when it m ight seem riskiest, given the current reexaminations o f his association with National Socialism. But these revisions make the return even more necessary here and now because, as I have argued elsewhere, the question o f architecture is implicated in them at every turn.1

Finally, and more personally, this book is another kind o f stepping back inasmuch as it is a reworking o f my doctoral thesis entitled ‘Jacques Derrida and Architecture: The Deconstructive Possibilities o f Architectural Discourse,” which is a reading o f the architectural argument embedded w ithin Derrida’s work before he addressed architecture as such. When I began to write it in the splendid, i f not monastic, isolation o f New Zealand, architects were not yet interested in deconstruction and deconstructive writers were not yet interested in architecture, and such an interdisciplinary exchange seemed an improbable and overdetermined fantasy, which in some important sense it still is and w ill necessarily remain so. The thesis was finally submitted in 1986 to the University o f Auckland precisely at the time that Derrida had just started to engage with architecture. I subsequendy became involved in many o f the different kinds o f event that have constituted the lively international debate around the question o f deconstruction and architecture. In returning to the thesis, I am

XVPreface

leaving this debate behind, including Derrida’s important contributions to it, in order to reconstruct my original argument, to put it on record, as it were, and to elaborate it by following its course through other texts that Derrida has subsequently published.

Despite the fact that deconstructive discourse has started to speak about architecture, I have rigidly, i f not perversely, maintained my focus on the architecture embedded in that discourse before it does so. I hope this self-imposed restriction, whose brutality to the complex rhythms and nuances o f the discourse cannot be overestimated, opens that discourse to some possibilities it currendy resists or masks. I hope its very narrowness constitutes some kind o f opening.

Earlier versions o f parts o f this text were originally published in the journals Perspecta 23 and Assemblage 8, and the collection Deconstruction and the Visual Arts: A rt, Media, and Architecture. My thanks to the respective editors fo r their criticism. I would also like to thank Melissa Vaughn fo r her sensitive editing; Mike Austin and G ill Mathewson, w ithout whom I could not have finished the original thesis in New Zealand; and my colleagues and students at Princeton University, who since then have helped to construct a space fo r my work.

Above all, I w ill always be indebted to Beatriz Colomina for her intellectual and emotional support, litde o f which is deserved.

1The Translation o f Deconstruction

How then to translate deconstruction in architectural discourse? Perhaps it is too late to ask this prelim inary question. What is le ft to translate? Or, more important, what is always left by translation? Not just le ft behind, but le ft specifically fo r architecture. What remains o f deconstruction fo r architecture? What are the remains that can be located only in architecture, the last resting place o f deconstruction? The question o f translation is always, after all, a question o f survival. Can deconstruction survive architecture?

It is now over twenty years since Derrida’s first books were published. Suddenly his work has started to surface in architectural discourse. This appears to be the last discourse to invoke the name o f Jacques Derrida. Its reading seems the most distant from the original texts, the fina l addition to what is by now a colossal tower o f interpretations, an addition to what has become a disconcertingly stable monument to instability, an addition that marks in some way the beginning o f the end o f deconstruction, its lim it i f not its closure.

After such a long delay—a hesitation whose strategic necessity must be examined here—there is such a haste to read Derrida in architectural discourse. But it is a reading that seems at once obvious and suspect—suspect in its very obviousness. Deconstruction is understood to be unproblematically architectural. There seems to be no translation, just a metaphoric transfer, a straightforward application o f theory from outside architecture to the

The Translation o f Deconstruction2_________________________________

practical domain o f the architectural object. The hesitation does not seem to have been produced by some kind o f internal resistance on the part o f that object. On the contrary, there is no evidence o f work, no task for the translator, no translation—just a literal application, a transliteration. Architecture is understood as a representation o f deconstruction, the material representation o f an abstract idea. The reception o f Derrida’s work seems to follow the classical trajectory from idea to material form, from in itia l theory to fina l practice, from the presence o f a thought to its representation. Architecture, supposedly the most material o f the discourses, seems the most removed from the original work, the most suspect o f the applications, the last application, the representational ornament that cannot in fluence the substantial tradition it is added to, a veneer masking more than it reveals o f the structure beneath. The last layer, just an addition, no translation. Yet.

But how to translate? Architecture can never simply be an addition inasmuch as the idea o f addition is itself architectural. And deconstruction is no more than a subversion o f the architectural logic o f addition that sets in play a certain kind o f thinking about translation. One cannot simply address translation before, outside, or above either deconstruction or architecture. The question immediately becomes complicated. There is no hygienic starting point, no superior logic to apply, no principles to be found in some domain that governs both deconstructive discourse and architectural discourse. Nevertheless, certain exchanges are already occurring between them. Architecture, translation, and deconstruction are already bound together, defining a curious economy whose pathological symptoms can be studied; it becomes a matter o f identifying the logic o f translation already in operation.

Because there is no safe place to begin, one can only enter this ongoing economy and begin to trace its convoluted geometry. This can be done here by locating those points in each discourse at which the others are made thematic, however fleetingly or partially—points where the other comes to the surface. The lines o f argument that surface there are threads that can be forcefully pulled to see where gaps appear elsewhere in the discourse,

Constructive Abuse3__________________

marking covert levels o f entangled relationships that bind superficially discrete areas. These hidden layers are not simply below the surface but are w ithin the surface itself, knotted together to form its texture. To locate them involves a kind o f sideways slippage along barely visible fault lines rather than the traditional scholarly labor o f excavation. As there is nothing above or below the convoluted folds o f the surface, it is a matter o f following some circular line o f inquiry, passing round and round the same small set o f themes, circulating obsessively w ithin the economy being read—within, that is, the surface itself.

Constructive Abuse

The question o f translation most conspicuously surfaces in deconstructive discourse when Derrida’s “Des Tours des Babel,” following Walter Benjamin’s 1923 essay “The Task o f the Translator,” argues that translation is not the transmission, reproduction, or image o f an original meaning that preceded it.1 On the contrary, the very sense o f something original is but an effect o f translation, the translation actually producing what it appears to simply reproduce.

A text, as Benjamin puts it, “calls fo r” a translation that establishes a nostalgia fo r the purity, plenitude, and life it never had. In answering this call, the translation necessarily abuses the text, transforming rather than transmitting i t 2 There is some kind o f gap in the structure o f the text that the translation is called in to cover, to cover precisely by forcing it open even further to liberate what is hidden w ithin that structure. A text is never an organic, unified whole. It is already corrupted, already fissured, inhabited by something “alien.” A translation is not simply a departure from the original that is either violent or faithful, as the original is already internally divided, exiled from itself. Not only is no text ever written in a single language, but each language is itself fractured. Languages and texts are necessarily impure. Always divided, they remain irreducibly foreign to themselves. It is the translation that produces the myth o f purity and, in so doing, subordinates itself as impure. In constructing the original as original, it constructs itse lf as secondary, putting itself


into exile from the very space that it produces. The supplementary translation that appears to be a violation o f the purity o f the work is actually the possibility o f that very sense o f purity. Its violence to the text is therefore a kind o f violent fidelity, a violence called for by the text precisely to construct itself as pure. The abuse o f the text is called for because o f an abuse already going on within that text. The translation actually exploits this internal conflict in order to present the original as unified; the conflict becomes the basis o f its own effacemenL

Furthermore, as Benjamin argues, this faithfully abusive transformation also involves a certain violence to the language o f the translation. Just as the translator must break open the language o f the text to “liberate” what is “imprisoned” within it, the translation must equally “break through the decayed barriers” o f its own language.3 What is liberated from the text is not some fixed meaning, but a “state o f flux” as “alien” to the language o f the translation that releases it as to the text that concealed i t Both languages normally attempt to conceal this unstable movement. Indeed, the concealment constitutes the basic “kinship” that exists between languages that otherwise appear foreign to each other, the “central reciprocal relationship between languages” by which, in the end, they “are not strangers to one another.”4 They only appear foreign to each other inasmuch as they each repress this instability to produce the effect o f languages with discrete, delimited identities. In the end, it is actually the translation itself that becomes “overpowering and alien”5 as it releases that which is normally imprisoned and distorts the apparently secure identity o f each language. Consequently, a text neither lives nor dies in translation. I t does not have some original life-giving intention invested in it by an author, whose presence is either simply revived or substituted by a dead sign. Rather, it “lives on,” it “survives” in a kind o f spectral “afterlife” at a different level than it had before because something buried w ithin has been released.

In elaborating Benjamin’s argument about the basic kinship between languages that seem foreign to each other, Derrida argues that this “survival” [ Uberieben or Fortleben] o f a text in its translation is organized by an unusual kind o f contract that

Constructive Abuse5__________________

ensures that translation is never completed nor completely frustrated.6 The contract sustains the necessarily unfu lfilled promise o f translation, defining a scene o f incomplete translation, an incompletion that binds the languages o f the original and translation in a strange knot, a double bind. Such a convoluted but constitutional bond is not like the negotiable social contracts that appear to organize each language, nor is it the fixed pre-social contract that transcends and coordinates each language dreamed o f by so much o f the philosophical tradition. Neither cultural nor acultural, such contracts exceed cultural transactions without simply being outside them. Each visible negotiable contract that organizes a particular language presupposes such a hidden contract that makes discourse possible, establishing the overt differences between languages while making certain covert exchanges between them not only possible but inevitable.

Such a translation contract is not independent o f the different languages whose economy it organizes. It is always inscribed w ithin them, albeit obliquely. The visible gap between languages actually passes through each one. And not only is each “original” already divided, but translation is occurring across those divisions. It is only inasmuch as each is always divided, inhabited by the other and constantly negotiating w ith it, that translation is possible.7 In fact, i t is the less visible translation going on w ithin a language that makes any visible translation between it and a language outside it possible, which is to say that one language is never simply outside the other. Translation occurs across a gap folded within rather than simply between each language. The fissures that divide any text are actually folds that bind them to that which appears to be outside them, and it is precisely these folds that constitute the texts as such, producing the very sense o f an inside and an outside that they subvert. In the end, the contract is no more than the strange geometry o f these folds, the convoluted organization o f the cracks that structure a discourse.

In these terms, any translation between deconstruction and architecture does not simply occur between the texts o f philosophical discourse and those o f architectural discourse. Rather, it occupies and organizes both discourses. W ithin each there is at least an ongoing architectural translation o f philosophy and a

The Translation o f Deconstruction6_________________________________

philosophical translation o f architecture. To translate deconstruction in architectural discourse is not, therefore, to faithfully recover some original undivided sense o f deconstruction.8 Rather, it must be one o f the abuses o f Derrida’s texts that constitutes them as originals. To translate deconstruction in architectural discourse is to examine the gaps in deconstructive discourse that demand an architectural translation in order to constitute those texts as deconstructive in the first place. The architectural translation o f deconstruction, which appears to be the last-minute, last-gasp application, turns out to be part o f the very production o f deconstructive discourse from the beginning, an ongoing event organized by the terms o f an ancient contract between architecture and philosophy that is inscribed w ithin the structure o f both discourses. And to think o f such a contract here w ill not only be to think o f architecture as the possibility o f deconstruction, but likewise to th ink o f deconstruction as the possibility o f architecture.

In the end, to translate deconstruction here w ill be to unearth what it is o f architecture that both philosophical and architectural discourse attempt to bury and yet depend on: the irreducible strangeness o f architecture that must be concealed by a range o f institutional practices central to both discourses and yet also protected by them because its survival is actually their very possibility—no matter how much they disavow its existence. Indeed, it is precisely the intensity and repetition o f the disavowals that marks its structural role. To exhume these repressed qualities o f architecture w ill necessarily render the very fam iliarity o f these discourses forever strange. This w ill turn out to be at once a question o f the strange architecture that haunts the discourses that work so hard to entomb it and o f the strange architecture o f the tomb they construct fo r it.

The Edifice Complex Revisited

A prelim inary sketch o f this haunting scene o f translation can be drawn here by developing Martin Heidegger’s account o f the idiosyncratic relationship between architecture and philosophy. A certain thinking o f architecture is central to Heidegger’s work.

The Edifice Complex Revisited7______________________________

I t is not that he simply theorizes architecture as such, but that theorizing is itse lf understood in architectural terms. As is well known, one the most famous o f his later essays, “Building, Dwelling, Thinking,”9 literally identifies thinking with building. In fact, this identification is already written into his earliest work and, even then, he argues there that it is not so much his identification as that of the ancient and ongoing tradition o f philosophy he is interrogating.

Heidegger often direcdy and indirectly addresses the way in which philosophy repeatedly and insistendy describes itself as a kind o f architecture. He points, for example, to the way Im manuel Kant’s Critique o f Pure Reason describes metaphysics as an “edifice” erected on secure “foundations” laid on the most stable “ground.” Kant criticizes previous philosophers fo r their tendency to “complete its speculative structures as speedily as may be, and only afterwards to enquire whether these foundations are reliable.”10 The edifice o f metaphysics has fallen apart and is “in ruins” because it has been erected on “groundless assertions” unquestioningly inherited from the philosophical tradition. To restore a secure foundation, the Critique starts the “thorough preparation of the ground”11 with the “clearing, as it were, and levelling o f what has hitherto been wasteground.”12 The edifice o f metaphysics is understood as a grounded structure.

For Heidegger, the tradition o f metaphysics has always understood itself as a kind o f building, even before it started explicitly describing itself in these terms when Rene Descartes depicted philosophy as the construction o f an edifice, a sound structure erected on stable, well-grounded foundations, a description that would then be institutionalized, most conspicuously by the writings o f Kant. Heidegger argues that Kant’s explicit attempt to lay the foundations fo r a building is the necessary task o f all metaphysics. The question o f metaphysics has always been that o f the ground on which things stand, even though it has only been explicitly formulated in these terms in the modern period inaugurated by Descartes. Metaphysics is no more than the attempt to locate the ground. Its history is that o f a succession o f different names (logos, ratio, arche, and so on) fo r the ground.

The Translation o f Deconstruction8_______________________________

Furthermore, Heidegger argues that philosophy’s original but increasingly forgotten object, “Being” [San], is also a kind of construction, a “presencing” [Anwesenheit] through “standing” [stehen]. Each o f philosophy’s successive terms for “ground” [Grand] designates “Being,” understood as “presence.” Metaphysics is the identification o f the ground as “supporting presence” for whatever stands like an edifice. I t searches for “that upon which everything rests, what is always there for every being as its support.”13 Indeed, fo r Heidegger, metaphysics is no more than the definition o f ground as “support.”

In the terms o f Heidegger’s argument, it would seem that there is some kind o f symptomatic transference between philosophy, as an institution that constructs arguments like a building is constructed, and the object it analyzes. A t the very least, philosophy identifies with its object, seeing itself as a construction that reveals the construction o f Being, not by simply representing that construction but by presenting its essential condition. The rules that organize the institutional practices o f philosophy supposedly are provided by its object rather than by any sociopolitical system, which is to say that philosophy’s rules are not institutional. Philosophy, in the strictest sense, does not even think o f itself as an institution. The figure o f architecture is therefore not simply one figure among the others that it chooses to employ. More than just philosophy’s figure o f itself, it is the figure by which that institution effaces its own institutional condition, an effacement that paradoxically defines philosophy’s particular institutional location and sociopolitical function. It is philosophy’s claim on that which precedes or exceeds the social that gives it unique social authority—the authority, precisely, to define and regulate the social. From the beginning, philosophy has represented itself as a source, storehouse, and arbitrator of order. This representation would not be possible w ithout the architectural figure, which is to say a very particular figure of architecture, one that always has to be protected from damage even, i f not especially, when it is not being explicidy invoked. Maintained in working order even when it is being held in reserve, the figure is always operative in the discourse and actually exerts the greatest force when in reserve. Philosophical dis-

The Edifice Complex Revisited9______________________________

course is more indebted to this architectural figure than it could ever say, even when it does become explicit. Indeed, the real force o f the figure lies in those o f its operations that philosophy cannot address.

When the figure does surface, it is that o f presentation. Philosophy’s structure supposedly emerges from and thereby presents the ground. The figure o f the edifice, the grounded structure, is that o f a standing up that presents. On the one hand, philosophy is the construction o f propositions that stand up, and the ability o f its constructs to stand is determined by the condition o f the ground, its supporting presence. On the other hand, philosophy is the question o f what the ground w ill withstand, o f what can stand on the ground. For Heidegger, the “fundamental” question o f metaphysics (why there are beings rather than nothing) asks o f a being “on what does it stand?”14 In both cases—philosophy and its object—standing up through construction makes visible the condition o f the ground. An edifice is that which manifests grounding, that which exhibits the ground to an eye.

Consequendy, philosophy’s successive relayings o f the foundations do not preserve a single, defined edifice on ever more stable footings. Rather, i t is a matter o f dismanding the foundations o f a traditional edifice un til it “begins to totter”15 and its structure cracks open, establishing the possibility o f a different building. The form o f the edifice changes as the ground changes. Having cleared the ground, for example, Kant must reassess its load-bearing capacity and, as he puts it, “lay down the complete architectonic plan” o f a new philosophy to “build upon this foundation.”16 The edifice must be redesigned. Re-laying the foundations establishes the possibility o f a different edifice. For Heidegger, who begins his most extended reading o f Kant’s Critique by arguing that philosophy’s central activity is “best illustrated i f we consider the building trade,” the laying o f the foundation is the “architectonic circumscription and delineation o f the inner possibility o f metaphysics” through an interrogation o f the condition o f the ground. This interrogation involves the “projection” of a “building plan,” the tracing o f an outline, the drawing, the designing o f an edifice, the drawing o f the design

The Translation o f Deconstruction10________________________________

out o f the ground.17 Interrogating the condition o f the ground defines certain architectonic lim its, structural constraints w ithin which the philosopher must work as a designer. The philosopher is first and foremost an architect, endlessly attempting to produce a grounded structure.

The history o f philosophy is therefore that o f a series o f substitutions for structure. Every reference to structure, no matter how oblique, is a reference to an edifice erected on, and marked by, the ground, an edifice from which the ground cannot be removed. As Derrida observes, when beginning a reading o f Levi-Strauss:

It would be easy enough to show that the concept o f structure and even the word “structure” itself are as old as the episterm—that is to say as old as Western science and Western philosophy—and that the ir roots thrust deep in to the soil o f ordinary language, into whose deepest recesses the episteme plunges in order to gather them up and to make them part o f itself in a metaphorical displacement. Nevertheless, . . . structure—or rather the structurality o f structure—although it has always been at work, has always been neutralized or reduced, and this by a process giving it a center or o f referring it to a point o f presence, a fixed origin. The function o f this center was not only to orient, balance, and organize the structure—one cannot in fact conceive o f an unorganized structure—but above all to make sure that the organizing principle o f the structure would lim it what we m ight call the play o f the structure. . . . The concept o f centered structure is in fact the concept o f a play based on a fundamental ground, a play constituted on the basis o f a fundamental im m obility and a reassuring certitude, which itself is beyond the reach o f play.18

The figure o f the edifice that philosophical discourse appears to appropriate from “ordinary” language as a metaphor o f itself is that of a structure whose play is constrained by the ground, a structure with which the play o f representation is constrained by presence. It is not simply a figure o f the exclusion o f representation in favor o f presence. Rather, it represents the ongoing control o f representation. The tradition o f philosophy is the sustained attempt to get control by recovering something that precedes representation, restraining representation by establishing the architectonic lim its provided by the ground. It

The Edifice Complex Revisitedn _____________________________

searches for the most stable ground in order to exercise the greatest control.

The architectural figure is therefore never simply that o f the well-constructed building. It is also the decorated building, one whose structural system controls the ornament attached to it. In the end, the edifice is as much a model o f representation as o f presentation. It figures a continuous hierarchy from the supposedly infin ite depth, solidity, and reliability o f the unmediated presence o f the ground to the thin, ephemeral, dissimulating representations o f ornamental layers that need to be controlled to maintain order. Order is exemplified in the control o f ornament. The traditional logic o f ground and structure with which philosophy organizes itse lf is equally the logic o f structure and ornament. In the end, philosophy is no more than a theory o f ornament.

In these terms, philosophy is dependent on an architectural logic o f support. Architecture is the figure o f the addition, the structural layer, one element supported by another. I t is not just the addition o f the building to the ground, but a series o f assembled layers. Metaphysics’ determination o f the ground as support presupposes a vertical hierarchy from ground through structure to ornament. The idea o f support is dependent on a particular view o f architecture that defines a range o f relationships from fundamental (foundational) to supplementary (ornamental). With each additional layer, the bond is weaker. The structure is supposedly bonded to the ground more securely than the ornament is bonded to the structure. But as the distance from the ground becomes greater, the threat to the overall structure diminishes. This vertical hierarchy needs to be understood as a mechanism o f control that makes available the thought o f the ground as support that is metaphysics.

I f structure is that which makes present the ground, submitting itself to the authority o f presence, ornament either represents this grounding or deviates from the line o f support, detaching itself from the ground in order to represent that which is other than structural. Philosophy attempts to tame ornament in the name o f the ground, to control representation in the name of presence. In the end, the philosophical economy turns


on the status o f ornament. In fact, it is the structure/ornament relationship that enables us to th ink o f support, and thereby to think o f the ground. The unique authority o f the tradition o f philosophy, its capacity to define and legitimate order, derives from its im plic it theory o f ornament, a theory that rarely becomes explicit.

Philosophy's traditional description o f itself and its object as building invokes and sustains a particular image o f architecture as a mechanism that precedes and controls the decorative images attached to it through its structural bond to the ground. This image, which itself must be controlled, is never presented in any detail, let alone subjected to any kind o f philosophical analysis. I t is seen as unquestionable, a tru th so fam iliar that it is not even seen as an image—let alone an image with a particular history sustained by a complex system o f institutional practices mobilized to particular sociopolitical ends. Indeed, it is not even employed as a representation o f architecture as such, but as an appropriation o f that dimension o f architecture that supposedly precedes representation: a brute, tangible, visible, and inescapable reality o f the material world that is, as a result, both immediately accessible to the reader o f philosophy and unquestionable by that reader. The figure is employed to credit philosophy itself with the unmediated condition exhibited by a building, putting in place the supposed neutrality and authority o f the structural and structuring gaze o f philosophical argument.

The figure itself is not examined by the eye it makes possible. It is exempted from interrogation and this exemption, as it were, holds the institution o f philosophy together inasmuch as it makes a whole chain o f similar exemptions possible. Architecture is invoked as a kind o f touchstone to legitimize certain routine practices w ithin the discourse o f philosophy, to relieve those practices from examination, to block them from view, to disavow that they are practices. The figure o f architecture that supports the philosophical eye is the agent o f a strategic blindness, orchestrating a system o f blind spots that enable philosophy to assume and sustain a particular sociopolitical role in our culture.

Although this image o f architecture is such a simplistic figure, a cartoon, it is precisely as a cartoon that it plays such an influen-

The Always Structural Ambivalence about Architecture13____________________________________________________

tial role in so many cultural transactions. The concern here is not to simply produce a more nuanced account o f architecture. Indeed, we should not so quickly assume that this is even possible. Rather, it is a matter o f trying to understand the nuances o f how the implausibly simple figure operates—the complex role played by its very simplicity.

The Always S tructural Ambivalence about Architecture

The strategic role o f the figure can be identified more precisely by looking at the traditional site where philosophical discourse explicitly addresses the question o f architecture: the philosophy o f art. The already complicated relationship between philosophy’s descriptions o f itself and its object in architectural terms, whether explicit or im plicit, is further complicated by the discourse’s encounter w ith architecture as an art. In aesthetics, the particular image o f architecture w ith which philosophy organizes itself interacts w ith an ostensibly more detailed image o f architecture. These images do not necessarily, i f ever, coincide. The strange relationship between them marks the particular investments that are at stake in the traditional image o f architecture, an image meant to be without any investment and employed precisely to mark philosophy’s absence o f investment, its detached quest for the truth. The figure o f architecture is used to establish the neutrality o f the philosophical gaze at the world, but when philosophy is obliged to look at architecture itself through its architect’s eye, the scene becomes much more complicated and is marked by certain symptomatic displacements, contradictions, evasions, and denials.

Such an overdetermination can be found in Kant’s aesthetics. Although he employs architecture to describe metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason, he subordinates architecture in the The Critique of Judgement as an inferior art, indeed the most inferior o f the arts because it is the most bound to the utilitarian realm the aesthetic supposedly transcends.19 Architecture cannot be thought outside u tility and so its beauty is merely “appendant” On the other hand, the decorations o f buildings, which can be considered separately from buildings as things in themselves—


“ornamental gardens,” “the decoration o f rooms,” ‘Svall hang- ings,” “wall-paper,” “ornamental accessories,” “beautiful fu rn iture”—are elevated into “free” beauty, free precisely from utility. Although buildings are the lowest form o f art, the decoration o f buildings (“the sole function o f which is to be looked at”20) is promoted into the highest form of art: painting. But much o f the ornamentation o f buildings is obliged to represent the function o f those buildings and is therefore excluded.21 What is promoted in metaphysics—the structural bond to the ground, which can control representation—is apparently demoted in aesthetics. The groundedness o f architecture seems to get in the way o f the detached aesthetic gaze.

But i f we look more closely at the text, this distinction is not simply applied to architecture. Architecture organizes the very argument that subordinates it. The aesthetic eye, like the philosophical eye, is not simply directed at architecture but is framed by i t The Critique of Judgement begins with two architectural examples with which it defines the fundamental disposition o f aesthetic taste. The first separates the aesthetic eye from the eye o f reason by opposing the rational cognition o f a building to taking aesthetic delight in it. The aesthetic is detached from the rational knowledge it “accompanies” and placed in a “separate faculty.” The second employs the distinction between a decorated palace and functional buildings like simple huts and eating houses to establish aesthetic disinterest as a disinterest in the existence o f an object, its purpose, or its utility. Before we get the concepts, we get—or are presumed to have already gotten in our everyday experience—architecture, one o f the arts to which the concepts are later to be applied. And in both cases, that everyday experience o f architecture is aesthetic, the very experience that the book w ill go on to argue is almost impossible in architecture. Architecture is used to exemplify conditions that are then excluded from it in a pathological act o f disavowal.

The Critique attempts to subordinate architecture precisely because it is so indebted to it. Philosophical discourse is only able to preserve the image o f architecture w ith which it organizes and describes itself by veiling its indebtedness to that image; philosophy can only preserve its self-image by domesticating architec-

The Always Structural Ambivalence about Architecture15____________________________________________________

ture, confining it, taking it out o f view, holding it in reserve in some secure place from which it can be used to organize the very terrain in which it is prohibited from appearing. Even the necessary appearance o f architecture in the carefully delim ited domain o f aesthetics produces a kind o f embarrassment fo r the discourse, which forces a series o f double gestures.

It is not that architecture is simply promoted in metaphysics and demoted in aesthetics. Rather, it is stitched in to the operations o f philosophy in more complex ways than philosophy can describe. To understand its role, we need to know more than what philosophy can say o f architecture. I t is actually a question o f what it w ill not say about architecture, the architecture that is excluded from philosophy and whose exclusion makes philosophy possible or, more precisely, the architecture that should be excluded but never can be and so must be buried by a sustained pathology o f disavowal, the architecture fo r which even the classic image o f architecture that punctuates the discourse is but a fetishistic substitute that itself must be withdrawn as much as possible. The architecture that is spoken o f but always and immediately domesticated, bracketed o ff as a suspect figure, masks another sense o f architecture, one that is unspeakable and frightening to the discourse, which nevertheless cannot avoid harboring it w ithin its very structure, as w ithout it there could be no sense o f structure in the first place.

I t is the tension between these architectures that would be at stake in any translation between deconstructive discourse like Derrida’s and architectural discourse. I f his work displaces the tradition o f philosophy, the question here must be whether or not it displaces o r reproduces the different images o f architecture embedded w ith in that tradition. These images—which are also embedded w ith in heterogeneous cultural institutions in addition to philosophy, and even organize our sense o f what an institution is—cannot be as easily detached from the discipline o f architecture as it m ight at first appear. This seemingly all too obvious link between deconstruction and architecture, which surfaces in the very word “deconstruction,” cannot simply be discarded in the interests o f a more nuanced reading w ithout effacing a critical dimension o f Derrida’s work. I would argue

The Translation of Deconstruction16________________________________

that it is precisely w ithin this very literal association, w ithin its very literalness, the literalness o f an architectural metaphor, that Derrida’s w riting is mobilized. A t the very least, the strategic role o f what seems to be but an incidental metaphor would be one o f the central issues in any engagement between architecture and deconstruction.

This is not because philosophy, when speaking o f architecture, is pointing outside itself to the material condition o f buildings with which the discipline o f architecture is most directly concerned, offering a theory o f that material practice that is necessarily transformed by Derrida’s work in a way that is o f interest to that discipline. Philosophy is not simply theorizing something outside itself. The apparent distance between it and a building is at once produced by and is the possibility o f its own theoretical discourse. I t draws an edifice rather than draws on an edifice, producing an architecture o f grounded structure that it then uses fo r support, leaning on it, resting w ithin i t The edifice is constructed to make theory possible, then subordinated as a metaphor to defer to some higher, nonmaterial truth. Architecture is constructed as a material reality to liberate a supposedly higher domain. As material, it is but metaphor. The most materia l condition is used to establish the most ideal order, which is then bound to reject the form er as merely material. The status o f material oscillates. The metaphor o f the ground, the bedrock as the fundamental base, inverts to become base in the sense o f degraded, material, less than ideal. The vertical hierarchy inverts itself, and in this inversion architecture flips from privileged origin to gratuitous supplement, foundation to ornament.

Philosophy treats its architectural m otif as but a metaphor that can and should be discarded as superfluous. The figure o f the grounded structure is but an illustration, a useful metaphor that illustrates the nature o f metaphysics, but outlives its usefulness and must be abandoned from the final form o f metaphysics, a representation to be separated from the fundamental presentation, a kind o f scaffolding to be discarded when the project is complete. The scaffolding that originally supports a structure is the part o f structure that becomes ornamental. The structure o f structure is, in the end, ornament. When philosophy reflects on

Contracting Architecture17______________________

its own completion, it defines architecture as metaphorical. Metaphysics is arguably no more than the determination o f architecture as metaphor. But can architecture be so simply discarded? Not i f we follow Derrida’s own argument about metaphor, and the architectural metaphor in particular.

Contracting Architecture

I t is significant that the earliest o f Derrida’s lectures to be published—“‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology,” which was originally given in 1959—is an approving reading o f the particular sense o f “structure” in Edmund Husserl’s work, articulated in terms o f the rhetoric o f “grounds,” “foundations,” “superstructure,” “excavation,” and “erection” that Husserl employed, and the first essay Derrida published—“Force and Signification” o f 1963— is a disapproving reading o f the “privileged” role o f spatial metaphors, particularly that o f “structure,” in a text by Jean Rousset. Husserl is supported inasmuch as he explicitly rethinks the condition o f structure and the general question o f spatial form , whereas Rousset is condemned for employing spatial figures uncritically. The issue is not a small one. Derrida argues that such figures are “only metaphorical, it w ill be said. Certainly. But metaphor is never innocent. I t orients research and fixes results. When the spatial model is h it upon, when it functions, critical reflection rests w ithin it.”22 The discourse is within the spatial metaphor rather than the metaphor is w ithin the discourse. I t is orchestrated by what it thinks it employs. For Derrida, the “aesthetic” mode in which discourse is “fascinated by the spatial image” is far from innocent; it organizes the tradition of metaphysics that can be traced back at least to Plato. To resist that tradition, he calls fo r a sustained suspicion o f the spatial metaphor and the way its metaphoric condition is effaced:

Hence, for as long as the metaphorical sense o f the notion o f structure is not acknowledged as such, that is to say interrogated and even destroyed as concerns its figurative quality so that the nonspatiality or original spatiality designated by it may be revived, one runs the risk, through a kind o f sliding as unnoticed as it is efficacious, o f coffilu^pg


meaning with its geometric, morphological, or, in the best o f cases, cinematic model. One risks being interested in the figure itse lf to the detrim ent o f the play going on w ithin it metaphorically.23

This crucial argument does not appear to be about architecture, and yet twice Derrida clarifies the sense o f the suspect metaphor in terms o f architecture. A t the beginning o f the essay, what is figured by “structure” is said to be “somewhat like the architecture o f an inhabited or deserted city”24 and in the middle o f the essay its “litera l,” and therefore dangerous, sense is architectural: “Now, stricto senso, the notion o f structure refers only to space, geometric or morphological space, the order o f forms and sites. Structure is first the structure o f an organic or artificia l work, the internal unity o f an assemblage, a construction; a work is governed by a unifying principle, the architecture that is bu ilt and made visible in a location.”25 I t is inasmuch as the spatial image is literalized as architecture that it is dangerous and its uncritical employment has to be interfered with, i f not “destroyed.”

Derrida’s work would go on to repeatedly demonstrate that metaphysics constitutes itself w ith the very metaphors it claims to have abandoned as “mere” metaphors. Furthermore, at one point he argues that this very attempt to abandon metaphors in favor o f something more fundamental involves the architectural metaphor itself. In his most sustained argument about metaphor, he notes that a metaphor is distinguished from the fundamental as a building is distinguished from the ground:

Thus, the criteria fo r a classification o f philosophical metaphors are borrowed from a derivative philosophical discourse.. . . They are metaphorical, resisting every meta-metaphorics, the values o f concept, foundation, and theory.. . . What is fundamental corresponds to the desire fo r a firm and ultimate ground, a terrain to build on, the earth as the support for an artificia l structure.26

Philosophy can only define a part o f itself as nonmetaphorical by employing the architectural metaphor. This particular metaphor organizes the general status o f metaphor. In so doing, it organizes the tradition o f philosophy that claims to be able to discard it. The figure o f a building as a grounded structure cannot be discarded to reveal any fundamental ground, as the


sense o f the “fundamental” is produced by that very figure. Architectural figures cannot simply be detached from philosophical discourse. Architecture is not simply one metaphor among others. More than the metaphor o f foundation, it is the foundational metaphor. It is therefore not simply a metaphor.27

The architectural figure is bound to philosophy, and the institutionalized discourses “responsible” fo r architecture and philosophy each share and maintain this bond. The bond is contractual, not in the sense o f an agreement signed by two parties, but in that o f a conceptual knot o f which the two parties are but an effect, a translation contract in the sense o f Derrida’s reading o f Benjamin. More than the terms o f exchange and translation within and between these discourses, it produces each discourse as a discourse. The translation between architecture and philosophy works both ways. Each has a fatal attraction fo r the other that manifests itself in many different ways. Each depends on the other. Neither one can th ink o f itself outside the other, and yet each can think o f itself only by placing the other outside. Each constructs the other as an origin from which it is, by definition—which is to say, by self-definition—detached. Each identifies the other as other, constructing it as other by invoking it as a privileged orig in, only to push it away. Philosophy appeals to architecture to constitute itself, only to immediately subordinate architecture as mere material. Likewise, architectural discourse appeals to philosophy to constitute itself, only to subordinate it as provisional and ephemeral argument that must give way to the fundamental materiality o f a building. Both discourses are constantly marked by the traces o f these inversions, oscillating between moments o f attraction and repulsion that can never simply be separated. The translation contract, as it were, negotiates this complex and restless dynamic.

This unwritten contract, which is neither a contingent cultural artifact nor an atemporal acultural principle, establishes the possibility o f the more visible social contracts that appear to organize and separate architecture and philosophy as institutional discourses. The relatively recent status o f architecture as a discipline began to be negotiated by the firs t texts o f architectural theory in the Renaissance, which drew on the canonic texts o f the

The Translation of Deconstruction20________________________________

philosophical tradition to identify the proper concern o f the newly constituted figure o f the architect with drawing [Disegno], which mediates between the idea and the building, the formal and the material, the soul and the body, the theoretical and the practical. Architecture—architectural drawing—is neither simply a mechanical art bound to the bodily realm o f utility nor a liberal art operating in the realm o f ideas, but is their reconciliation, the bridge between the two. Architectural theory thus constructs architecture as a bridge between the dominant oppositions o f metaphysics and constitutes itself by exploiting the contractual possibility already written into the philosophical tradition wherein it describes itself as architecture.

I t is not simply that architecture has some familiar, unambiguous material reality that is drawn upon by philosophy. Rather, philosophy draws an architecture, presents a certain understanding, a theory, o f architecture. The terms o f the contract are the prohibition o f a different description o f the architectural object, or rather, the dissimulation o f that object. The discipline o f architecture participates in this prohibition. Even though it nominates architecture as its subject, its main concern is to maintain the assumptions about architecture that are necessary fo r the everyday operations o f culture outside the ostensible field o f architecture: assumptions about materiality, order, spacing, closure, and so on. The discipline is no more than the maintenance o f the sense o f a field, a defined territory ostensibly worked over by different forms o f architectural practice, theory, historiographical strategies, forms o f criticism, pedagogical techniques, course structures, building codes, codes o f professional ethics, techniques o f representation, guild mentalities, modes o f publication, exhibitions, journals, galleries, museums, and so on. But this fie ld is not so much explored by these institutional practices as defended by them. It is constituted as such by an ongoing labor o f representation, which confirms that architecture has its own lim its that can be demarcated and examined, but in the end does so by preventing such an examination. Even this concept o f a field as a delim ited space presupposes exactly those architectural assumptions that are exempted from examination by such institutionalized defenses.


It is this solid defense through a systematic blinding o f discourse that defines the profoundly conservative role o f architectural discourse. I t is not so much that the discourse assumes a conservative position, but that it conserves certain ideas about space employed by discourses which do not appear to be concerned with space (like the ideas embedded in the very concept o f “position,” for example). The traditional classification o f architecture as an art acts as a cover for this fundamental disciplinary work. Even, i f not especially, the current discourse’s endless celebration o f the new and o f unique architectural responses to different spatial, regional, and historical conditions, the romanticizing o f creativity, the promotion o f the individual architect, the production o f canonic histories, the awarding o f prizes and commissions, commissions as prizes, and so on, is first and foremost a labor of conservation. The solidity o f architecture is in this institutional defense rather than in the structure o f buildings. The resistance o f architecture does not lie in its ostensible materials but in the strength o f institutional resistance to their interrogation. It is not that architecture, as it were, stands up to sustained interrogation. Rather, the institution o f architecture is not read as such by the many discourses it makes possible, including, but not especially, those o f “architecture” and “philosophy.”

The concern here must therefore be to locate certain discursive practices repressed within the pathological mechanisms o f the traditional economy that bind these discourses together by tracing the impact o f another account o f architecture hidden w ithin them. It must be remembered that deconstructive discourse is not outside this economy. On the contrary, it attains its force precisely by inhabiting the tradition, obeying its principles so rigorously that the ir internal complications and contradictions become evident In so doing, it necessarily engages at some level with the contract between architecture and philosophy. The question is, exactly what kind o f relationship does deconstructive discourse assume w ith the account o f architecture that the traditional economy resists but cannot avoid, the always threatening architecture repressed by the tradition? Can deconstructive discourse speak about this unspeakable architecture? O r even, can


a discourse be deconstructive without doing so? To what extent is deconstructive discourse no more than a certain kind o f interference with the institutional mechanisms that conceal, i f not incarcerate, a certain forbidden, improper, and, above all, ille gitimate architecture?

Towering Ruins

It needs to be remembered here that to describe architecture’s privileged role in philosophy is not to identify it as some kind o f origin or pregiven reality from which philosophy derives, and which therefore must be engaged through deconstructive discourse. I t is not simply that there is some fundamental material reality o f architecture in the world that is being suppressed by discourse. Architecture does not precede philosophy. Space is produced as such by the particular discourse maintained by philosophy, and there is no philosophy w ithout space. Architecture and philosophy are effects o f die same transaction, effects that can never be separated. One is never simply outside the other. The sense that they are separate is actually an effect o f the very contract that binds them according to complicated folds, twists, and turns that defy the institutional practices o f both discourses. A deconstructive discourse would need to trace the folds o f this unique topology. In so doing, it would become evident that the strange condition produced when philosophy infects itself with what appears to belong in its “outside” by drawing on architecture—but actually produces a generic image o f architecture to cover over an unspeakable architecture on its “inside”—is actually internal to the architecture it represents. Architecture is cut from w ithin. I t is itself infected, and philosophy unwittingly appeals to it fo r precisely this internal torment, exploiting it even while officially crediting buildings w ith an unambiguous material and perceptual reality.

In such terms, the translation o f deconstruction in architecture does not simply occur across the divide between philosophy and architecture as some kind o f singular event that produces some new description o f architectural objects. I t is already occurring w ithin each discourse and must already have some kind o f

Towering Ruins23_____________

im pact on deconstructive discourse. I t is not something that the discourse can choose to either address o r ignore, as it is part o f what constitutes that discourse as deconstructive in the firs t place. To make an architectural translation o f deconstruction therefore involves locating the accounts o f architecture already operative w ithin deconstructive discourse rather than simply generating some new description o f the architectural object fo r architectural discourse. The difference between these accounts and those o f the trad ition o f philosophy marks the precise nature o f deconstructive discourse’s occupation and transform ation o f that tradition. To question the discourse’s ongoing relationship to architecture is therefore to question its every gesture. Its lim its are established by the account o f architecture it produces and depends on, albeit unw ittingly.

Such an account can even be located in D errida’s discussion o f translation itself. Inasmuch as deconstruction tampers w ith the philosophical ideal o f translation, it necessarily tampers w ith the philosophical ideal o f architecture. And if, as Derrida argues at one point, “the question o f deconstruction is also through and through the question o f translation,”28 its th ink ing about architecture is likely to surface in those texts where its th inking about translation, which is im p lic itly w ritten in to , i f not organizing, a ll o f the other texts, becomes e x p lic it In fact, D errida’s account o f translation is explic itly organized around an architectural figure: the Tower o f Babel. I t is the fa ilure o f the tower that marks the necessity fo r translation, the pro life ra tion o f a m u ltip lic ity o f languages, the un ru ly play o f representation, which is to say the necessity fo r contro lling representation. The collapse marks the necessity fo r a certain regulated and regulating construction. In D errida’s “Des Tours de Babel,” the figure o f the tower acts as the strategic intersection o f translation, philosophy, architecture, and deconstruction.

The tower acts as the figure o f philosophy because the dream o f philosophy is that o f translatability.29 Philosophy is no more than the ideal o f pure translation, the careful recovery and unmediated presentation o f an orig ina l tru th . But, as Derrida points out elsewhere, the univocal language o f the builders o f the tower is not the language o f philosophy. On the contrary, it

The Translation o f D econstruction24________________________________

is an imposed order, a vio lent im position o f a single language.30 The necessity o f philosophy is actually defined in the collapse o f the tower rather than in the project itself. Inasmuch as the desire fo r translation produced by the incom pletion o f the tower is, as in a ll translations, never completely satisfied or frustrated, the philosophical edifice is never simply finished or demolished. The bu ild ing project o f philosophy continues, but its com pletion is forever deferred. This is no t to say that a single construction is slowly assembled, like the orig inal tower, toward some unattainable goal, but that the ideal o f the edifice is forever suspended in a scene o f endless rebuild ing, an interm inable displaced discourse about build ing.

The tower is also the figure o f deconstruction. Because deconstructive discourse inhabits the philosophical trad ition , subverting it from w ith in by exploiting its hidden resources, it necessarily inhabits the figure o f the tower, lodging itse lf w ith in it and transform ing the representation o f its construction. Inasmuch as philosophy is the ideal o f translation, deconstruction is the in terna l subversion o f that ideal, a subversion found w ith in the very preconditions fo r philosophy, the incom pletion o f the tower: “The deconstruction o f the Tower o f Babel, moreover, gives a good idea o f what deconstruction is: an unfinished edifice whose half-completed structures are visible, le tting one guess at the scaffolding behind them .”31 Deconstructive discourse identifies the inab ility o f philosophy to establish the stable ground— its endless deferral o f the very orig in it seeks, which prevents the com pletion o f the edifice— by locating the untranslatable, unpresentable, even unrepresentable remainder, the unspeakable other that lies somewhere between the orig ina l and the translation, making translation possible yet preventing its com pletion, that which is located w ith in the discourse bu t cannot be located by it.

Furtherm ore, one o f the im plications o f D errida’s argument about translation is that the tower and its incom pletion is more than simply an architectural figure fo r philosophy and its deconstruction. I t is also a figure o f architecture itself. As Derrida argues in another context, “I f the tower had been completed there would be no architecture. Only the incom pletion o f the


tower makes it possible fo r architecture as well as the m ultitude o f languages to have a history.”32 The possibility o f architecture is bound up w ith the forever incom plete project o f philosophy. I f the philosophical dream o f pure translation is a k ind o f bu ild ing project, the inevitable incom pletion o f the build ing marks the necessity o f architecture, understood as a representation that speaks o f the structural essence o f budding, a supplementary layer that represents the ground in its absence. I f bu ild ing is the presentation o f the ground, architecture is the representation o f that grounding. A rchitecture is, as it were, the translation o f bu ild ing that represents bu ild ing to itse lf as complete, secure, undivided. The architectural supplement is always called fo r by structural failure, called in to provide a particular image o f bu ild ing in its absence— not ju s t an image o f a particular bu ilding but also an image o f the idea o f bu ild ing in general, the supposedly universal sense o f bu ild ing as the secure grounding o f material structure.

The architectural supplement (and all supplements are architectural in the end) does not simply dissimulate a structural fa ilure that preceded it. I f architecture is the translation o f bu ild ing, it would fo llow from D errida’s argument about translation that the architectural representation is not simply added as an afterthought in a m om ent o f weakness, the weakness o f the bu ild ing ’s structure. Architecture can never be divorced from build ing, even though trad itional discourse works hard to do so. I t is not a detached, free-floating, structureless representation called in because the grounded structure o f a bu ild ing is incomplete, called in to cover something that is missing, a representational layer attached to the structure it covers, fastened on to the build ing to dissimulate its flaws. On the contrary, the orig ina l sense o f bu ild ing, as the paradigm o f grounded material structure, is only ever produced by the representational surfaces that appear to be m erely added to it o r substitute fo r it. Build ing is firs t and foremost an architectural effect.

Such a conjunction o f translation, philosophy, architecture, and deconstruction is no t the result o f an idiosyncratic overdeterm ination o f the otherwise simple figure o f a tower by Derrida ’s text or the particular reading o f that text given here.


Rather, it is a question o f the im p lic it and explic it ways in which Derrida exploits the complex economy that such architectural figures invariably put in to play under the very guise o f simplicity. Despite the fact that they are invoked to clarify arguments, they always m obilize a convoluted set o f effects that those arguments cannot control.

In these terms, the discourses we are concerned w ith here tu rn out to be so entangled that it is necessary to trace more carefully the differences between them. Inasmuch as the figure o f the tower o r edifice acts as some kind o f common ground shared by these apparendy foreign discourses, it needs to be examined more closely in order to identify the ruses o f translation marked w ith in it that produce and m aintain the sense o f separate identities. The double movements o f translation, which at once constitute and subvert the lim its that define each discourse, are necessarily made possible by an ongoing breakdown in the sense o f grounded structure that is the shared currency w ith in them.

This breakdown is mapped by all o f D errida’s texts, beginning w ith his firs t essay, which describes how Husserl rethinks philosophy by being so “respectful o f that which remains open w ith in structure” to the extent o f understanding that “ the opening o f the structure is ‘structural,’ that is, essential.”33 I t is precisely this enigmatic “structurality o f an opening” that organizes translation. For Derrida, the incom pletion o f the tower is its very structure. The tower is deconstructed by establishing that “the structure o f the orig inal is marked by the requirem ent to be translated”34 and that it “in no way suffers from not being satisfied, at least it does no t suffer in so far as it is the very structure o f the work.”35 This is to say that there is an opening in the structure, a structural opening, a gap that cannot be filled , a gap that can only be covered w ith some kind o f supplement, an ornam ental cover that cannot be removed. Inasmuch as it is a tower, the tower is always marked by a flaw—a structural flaw, a flaw that is structural, an instability concealed by the ornamental translation that produces the sense o f stable structure in the firs t place, subordinating itse lf to what i t produces, m arking w ith in its surfaces the line between structure and ornam ent I t is by patiently follow ing the hidden twists o f this seemingly clear-


cut line that deconstructive discourse displaces the generic figure o f architecture. This can be seen when in one o f the many times that Derrida’s w ork explicidy underm ines and complicates the always political relationship between structure and ornament, it does so by th ink ing o f i t as a relationship o f translation:

I do not believe tha t today one can, simply, analyze anything whatever while calmly trusting the difference between an infrastructure and a superstructure.. . . a t the po in t where a deconstructive analysis enters, this opposition cannot be considered as guaranteed, o r even as a th ing in which one can have confidence. . . . Conveyance is a ll there is between . . . in ffastrucure and superstructure; [there is only] translation in the most open sense o f the word, . . . There is no pure in fra structure. There is no pure superstructure. There is only text. . . . the economic infrastructure is text, fo r example.36

In such displacements o f the trad itiona l architectural figure, structure is no longer simply grounding through a continuous vertical hierarchy from ground to ornament, but a discontinuous and convoluted line , an enigmatic series o f folds. A t the very least, the build ing is no longer simply standing on the ground, and the whole conceptual economy it is meant to pu t in place is disturbed. The sense o f structure is actually produced by the supplementary layers o f representation that appear least structural. The sense o f contro l sought by trad itiona l discourse actually derives from that which the discourse identifies as being in the greatest need o f that control. The fundam ental sense that the build ing fa ith fu lly translates the ground is but an effect o f the supplementary layer o f architecture that is meant, in tu rn , to fa ith fu lly translate the bu ild ing and obey its law. Architecture is made to subm it to a law o f its own making. This enforced submission, ritua lly staged ip the texts o f the philosophical trad ition but operative throughout heterogeneous Western discourses, veils the fact that bu ild ing is always only an effect o f representation. The labor o f construction is never more than a labor o f representation. In the end, it is this fact that is the most threatening to tha t trad ition.

The radical consequences o f the thought that architecture is the possibility o f bu ild ing rather than a simple addition to it, that ornament is the possibility o f structure, cannot be overestimated.


A ll o f the conceptual oppositions w ith which the trad ition organizes itse lf tu rn on this po int. Its no t just, o r even at all, that architecture is reconfigured, that the practice o f what is traditionally recognized as architecture is described in a new way. Rather, a whole conceptual economy based on a certain description o f architecture is disturbed. In each site w ith in all the discourses organized around that economy, the role o f that which is tacidy understood to be like architecture is to bu ild ing is disrupted. The supplementary layer is seen to orchestrate the privileged structure it is subordinated to and meant to fa ith fu lly translate. No translation is secondary. In the end, there is nothing w ithout translation. But this o f course is no t the translation dreamed o f by the philosophical trad ition. In terms o f that trad ition , D errida ’s tacit articulation o f the structural necessity o f architecture marks the structural necessity o f a certain fa ilu re o f translation, the structural necessity o f a certain violence.

Inasmuch as translation is neither completed nor completely frustrated, the distinction between bu ild ing and architecture— which is at once the contractual possibility o f architectural discourse and the means by which to repress the threat posed by that discourse— is uncannily complicated. Deconstructive discourse traces architecture’s subversion o f build ing, a subversion that cannot be resisted simply because architecture is the structura l possibility o f build ing. Build ing always harbors the secret o f its constitutional vio lation by architecture. Deconstructive discourse articulates the relationship between this covert vio lation and the overt violence w ith which architecture is controlled. I t repeatedly locates that which is configured as ornamental w ith in the very structure that appears to dom inate and exclude it, find ing the traces o f the ornam ent’s vio lation o f structure, a vio lation that cannot be exorcised, a constitutional vio lation that can only be repressed by institu tional practices that are themselves always v io len t

To say this little is already to elaborate one o f the im plications o f D errida’s discourse around deconstruction beyond the exp lic it focus o f his writings, one o f many that w ill have to be pursued here in more detail. But before doing so, it is necessary to go much fu rthe r in to his texts in order to comprehend the

The Survival o f Deconstruction29_____________________________

architectures they already produce or resist and the fa in t but crucial marks o f a certain sustained ambivalence about architecture.

The Survival o f D econstruction

Such an in-depth reading needs to be extreme and yet cautious. A number o f p re lim inary precautions are necessary. First, it is im portant to remember that deconstruction is no t a method, a critique, an analysis, o r a source o f legitim ation.37 I t is not strategic. I t has no prescribed aim, which is not to say that it is aimless. I t moves very precisely, but no t to some defined end. I t is not even an application o f something o r an addition to something. I t is, at best, a strange structural condition, an ongoing structural event, a continuous displacement o f structure that cannot be evaluated in trad itional terms because it is the very frustration o f those terms. Deconstruction is that which is necessary to structure bu t evades structural analysis (and analysis is invariably structura l). I t is the breakdown o f structure that is the very possibility o f structure, but which must be concealed to produce the effect o f structure in the firs t place.

Rather than o ffe ring new accounts o f the architectural object to replace the one that dominates the disciplines o f philosophy and architecture, deconstructive discourse unearths the repressive mechanisms by which other senses are hidden w ith in (rather than behind or underneath) that trad itiona l figure, senses that are already threatening in the ir very m ultip licity. I t is the repression o f these constitutional enigmas that is the basis o f the social contract that organizes the overt discourse about architecture. The architectural figure is not simply required by philosophy because it is the paradigm o f stable structure; it is also required precisely fo r its very instability. Just as instability must always be concealed to produce the effect o f unambiguous stability, ph ilo sophical discourse, which represents itse lf as both the stabilizing discourse and the discourse about stability, is unable to articulate its debt to architecture. The very basis o f its attraction to architecture, its most fundam ental desire, is forbidden. Inasmuch as deconstructive discourse is the attem pt to articulate the unspeak-


able, but always constitutional, desire o f philosophy, it necessarily uncovers a forbidden architecture hidden w ith in trad itiona l discourse.

Likewise, to translate deconstruction in architecture is not to simply transform the condition o f the m aterial architectural object. I t is not the source o f a particular k ind o f architecture, but an interrogation o f the ongoing discursive role o f architecture. As the trad ition o f metaphysics is the de fin ition o f architecture as mere metaphor, any disruption o f architecture’s ro le as a figure is already a d isruption o f metaphysics. This is not to say that this disruption occurs outside the realm o f material objects. On the contrary, it is a d isruption o f the line between discourse and m ateriality whereby the sense o f a material object is understood to be a discursive e ffect I t is not that the trad itional distinctions organized around that line that are so conspicuous in architectural discourse (theory/practice, ideal/m ateria l, project/bu ild ing , and so on) disappear. Rather, they are complicated in ways that transform the status o f fam iliar discursive operations and expose other operations that are ongoing and produce certain visible effects but cannot be recognized by the institu tionalized discourses o f philosophy and architecture (to name but two), covert operations that reconfigure architecture.

Such deconstructive gestures are no t simply theoretical or practical. They are neither a new way o f reading architecture nor the means o f producing a new architecture. On the one hand, so-called m aterial “objects” are already bisected by the institu tionalized distinction between theory and practice in complex ways, according to extremely convoluted geometries. On the other, so-called theoretical discourse is itse lf a m aterial site o f production. To translate deconstruction in architecture does no t simply lead to a form al reconfiguration o f the architectural object or architectural theory. Rather, it calls in to question the status o f the object w ithout simply abandoning i t I f it is concerned w ith anything, it is concerned w ith theoretical objects, which is to say, objects whose theoretical status and objecthood are problem atic, slippery objects that make thematic the theoretical condition o f objects and the objecthood o f theory. But, in the end, it does so

The Survival o f D econstruction31_____________________________

to demonstrate tha t this slipperiness is no t the unique property o f particular discursive objects, but is the very possibility o f any discourse and its objects. In the end, the solidity o f an object is always a product o f slippage.

These gestures cannot simply inhab it the prescribed domains o f philosophy and architecture. A lthough philosophical discourse and architectural discourse depend on an explicit account o f architecture, they have no unique claim on that account The translation contract on which those discourses are based underpins a m u ltip lic ity o f cultura l economies. The concern here is w ith the strategic play o f the architectural m o tif w ith in these heterogeneous exchanges. This ongoing cultural production o f architecture does not take the fo rm specified in architectural discourse. Architecture does not occupy the dom ain allotted to it. Rather than the object o f a specific discourse, architecture involves a num ber o f discursive mechanisms whose operations have to be traced in ways unfam iliar to, and systematically resisted by, architectural discourse.

Consequently, the status o f the translation o f deconstruction in architecture needs to be rethought. A more aggressive reading is required, an architectural transform ation o f deconstruction that draws on the gaps in deconstruction that demand such an abuse, sites that already operate w ith o r call fo r a k ind o f architectural violence. There is a need fo r a more forcefu l reading that locates that w hich deconstruction desires bu t cannot handle o f architecture.

Certain possibilities emerge w ith in architectural discourse that go beyond the displacement o f architecture im p lic it in deconstructive w riting. To translate deconstruction architecturally by locating these possibilities is to reproduce it by transform ing it. Such a transform ation would operate on the 'hesitation deconstructive discourse has about architecture, a hesitation that surfaces precisely w ith in its most confident claims about architecture. A t the beginning o f his essay on translation, fo r example, Derrida writes:

The "Tower o f Babel” does no t m erely figure the irreducib le m u ltip lic ity o f tongues; it exh ib its an incom pletion, the im possibility o f fin ish ing,


o f totalizing, o f saturating, o f com pleting something on the order o f edification, architectural construction, system and architectonics. What the m u ltip lic ity o f idiom s actually lim its is not only a “true ” translation, a transparent and adequate interexpression, it is also a structural order, a coherence o f construct. There is then (le t us translate) something like an in te rna l lim it to form alization, an incompleteness o f the con- structure. I t would be easy and up to a certain po in t ju s tifie d to see there the translation o f a system in deconstruction.38

This passage culminates symptomatically in a sentence that performs the classical philosophical gesture, the gesture that arguably constitutes philosophy as such. Architecture is at once given constitutive power and has that power frustrated by having its status returned to that o f a “mere” metaphor that needs to be discarded. Here the tower, the figure o f translation, is itse lf understood as a translation, the architectural translation o f deconstruction, which is to say, in Derridean terms, a figure that is the possibility o f deconstruction rather than simply its representation. But Derrida’s texts need to be interrogated to see exactly why such an architectural reading o f deconstruction is “easy” and what is the “certain po in t” beyond which it becomes unjustified, im proper. A patient reading needs to force the already tangled surface o f deconstructive w riting and expose the architectural desire w ith in it; the desire fo r a trad itional architecture; the desire whose very properness m ight seem im proper on the surface o f this discourse that everywhere undermines propriety; the desire whose intensity is actually marked by the systematic repetition o f such attempts to lim it an architectural translation o f deconstruction.

But perhaps even such an abusive reading o f D errida is in sufficient. Inasmuch as his th ink ing about deconstruction is necessarily abused in architectural discourse, his account o f translation—which is to say his account o f the necessity o f abuse— needs to be rethought. Because o f architecture’s unique relationship to translation, it cannot simply translate deconstruction. I t is so im plicated in the economy o f translation that it at once preserves and threatens deconstruction. There is some k ind o f im p lic it identity between the untranslatable rem ainder that deconstructive discourse confidently locates and the part o f

The Survival of Deconstruction33_____________________________

architecture that causes the discourse to hesitate— the architecture it both calls fo r and resists. Consequently, if, as D errida argues at one po in t, “everything which is liv ing today lives through deconstruction” inasmuch as “deconstruction is survival,”39 deconstructive discourse itse lf can never simply survive architecture.

U n bu ild in g A rch ite c tu re

2____________________________

Architecture can never simply be a subject o f deconstructive discourse or be ignored by i t There cannot simply be a deconstructive discourse “about” architecture inasmuch as its way o f raising questions is itse lf architectural from the beginning. When Derrida describes “deconstruction,” which he rarely does (and then only after a marked hesitation and the taking o f many precautions), it is usually in architectural terms. And both the hesitation and the particu lar precautions taken are not unrelated to the fact that these terms are architectural.

Derrida’s early w ork repeatedly describes deconstruction as the “soliciting” o f an edifice, “in the sense that SolUcitare, in o ld Latin , means to shake as a whole, to make trem ble in entirety.”1 I f deconstructive discourse is anything, it is a form o f interrogation that shakes structures in a way that exposes structural weaknesses. It puts structures under pressure, forcing them, taking them to the lim it U nder a subtle but relentless strain the ir lim its become evident and the structure becomes visible as such, but it becomes visible, precisely, as something unlike the cultura lly enfranchised image o f structure. The structure does not look structural. That which is structural cannot be recognized as such by the very trad ition it organizes. D errida’s texts locate the un- resolvable enigmas on which the structures they interrogate depend in order to call in to question the dom inant trad ition o f th inking that is organized by a certain image o f build ing. Each edifice is destabilized by showing that its apparent stability is but an effect o f the ongoing concealment o f these enigmas.

U nbu ild ing A rchitecture36______________________

The edifice o f metaphysics (and a ll edifices consolidate metaphysics, there being no edifice w ithout metaphysics and no metaphysics w ithout edifice) claims to be stable because it is founded on the solid bedrock exposed when a ll the insecure sedimentary layers have been removed. I t is dislodged by locating the fractures in the bedrock that underm ine its structure. The threat to the architecture that is posed by deconstruction is underground or, rather, is the underground. Subverting metaphysics always involves an underground operation. In carrying out such an operation, deconstructive discourse subverts an edifice by demonstrating that the ground on which it is erected is insecure, insecure precisely because it veils an underground. The supposedly solid base is riddled w ith cavities: “the terrain is slippery and shifting, m ined and underm ined. And this ground is, by essence, an underground.”2

In these terms, deconstructive discourse appears to locate the fatal flaw in an edifice that causes its collapse. It appears to be a form o f analysis that dismandes o r demolishes structures, an undoing o f construction, and it is in this sense that it is most obviously architectural. But this obvious sense misses the force o f deconstruction. Deconstruction is not simply architectural. Rather, it is displacement o f trad itional th inking about architecture:

Now the concept o f deconstruction itse lf resembles an architectural metaphor. I t is often said to have a negative attitude. Som ething has been constructed, a philosophical system, a trad ition , a culture, and along comes a de-constructor and destroys it stone by stone, analyses the structure and dissolves it. O ften enough this is the case. One looks at a system— Platonic/H egelian—and examines how it was b u ilt, which keystone, which angle o f vision supports the authority o f the system. I t seems to me, however, that this is no t the essence o f deconstruction. I t is not simply the technique o f an architect who knows how to de-construct what has been constructed, but a probing which touches upon the technique itself, upon the authority o f the architectural m etaphor and thereby constitutes its own architectural rhetoric. Deconstruction is not simply—as its name seems to indicate— the technique o f a reversed construction when it is able to conceive fo r itse lf the idea o f construction. One could say that there is noth ing more architectural than deconstruction, but also noth ing less architectural.5

Taking Flimsy Cover in A rchitecture37__________________________________

To comprehend in what way deconstruction “resembles” an architectural gesture, a resemblance so em phatically opposed to what is (perhaps surprisingly) described as the “essence” o f deconstruction, in order to grasp the crucial sense in which, fo r Derrida, nothing is more or less architectural than deconstruction, it is necessary to look at the origins o f his th inking about it in Heidegger’s w riting.

Taking Flim sy C over in A rch itecture

I t is arguably Heidegger’s engagement w ith the question o f bu ild ing that determines both the form and content o f his w riting. In What Is a Thing? (the text o f the lectures orig ina lly entitled “Basic Questions o f Metaphysics” that were given at the University o f Freiburg in the w inter semester o f 1935-36), fo r example, Heidegger asks about the “inner structure” o f the “bu ild ing” that is metaphysics by looking at Kant’s “exh ib ition o f the inner construction o f pure reason” which “draws and sketches” reason’s “outline” and whose “essential m oment” is the “architectonic, the b lueprin t projected as the essential structure o f pure reason.”4 Heidegger has appropriated a ll o f this architectural rhetoric directly from Kant as part o f a general strategy o f appropriation, which is itse lf described in architectural terms. The strategy is to occupy the philosophical structure w ith which Kant defines the structure o f reason, identifying the lim its o f both these interrelated structures by inhabiting those very lim its:

In our in terpretation we shall no t try to examine and paraphrase the structure o f the w ork from the outside. Rather, we shall place ourselves w ith in the structure itse lf in order to discover som ething o f its framework and to gain the standpoint fo r viewing the whole.5

This strategy o f occupation derives closely from the “phenomenological reduction” o f Edmund Husserl. I t was already fo rmulated in Heidegger’s firs t lectures as Husserl’s assistant in 1920 and recorded in letters to his students as a m atter o f “destructio n ” (Destruktion) or “critica l unbu ild ing” (kritischer Abbau)—the la tter term being sometimes translated as “critica l dism antling,” o r even, more recently, in a k ind o f reverse projection, as “de-


construction.” The concept was form ally introduced in the celebrated Being and Time o f 1927, but is then more fu lly elaborated in the lecture course at the University o f M arburg in the summer o f the same year that was intended to be published as its sequel:

A ll philosophical discussion, even the most radical attem pt to begin a ll over again, is pervaded by trad itiona l concepts and thus by trad itiona l horizons and trad itiona l angles o f approach, which we cannot assume w ith unquestionable certainty to have arisen orig ina lly and genuinely from the dom ain o f being and the constitution o f being they claim to comprehend. I t is fo r this reason that there necessarily belongs to the conceptual in terpretation o f being and its structures, that is, to the reductive construction o f being, a destruction—a critica l process in which the trad itiona l concepts, which at firs t must necessarily be employed, are de-constructed [ kritischer Abbau\ down to the sources from which they were drawn. . . . Construction in philosophy is necessarily destruction, that is to say, a de-constructing o f trad itiona l concepts carried out in a historical recursion to the trad ition . And this is no t a negation o f the trad ition or a condem nation o f it as worthless; quite the reverse, it signifies precisely a positive appropria tion o f trad ition .6

Authentic construction involves taking apart unauthentic constructions from w ith in. I t is no t that the “unbuild ing” o f the old trad ition is followed by a new construction. Rather, “destruction belongs to construction.”7 The trad ition contains w ith in itse lf the traces o f the orig inary construction that it has forgotten, traces that can be gradually teased out. Philosophy is therefore no more than the W riting o f the history o f philosophy, one that must be continuously rewritten.8 An orig inary construction is not someth ing that simply lies behind the false structures o f the trad ition and can be revealed by dem olishing them. Rather, it is b u ilt in to those structures and can only be addressed by reappropriating the trad ition in its own terms, taking them to the ir “lim its.”9

For Heidegger, the trad ition o f philosophy, beginning w ith Plato, has forgotten its orig ina l task o f raising the question o f Being. The institu tion has lost touch w ith the fundam ental cond ition o f beings. The identification it makes w ith its object, when both are understood as a k ind o f bu ild ing that stands on a ground, is therefore more a projection o f its self-image onto its object than a recovery o f the essential condition o f that object. Metaphysics is a particular k ind o f construction that actually

Taking Flimsy Cover in A rch itecture39__________________________________

covers the orig inary construction it ostensibly reveals. Inasmuch as authentic th ink ing is authentic bu ild ing, the trad ition o f ph ilosophy is at once an inadequate bu ild ing and an inadequate th inking about bu ild ing . Heidegger’s attem pt to “overcome” this trad ition is necessarily a re th inking o f build ing. This reth inking does not simply abandon the classical bu ild ing o f philosophy in favor o f some superior construction technique, bu t identifies the sense o f build ing that philosophy attempts to cover, studying the classic build ing fo r the traces o f what it effaces.

Furthermore, the force o f Heidegger’s argum ent derives from its claim that the flaws in the construction o f the edifice that it identifies do not sim ply po in t to another k ind o f bu ild ing to be restored after the trad ition is dismanded. Rather, they are the very structure o f the bu ild ing that the trad ition constructs. When interrogating this edifice to reveal the cond ition o f the ground on which it stands, Heidegger raises the possibility that the ground (Orund) m igh t actually be a concealed “abyss” (Abgrund) and that metaphysics is constructed in ignorance of, or rather, to ignore, the instab ility o f the terra in on which it is erected, such that “we move about over this ground as over a flim sily covered abyss.”10 Metaphysics becomes the veiling o f the ground rather than its investigation, and the apparently simple sense o f a build ing sitting on the ground, supported by it, is the very mechanism of tha t veiling. Architecture is a cover and philosophy takes cover in architecture.

Heidegger developed this possibility that the ground is actually an obscured abyss in to a quasi-principle, o r more precisely, in to an argument tha t a ll principles are, in the end, unprincip led. This development is clearest in his seminars given at Freiburg in 1955-56, which studied in detail the so-called “Principle o f G round”— “noth ing is w ithout ground/reason [O rund] ”—w ith which modern philosophy organizes itself. For Heidegger, this princip le has been embedded in the trad ition o f philosophy since its origins in ancient Greece, even though it has only been form ulated as such w ith Descartes and Leibniz.11 The surfacing o f the architectural figure in philosophy that is described in much o f Heidegger’s earlier w riting turns out to be interdependent w ith the surfacing o f this princip le . The princip le is itse lf


architectural. Indeed, much more than this, it is the very p rinc iple o f architecture. I t is not ju s t that a princip led architecture is a philosophical necessity but, equally, principles are always architectural.

A ll principles are structural principles. They institute claims about the status o f the ground that are meant to be “stabilizing fo r th ink ing .”12 The princip le o f ground is, as Heidegger argues “not ju s t any princip le among others”13 as it is the princip le o f stability itself, the princip le o f principles legitim izing the concern w ith the “unshakable ground” that Descartes looks fo r in order to erect a stable construction. To philosophize about something, to rationalize it, is “to figure it as something upon which to bu ild .”14 But this princip le o f secure construction is no t itse lf examined by the trad ition based around i t Rather, it is a “longstanding cognitive habit”15 employed everywhere. The basis o f th ink ing is itse lf not thought through. The princip le o f support is itse lf used fo r support in lieu o f the th inking it ostensibly secures. In the end, it produces the very groundlessness it legislates against: “Everywhere we use the princip le o f reason and adhere to it as a prop fo r support. But it also immediately propels us in to groundlessness w ithout our hardly th ink ing about it in its genuine meaning.”16 Heidegger looks fo r the ground o f this princip le o f grounding, exam ining the way the expression, and all the arguments typically invoked to explain it, are “b u ilt” on a tautological circle. In the end, the fundam ental princip le o f ground is itse lf groundless. The bu ild ing o f philosophy is founded on an abyss. Build ing is always abysmal. I t is founded by covering over its orig in, only appearing to stand inasmuch as it conceals the absence o f a ground.

Heidegger argues that philosophy has been in a state o f “groundlessness” ever since the translation o f the terms that organized ancient Greek th ink ing in to the language o f metaphysics, a translation that substituted the orig inal sense o f ground w ith that o f the sense o f ground as support, ground as supporting presence to which the visible world is added.17 For Heidegger, metaphysics is groundless precisely because it determines the ground as support. I t is w ith this image that the orig ina l sense o f logos has been lost. Only w ith and through metaphysics is the

The Displacement o f A rch itecture41________________________________

orig in seen as a stable ground rather than an abyss. The “modern” crisis, the “groundlessness” o f the vio lent age o f technology, is produced by philosophy’s ancient determ ination o f the ground as support fo r a structure to which representations may be added.18 The crisis o f representation is produced by the very attem pt to remove representations in order to reveal the supporting presence o f the ground. We are alienated from the ground precisely by th ink ing o f it as secure.

Just as Heidegger displaces philosophy’s sense o f itse lf as a construction standing on a stable ground in favor o f philosophy as a constructing-through-unbuilding, he also displaces the sense o f the structures tha t philosophy describes. A lthough follow ing the trad ition ’s understanding o f being as a certain k ind o f “standing ,” it is no longer a standing on a stable ground, but a standing based on a loss o f ground, a construction b u ilt on an “abyss.” The abyss, the ru p tu rin g o f the fundam ental ground o f things, becomes their very condition o f possibility. Heidegger argues that it is not sim ply that philosophy has always described its proper object as being like a founded bu ild ing that stands. Rather, it is only by virtue o f being readable in this way that anything is recognized as an object in the firs t place.19 I t is no t that being is grounded but “ bang in itse lf essentially conies to be as grounding.”20 Consequently, “to the extent that being as such grounds, it remains groundless.”21 In this way, both the bu ild ing that is philosophy and the bu ild ing that it describes are radically displaced.

The D isplacem ent o f A rch itectu re

These closely in terre la ted displacements o f the institutionalized, and therefore fam iliar, sense o f construction organize D errida’s texts long before architecture becomes a discrete subject w ith in them. Heidegger’s re th ink ing o f bu ild ing is everywhere operative in Derrida’s work, which significantly began w ith an extended reading o f Husserl. The term “deconstruction” itse lf derives d irectly from Heidegger’s Destruktion and Abbau. In D errida’s own words, it is lite ra lly a “translation” o f those terms.22 Furtherm ore, what is being translated is understood to be architectural. For


Derrida, Destruktion means “not a destruction but precisely a destructuring that dismandes the structural layers in the system” and Abbau means “to take apart an edifice in order to see how it is constituted or deconstituted.”23 Both signify “an operation bearing on the structure o r trad itional architecture o f the fundamental concepts o f ontology or o f western metaphysics.”24 In rem obilizing these terms, Derrida follows Heidegger’s argument that this “destructuring” or “unbuild ing” disturbs a trad ition by inhabiting its structure in a way that exploits its m etaphoric resources against itself, no t to abandon the structure but to locate what it conceals.

The unbuild ing that is deconstruction is not a form o f demolitio n . I t establishes the conditions o f possibility o f the “trad itiona l architecture” rather than staging its fa ll.25 To make a bu ild ing trem ble is precisely no t to collapse it by subjecting it to some external force, but to explore it from w ith in, even to consolidate the structure, im ita ting its every gesture, fa ith fu lly repeating its operations but in a way that exposes its lim its, opening up its structure or, rather, find ing the openings that are already there, the concealed points o f weakness: “In the course o f this repetition a barely perceptible displacement disjoints a ll the articulations and penetrates a ll the points welded together by the im itated discourse.”26 Like Heidegger’s Abbau and Destruktion, this is an appropriation o f structures that identifies structural flaws, cracks in the construction that have been systematically disguised, not to collapse those structures but, on the contrary, to demonstrate the extent to which the structures depend on both these flaws and the way they are disguised. That is, it identifies the structural role o f what trad itional philosophy would identify as structured flaws and, in so doing, displaces rather than dismantles that philosophy.

Deconstructive shaking, like the “shaking o f the foundations” Heidegger describes in one o f his later readings o f Nietzsche,27 produces the sense o f stability as such rather than its loss. A structure does not simply collapse because it is erected on, and fractured by, an abyss. On the contrary, the fracturing o f the ground is the very possibility o f the edifice. The abyss, as Derrida ’s O f Grammatology argues, is a “structural necessity” :


And we shall see tha t this abyss is no t a happy o r unhappy accident. An entire theory o f the structural necessity o f d ie abyss w ifi be gradually constituted in our reading; the inde fin ite process o f supplem entarity has always already in filtra ted presence . . . Representation in the abyss o f presence is no t an accident o f presence; the desire o f presence is, on the contrary, born from the abyss . . . 28

The fissures in the ground that crack the structure are therefore no t flaws that can be repaired. The subterranean cavities cannot be filled . They do no t weaken a previously secure ground. On the contrary, they produce the sense o f the ground in the firs t place. In the end, they are the ground. Buildings are erected on and by cracks. There is no more stable ground to be found, no unflawed bedrock. Consequently, the subversion o f structure does not lead to a new structure. The flaws identified in the structure are the very source o f its strength. When the deconstructive shaking o f a bu ild ing reveals structural weaknesses, they are weaknesses tha t are structural.

This is to say tha t D errida identifies the strength o f a certain weakness. Rather than abandoning a structure because its weakness has been found (which would be to rem ain in com plicity w ith the trad itional ideal o f a grounded structure and the whole conceptual economy that follows from it) , deconstructive discourse displaces the architectural figure. Structure becomes “erected by its very ru in , held up by what never stops eating away at its foundation.”29 This enigmatic sense is operative everywhere in Derrida’s w riting as a k ind o f thread stitched in to each o f his texts in a way that binds them together. In das, to name but one example—and w ith in that example to po in t to bu t a few o f its traces—it appears in the expression “ru in it by erecting it, perhaps”30 which is tied in to an earlier comment that “the structure o f the tower is such that its construction returns, stone by stone, to its destruction,” which in tu rn is made in response to Genet’s line, “the act o f bu ild ing his life m inute by m inute, witnessing its construction, which is also progressive destruction.”31 This sense o f construction through destruction and ru in through bu ild ing organizes the whole text at many d iffe ren t levels and binds it to D errida’s other texts.

In these terms, deconstructive discourse is a form o f in te rro gation that shakes structure in order to identify which o f its flaws

44U nbu ild ing A rchitecture

are structured. Rather than demolish particular structures, it displaces the very concept o f structure by locating w ith in it that which is neither support no r collapse. As Derrida puts it in “Force and S ignification,” “Structure then can be methodically threatened in order to be comprehended more clearly and to reveal not only its supports but also that secret place in which it is neither construction nor ru in but lab ility.”32 The edifice is erected, that is, presents itse lf as a build ing, only by concealing this strange element that exceeds its structural logic. A t the same tim e, that logic depends on what it conceals. Deconstruction is concerned w ith that which exceeds build ing, the confusion o f structure that is hidden by it and yet makes it possible.

This anarchitectural element on which architecture depends is no t simply hidden underneath the bu ild ing or below the ground. I t is only its repression that produces the appearance o f ground in the firs t place. The abyss is no t simply the fracturing o f the ground that lies under the edifice. I t is the in te rna l fracturing o f the structure, the convolution and com plication o f the d istinction between bu ild ing and architecture, structure and ornament, presentation and representation. The underm ining o f the security o f the ground is equally the underm ining o f the possibility o f detaching ornam ent from structure. I f architecture always inhabits and underpins the bu ild ing it is supposedly attached to, it is precisely this convolution, which philosophy w ill everywhere attem pt to overtly deny and covertly repress, that makes possible the thought o f a ground that precedes the construction o f an edifice, the central thought o f philosophy that w ill always subordinate architecture as merely a representational addition. Architecture, that is, effects its own subordination to build ing. There would be no build ing w ithout the self-effacem ent o f architecture. Structure is an effect o f this withdrawal. Inasmuch as i t is always reading this effect, deconstructive discourse is always concerned w ith architecture.

But to elaborate the sense in which the architectural surface is, in the end, the only bu ild ing site would be to explore only one dimension o f the double sense in which, as Derrida argues, noth ing is more or less architectural than deconstruction. Just as deconstructive discourse offers a way o f comprehending archi-


tectural discourse, i t also places the very idea o f architecture at risk and is only deconstructive inasmuch as it does so. This double attitude to architecture is evident in an extended passage o f Derrida’s Memoires: For P aul de M an, which responds to de Man’s use o f an architectural figure in speaking o f allegory as the “defective cornerstone o f Hegel’s system.” D errida elaborates the figure in some detail:

We have here a figu re o f what some m ight be tem pted to see as the dom inant m etaphorical register, indeed the allegorical bent o f “deconstruction,” a certain architectural rhetoric. One firs t locates, in an architectonics, in the a rt o f the system, the “neglected corners” and the “defective cornerstone,” that which, from the outset, threatens the coherence and the in te rn a l order o f the construction. But it is a cornerstone! I t is required by the architecture which it nevertheless, in advance, deconstructs from w ith in . I t assures its cohesion while situating in advance, in a way that is both visible and invisible (tha t is, corner), the site tha t lends itse lf to a deconstruction to come. The best spot fo r efficiently inserting the deconstructive lever is a cornerstone. There may be other analogous places but this one derives its privilege from the fact that it is indispensable to the completeness o f the edifice. A condition o f erection, ho ld ing up the walls o f an established edifice, it also can be said to m aintain it, to contain it, and to be tantam ount to the generality o f the architectonic system, “o f the entire system.”33

Having disturbed the classical architectural figure by showing how it is the very defects in certain bu ild ing elements that make them central to the structure, the essay im m ediately distances itse lf from the figure, arguing that “Paul de M an’s ‘deconstructive’ moves do no t a ll obey this logic or this ‘architectural’ rhetoric ,”34 and then arguing that, rather than operating w ith in any particular edifice, deconstruction questions the very idea o f architecture, or at least the dominance o f a particular account o f architecture:

N or do I th ink, but I w ill explain this elsewhere, that deconstruction— if there be such a th ing and it be one— is bound by the lin k that the word suggests w ith the architectonic. Rather, it attacks the systemic (i.e., architectonic) constructionist account o f what is brought together, o f assembly.35

Here Derrida is again questioning “the authority o f the architectura l metaphor” in the same way as he does in several other


texts.36 Arguing that “one m ight be inclined” to reach the conclusion that deconstruction is something that is already occupying an architecture, rather than a discourse “inserting” itse lf in to it, such that “the disruptive force o f deconstruction is always already contained w ith in the architecture o f the work,” he then hesitates, putting this thought on hold: “Since I want neither to accept or reject a conclusion form ulated in these terms, le t us leave the question hanging fo r a w hile.” He nevertheless im mediately returns to the orig inal elaboration o f the trad itional architectural metaphor.37 A more radical questioning o f architecture is announced and immediately suspended.

This symptomatic hesitation and ambivalence around architecture punctuates much o f D errida’s w riting. Again, we have to ask: in what way is the architectural dimension o f deconstruction only “what one m ight be tempted to see as” central? In what way does it, as he puts it elsewhere, merely “resemble” an architectural gesture, a gesture that is “no t the essence o f deconstruction.”38 What precisely is the seductive tem ptation o f architecture that would lead us astray here? From what? What is the essential quality o f deconstruction masked by architecture and where, i f anywhere, m ight it lead us? W hat does it mean to be astray in deconstructive discourse anyway? In the end, what are the stakes in architecture fo r deconstruction?

The Elusive P o litics o f A rch itecture

Before addressing these questions in order to pursue the im p lications o f deconstruction fo r the institu tion o f architecture, it needs to be understood that deconstruction, firs t and foremost, bears upon the architecture o f institutions. When one o f D errida’s firs t essays describes the deconstructive solicitation o f structure, it symptomatically substitutes the word “in s titu tion ” fo r structure, even though the essay is no t ostensibly about institutions:

Structure is perceived through the incidence o f menace, at the m om ent when im m inent danger concentrates our vision on the keystone o f an institu tion , the stone which encapsulates both the possibility and the frag ility o f its existence.39

The Elusive Politics o f A rch itecture£7_________________________________

Throughout his work, when Derrida speaks o f the architectural metaphor and its displacement, it is always a question o f the status o f the institu tion even i f this question is raised in what appears to be, at firs t, an oblique way. Furtherm ore, it is when the question is no t so oblique and he explic itly thematizes the status o f institutions that the architectural m etaphor is most explicit. When, fo r example, the interview “Ja, ou le faux-bond” rejects the impression that deconstruction is the dism antling o r dem olition o f an architecture in favor o f deconstruction as a questioning o f the whole architectural rhetoric o f foundation, construction, architectonics, and so on,40 it does so in the context o f discussing the po litics o f materialism, and beyond that, the politics o f deconstruction itself: “a deconstructive practice that had no bearing on ‘ institu tiona l apparatuses and historical processes’ . . . which was satisfied to work on philosophemes o r conceptual signifieds, discourses, etc., would not be deconstructive; no matter how o rig ina l it m ight be, it would reproduce the auto-critical movement o f philosophy in its in terna l trad ition .”41 The questioning o f the very idea o f bu ild ing is aligned with a questioning o f institu tiona l authority. I t is the re th inking o f architecture that defines the politics o f deconstruction.

Whenever Derrida addresses the politics o f deconstruction, he does so by identifying the centrality o f its th ink ing about institutions; this th inking is almost invariably presented in architectural terms and is, in the end, about the status o f those very terms. Institutions are understood as build ings that can be displaced only by reth inking architecture. The association between the question o f materialism and architecture is not coincidental. A t the beginning o f “Parergon,” when speaking o f the po litica l history o f a particular institu tion— the university—institutions in general are credited w ith m ateriality by virtue o f the ir architectural condition:

We must take account o f certain specific relays, fo r example those o f so-called philosophy teaching in France, in the ins titu tion o f its p ro grams, its forms o f exam inations and com petitions, its scenes and its rhetoric . . . the construction o f the French University and its ph ilo sophical institu tion— a ll the teaching structures that we s till inhabit. Here I do no more than name, w ith a proper name as one o f the


guid ing threads, the necessity o f a deconstruction. Following the consistency o f its logic, it attacks no t only the in te rna l edifice, both semantic and form al, o f philosophemes, but also what one would be wrong to assign to it as its external housing, its extrinsic conditions o f practice: the h istorical form s o f its pedagogy, the social, economic o r po litica l structures o f th is pedagogical institu tion . I t is because deconstruction interferes w ith solid structures, “m aterial” institutions, and no t only w ith discourses o r signifying representations, that it is always d istinct from an analysis o r a “critique .”42

This slippage between politics and architecture is repeated throughout D errida ’s work but is most evident around the question o f the university. In the “The Principle o f Reason: The University in the Eyes o f its Pupils,” fo r example, he argues that “it is impossible, now more than ever, to disassociate the work we do . . . from a reflection on the po litica l and institu tional conditions o f that work”43 and goes on to say that this reflection must displace the trad itional idea o f institu tion: “what is meant by com munity and institu tion must be rethought.”44 This re th inking o f institu tiona l politics turns out to be architectural. The institution o f the university is understood to be architectural from the beginning, a system that describes itse lf as a kind o f bu ild ing and organizes itse lf according to a rhetoric o f ground, footing, foundation, structure, space, architectonics, and so on. In “Languages and Institu tions o f Philosophy,” which reads “the properly architectonic or architectural figure o f the institu tion, as a founded and structured edifice, constructed like an artifact,”45 D errida argues that: “One cannot th ink o f the university institu tion, as an institu tion o f reason. . . . w ithout this role o f architectonics. There is no university architecture w ithout architectonics.”46

In carefully reading this “institu tional architecture,” D errida is fo llow ing Heidegger, who at one po in t in his seminars on the “princip le o f ground” noted how the university is “b u ilt” [gebaut] on that p rincip le .47 D errida’s reading o f those seminars focuses on the argum ent that inasmuch as this princip le produces the institu tion devoted to its preservation and enforcement, it canno t itse lf be grounded w ith in that institu tion. The “space o f the university” is founded on an abyss. The structure o f the bu ild ing is erected on and by an instability that it cannot contro l even though it everywhere declares its in ten t to do so. This argument

The Elusive Politics o f A rch itecture49_________________________________

is continued in “M ochlos ou le co n flit des facultes,” a reading o f Kant’s architectonic description o f the university, when Derrida argues that the founding, which is to say build ing, o f a university necessarily occurs on unstable grounds inasmuch as “a founding act cannot be simply included in the logic o f what it founds.”48 The edifice is b u ilt on the abyss that it is designed to conceal and that the essay is only able to identify through an extended interrogation o f the ostensibly architectural concept o f “foundation.”

Again, this argum ent is explicidy concerned w ith politics. The essay calls fo r each discourse to take account o f the specific politics o f the institu tiona l space that makes it possible: “I do say that today, fo r anyone who belongs to an institu tion o f teaching and research, the m inim al responsibility, and also the newest, most powerful, and most interesting, is to make as clear and thematically explic it as possible such po litica l im plications, the ir system, and its aporias.”49 And again, the po litica l is understood as architectural. To th in k o f the politics o f the institu tion involves placing in to question the trad itional sense o f bu ild ing, not to simply dismantle any bu ild ing, but rather to identify the strange ruses by which it assumes authority and to thereby disturb traditional relationships to that authority. The mechanisms o f authority are not simply discredited or destroyed. On the contrary, they become more form idable. Inasmuch as a structure is founded on contradictions, it is reinforced rather than threatened by those strategies that im m ediately appear to be politica l. What is least threatening is precisely that which appears most threatening.

In this sense, the common reactions to deconstructive discourse are all too symptomatic. Clearly deeply threatened in some way by that discourse, trad itiona lly empowered discourses (whether o f the orthodox le ft o r righ t) have labored very hard to construct deconstructive discourse as one o f complete demolitio n . Ironically, to render it less threatening, they have had to construct it as tota lly threatening, an untenable form o f n ih ilism that can easily be dismissed. This construction requires a sustained violence to the le tter o f the texts being criticized or, more typically, an almost complete ignorance o f them, both o f which involve the abandonment o f the very academic principles sup-


posedly being upheld. In the end, such arguments much better exem plify what they condemn than the texts they wish to dismiss. The more radical threat o f deconstructive discourse lies precisely in the extent to which it does not demolish trad itional structures, but identifies the contradictions on which and, more precisely, w ith which they are founded. In articulating the enigmas o f structure, such a discourse opens up other possibilities fo r p o litical action. In so doing, the status o f the trad itional image o f bu ild ing, as reproduced in Kant’s text, necessarily becomes unclear:

Reading this text today, I appreciate its assurance and sense o f necessity as one m ight adm ire the rig o r o f a plan o r structure one apprehends through the breeches o f an edifice that is uninhabitable, and which leaves one unable to decide whether it is in a state o f ru in or has simply never existed, never been able to do more than shelter the discourse o f its own incom pletion.50

I t is precisely this suspension o f the status o f bu ild ing, rather them any singular determ ination o f it, that makes the reading politica l. The uncertainty about the edifice becomes the basis o f D errida’s attem pt to threaten not only “ the entire architecture”51 o f Kant’s text but also the entire Kantian corpus that represents itse lf in architectural terms and, in the end, the ancient institution o f philosophy in which it is embedded.

W hat both institu tional authority and those gestures that im mediately appear to d isrupt it share is a com mitm ent to a sense o f determ ination or decision, the sense that clear lines can and should be drawn. Derrida interferes w ith this sense no t by, as is so often and so incorrecdy asserted, prom oting a generalized indeterminacy, a sense that decisions can never be made, but, on the contrary, arguing that decisions are always made, not in spite o f an unavoidable indeterm inacy but on the very basis o f it. There is an undecidability b u ilt in to every decision. And this argum ent is not simply applied to the idea o f a build ing, as the sense o f determ ination can never be separated from the sense o f a build ing.

The specific questioning o f the institu tiona l architecture o f the university and the institu tion o f philosophy that organizes it is actually a general questioning o f the institu tion as such. The


university is not sim ply a specific example o f the general problem o f the political, one that uniquely dictates an architectural reading or rereading o f architecture. Rather, the po litica l question is firs t and foremost one o f architecture. D errida ’s essays often elaborate Heidegger’s identification o f architecture w ith institutions in general. Heidegger paid attention to the way in which the language o f in stitu tion is that o f build ing, the word stiften meaning both “to erect” or “ to institu te” and grunden meaning both “to ground” o r “to found.”52 The trad itiona l architectural rhetoric employed to describe the institu tion o f the university is actually the language o f institutions in general, which is to say that the idea o f philosophy, which turns on a certain representation o f architecture, is the idea o f institu tion. There is no institu tion w ithout that representation.

For Derrida, an institu tion is no t simply a space w ith in which a particular kind o f discourse occurs. Institutions are b u ilt in and by discourse. Furtherm ore, “a concept o f the institu tion is at work”53 in all discourses, whether they address themselves to institutions or not. This concept involves the same princip le o f reason, understood as a princip le o f architecture, responsible for, but not specific to, university discourse. A t one point, Derrida elaborates Kant’s argum ent that “a ll a rtific ia l institutions . . . are grounded in reason.”54 In these terms, his reading o f the university is not simply an example o f his po litica l work. I t elaborates the politics o f all o f his work, a politics that is always architectural, even where neither architecture nor politics are made thematic, which is to say, most o f the time. But it is a politics that can never simply be recognized as such even i f attention is paid to D errida’s sustained argument about institutions, which is usually and symptomatically ignored by both his supporters and critics. This po litics cannot be recognized as such by discourses that m aintain the very sense o f architecture being called in to question.

The institu tion is n o t sim ply the walls and structures that surround, protect, guarantee, o r restrict the freedom o f our work. I t is also and already the structure o f our in terpretation. Consequently, what is somewhat hastily called deconstruction is not, i f it is o f any consequence, a specialized set o f discursive procedures, s till less the rules o f a new herm eneutic method, w orking on texts or utterances in the shelter o f


a given and stable institu tion . I t is also, at the very least, a way o f taking a position, in its work o f analysis, concerning the po litica l and institu tiona l structures that make possible and govern our practice, our competencies, our performances. Precisely because it is never concerned only w ith signified content, deconstruction should no t be separable from the po litico -institu tiona l problem atic and should seek a new in vestigation o f responsibility, an investigation which questions the codes inherited from ethics and politics. This means that, too po litica l fo r some, it w ill seem paralyzing to those who only recognize politics by the most fam ilia r road signs.55

I f it is its displacement o f the trad itional and fam iliar sense o f bu ild ing that makes deconstructive discourse politica l, it is equally a displacement o f the fam iliar sense o f the politica l. Deconstruction cannot simply be po litica l inasmuch as “ the politic a l” as a category is a product o f the always architectural trad ition o f metaphysics, one o f the texts that the discourse reads and overturns.56 Hence the by now fam ilia r scene in which the discourse is simultaneously condemned fo r being too po litica l by some and fo r being apolitical by others. This scene has, o f course, been the topic o f an extended debate. A ll that is being added to that debate here is that deconstructive discourse is po litica l inasmuch as it engages w ith architecture but precisely because that engagement takes the form o f a displacement o f architecture, it necessarily loses any straightforward po litica l recognition, no m atter how many times its significant interventions in to trad itiona l po litica l sites can be pointed to.57 In the end, it rethinks the po litica l by re th inking architecture, and this re th inking is no t simply a discursive reflection on the possibility o f po litica l action, but is itse lf a form o f action, as the architecture that is being displaced is no t detached from discourse bu t b u ilt in to and by its every operation.

Evidence o f such a tacit argum ent can be found w ith in a 1985 interview w ith Derrida, which yet again passes from the question o f the university through the issue o f politics to that o f architecture. In response to a question about the politics o f deconstruction, D errida describes “deconstruction as politics” by virtue o f its focus on institutions and describes its effects in architectural terms, or, rather, in terms o f a displacement o f the trad itiona l idea o f bu ild ing:


But I don’t th ink that anything, especially an institu tion , could survive deconstruction in the classical fo rm o f a new w onderfu l bu ild ing , b u ilt after the negative m om ent o f deconstruction. I f somebody thinks that— that firs t we have to deconstruct everything and then we’l l have a new kind o f society, a new k ind o f university . . . tha t would be the reproduction o f the oldest schemes. What survives deconstruction should have new form s.58

Deconstructive discourse can never be detached from architecture. I t can never be extracted from what it destabilizes. I f it disturbs the architecture o f institutions from w ith in , this disturbance also occurs w ith in itself. I t is no t a d rifte r that simply occupies and dislodges an architecture before moving on. I t is never singular, never ju s t one coherent discourse and, fu rthermore, each o f its m u ltip le discourses is itse lf divided, occupied even, by the very architecture they seem to inhab it and disturb.

The role o f these in te rna l divisions and complications can be clearly seen in D errida ’s “Some Statements and Truisms,” an essay that again identifies the politics o f deconstruction by way o f an extended tac it association between institutions and architecture, but now focuses on the architecture o f deconstruction itself. The essay also removes the distinction between the content o f discourse and the architecture o f institutions in a way that again problematizes the trad itional category o f the politica l,69 but it goes further by raising the question o f what would be involved in institutionalizing deconstructive discourse itself, in the university, fo r example. Having spoken o f the architecture im p lic it in any act o f institu tion by describing the “hierarchizing structure o f an establishment,”60 it looks at the establishment o f contemporary “theory” as the construction o f “institu tiona l fo rtifica tions”61 that define a space w ith in the university, closing it o ff rather than opening it up. Deconstructive discourse is seen to be divided in to at least two in terrelated and inevitable gestures: one that puts an architecture at risk, destabilizing an institu tion , and another that consolidates its own movements in to some k ind o f stable architecture.

The destabilizing gesture w ith which deconstructive discourse identifies itself involves occupying the cracks in the o ffic ia l architecture, the hidden recesses o f the ins titu tion ’s structure rather


than any o f its o ffic ia lly designated spaces, forcing the cracks to see what they hide. But the less obvious stabilizing gesture occupies the host in quite a d iffe ren t way. The deconstructive shaking o f structure somehow builds itse lf in to the institu tion, form ing its own architecture in some kind o f alignm ent w ith that o f the university, which is able to absorb its potentia lly disruptive movements by absorbing the shock, accommodating it through what turns out to be a fundam entally conservative flexib ility, a flexing o f its structure to house and thereby restrain the would-be rebel: “institu tiona l architectures are erected to respond to the seisms o r seismisms o f all the new isms which m ight shake the structures.”62 The stabilizing dimension o f deconstructive discourse that can be officia lly accommodated, up to a point, “goes upwards. I t stands, a station, o r a stanza; it erects, institutes, and edifies. I t is edifying, essentially edifying.”63 Yet again, the bond between this quasi-institutional architecture and that o f its host is the ir m ateriality. The stabilizing moment o f the discourse, like that o f the institu tion it occupies, consolidates itse lf by way o f “the strength o f materials—that which architects must carefully calculate in order to avoid collapses.”64

But these two gestures can never simply be separated. One is the veiling o f the other, a veiling that can never detach itse lf from what it veils. The two are folded together. Deconstructive discourse is not some kind o f independent argument applied to d iffe ren t institu tiona l discourses. The story it tells is also its own story. Rather than a subversive discourse o f liberation, it always speaks o f its own entrapm ent in the economy it describes. The apparent stabilization o f deconstructive discourse in the university is not simply a degeneration o f an orig inal, rigorous, o r authentic discourse, an unfortunate po litica l compromise that weakens its destabilizing movements. Rather, it is but one o f the marks o f the stabilizing gestures that can be found in every one o f its texts. There can be no deconstruction w ithout architecture. A t the same time, no deconstructive discourse is as stable as it appears. Stability and instability cannot be separated. In the end, what makes the institu tion trem ble is precisely the ir interdependence, the sense in which the erection o f a structure always conceals the vio lation o f that structure, which is to say the sense that


architecture is always trem bling, that its very stability is but an effect o f the repression o f the uncontrollable movements in its very foundation, the movements that found it.65

This sense o f the trem bling o f architecture is invoked in the 1977 interview “Du Tout,” when Derrida makes an analogy between the position he fin d h im self in as an apparent foreigner in a meeting o f a particular institu tion (a psychoanalytic organization) and deconstruction’s position w ith in institutions. Deconstruction is described as that which occupies the in ternal structure o f an ins titu tio n in such a way that its operations are only revealed by way o f some kind o f radical threat to the host architecture, a threat that is understood to be po litica l precisely to the extent that it is a threat to that which is usually understood to be political:

[T ]h is evening someone from the alleged outside o f your institu tion has been invited . . . someone who does no t show him self often, a kind o f beast who emerges from his hole on ly at the m om ent when he hears o r feels com ing toward h im the vibrations o f cracked walls, o f collapsing partitions, o f trem bling supports, o f threatened im perm eability, etc., in a w ord a ll the signs o f what I have form erly called a deconstruction; and deconstruction, as I have often had to insist, is no t a discursive o r theoretical affair, b u t a practico-politica l one, and it is always produced w ith in the structures (somewhat quickly and summarily) said to be institu tiona l.66

The interview goes on to describe deconstructive discourse in terms o f locating tha t which is hidden, rather than simply enclosed, by the architecture o f an institu tion (in this case, that o f psychoanalysis), tha t which the architecture is designed to veil and yet is the source o f its strength. Again, the basic structure o f architecture, that which produces the effect o f solid ity and security, is understood to be its capacity to conceal. A structure is only able to stand by concealing something, something that occupies the space o f the bu ild ing w ithout being visible w ith in it, someth ing that can only be found w ith in the institu tiona l discourse and yet always exceeds it, something w ith in but inaccessible to the discourse that actually organizes its architecture.

This unanalyzed w ill be, w ill have been that upon w hich and around which the analytic m ovem ent w ill have been constructed and mobi-


lized: everything w ill have been constructed and calculated so that this unanalyzed m ight be inherited , protected, transm itted intact, suitably bequeathed, consolidated, enkysted, encrypted. I t is what gives its structure to the movement and to its architecture.67

The space o f a build ing is constructed to enclose something that must never appear w ith in it. The visible enclosure, the de fin ition o f a space w ith walls that makes things visible both inside it and outside it, is firs t and foremost a mechanism o f concealment that veils another kind o f space inhabited by a prohibited other, or, more precisely, veils a space that is itse lf the other inasmuch as it disrupts the logic o f inhabitation. By shaking architecture, deconstructive discourse forces this other out in to the space that is supposed to conceal it, demonstrating that its effects can actually be found throughout that space in a ll the routine transactions that go on w ith in it, and even that the space itse lf that routine ly conceals it is its firs t effect.

In these terms, the question being asked here about deconstruction and architecture must be: what happens when the institu tion whose architecture is to be shaken is that o f architecture itself? W hat exactly is the architecture o f the institu tion o f architecture? Can there even be such a thing? And what would it conceal? What is it that is buried in and by the discourse apparently devoted to architecture?

To begin to approach these increasingly urgent questions, we need to determ ine more precisely what the institutionalized sense o f architecture is by going fu rthe r in to the trad itional figure o f the edifice to find out what kind o f in te rio r the bu ild ing has, what k ind o f space, i f any, is constructed by the figure as it circulates through trad itiona l discourse and what kinds o f relationship D errida’s work has to that space. This necessitates a re turn to Heidegger, i f not a succession o f returns that patiendy track the complicated ro le o f architecture in his work beyond its more obvious surfacing in the concept o f “destruction” o r “c ritical unbu ild ing ,” which D errida’s work so explicitly elaborates at length.

To comprehend the prohib ited sense o f architecture buried w ith in the classical figure o f the edifice and whatever m ight be, in tu rn , buried w ith in that sense, to trace the ir strategic role in


deconstructive discourse, it is necessary to reread Heidegger more closely. Inasmuch as “deconstruction” is a translation o f Heidegger, it is, as Derrida once puts it, a “deform ing translatio n ,” which like a ll translations reconstructs, transforms, abuses, and distances itse lf from what it appears to translate.68 I f to translate deconstruction in architecture is to th in k about the senses in which deconstruction is already some kind o f translation o f architecture, what matters here is the precise ways in which Derrida at once reconstructs and deforms Heidegger’s architecture before distancing him self from it— even, i f not especially, i f he never addresses Heidegger’s architecture as such.

3

The S lippery A r t o f Space

Having identified the crucial role o f a certain image o f architecture in the philosophical trad ition , Heidegger’s sustained attem pt to displace that trad ition necessarily involves an ongoing displacement o f tha t representation. A t one level, this takes the form o f a reconfiguration o f the image but, even more im portant, it involves a transform ation o f its status, which is to say, both a repositioning o f the image and a d isruption o f its very status as an image.

As we have seen, the figure o f architecture produced and sustained by the trad ition o f metaphysics makes available the organizing principles o f that trad ition , which then appear to precede it and are actually used to subordinate it as merely a superstructural representation, a contingent figure to be discarded. But these exp lic it gestures o f subordination only serve to cover and m aintain the ongoing covert operations o f that very figure w ith in the discourse, operations that depend on it no t being understood as a figure but as a special k ind o f touchstone, a material reality whose irreducib le order can be used to stabilize and order the discourse that makes contact w ith it. The discourse is only able to stabilize itse lf w ith this figure o f stability by effacing its figural condition and effacing the traces o f that effacement. In such elaborate bu t routine operations, the sense o f architecture becomes so fam ilia r that it is not understood to be a representation. A sense o f the irreducib le solidity o f construction is seen to precede representation, and this precedence is not some-

The S lippery A rt o f Space60________________________

th ing addressed by the discourse as such but is constandy drawn on, and only occasionally appealed to, in order to organize that discourse. Before it m ight choose to discuss the ground, le t alone the kinds o f structure it m ight support, the discourse has already put a bu ild ing in place.

Heidegger argues that because o f the very fam iliarity o f the sense o f grounded structure that organizes the current technological manifestations o f metaphysics, “we most easily and fo r the longest tim e mistake the insidious nature o f its violence.”1 There would be no metaphysics w ithout this concealed violence. Both the violence and its concealment are constitutional. The trad ition o f metaphysics institutes itse lf by concealing its own violence. The architectural figure o f the grounded structure sustains this violence by effecting the concealment. The vertical hierarchy it configures is a mechanism o f control that dissimulates its own strategic violence. Its very fam ilia rity marks the extent o f its control.

This argum ent does no t appear to be about architecture as such. A t best it seems to call in to question the architectural figure, to render it inescapably metaphysical. But Heidegger does not simply abandon architecture. The sense that architecture cannot be displaced in the way that the philosophical trad ition based around it can is precisely the effect o f that trad ition. Heidegger’s reading is made possible by another sense o f architecture. The elaborate play between the trad itional architecture and the often oblique effects o f this other architecture in his work can be more easily followed in his reflection on the ph ilosophy o f art, or, more precisely, his use o f art to displace philosophy. The complex interactions between the m ultip le levels o f architectural argument that operate in all his texts are more conspicuous when the relationship between philosophy and art is explic itly in question.

Tasting Space

I t is significant that Heidegger’s well-known criticism o f the trad itiona l philosophy o f art in The O rig in o f the Work o f A rt, like Kant’s The Critique o f fudgement, which exemplifies the trad ition

Tasting Space61___________

it is criticizing, turns on an architectural example. But unlike Kant’s text, its example disturbs the fam iliar understanding o f build ing, and it is arguably this disturbance that becomes the basis o f his overall displacement o f aesthetics, i f no t his entire philosophy.

Like the trad ition , Heidegger appeals to architecture fo r its fam iliarity. A t the beginning o f the essay, he notes how “fam ilia r” works o f art are to “everyone,” and architecture is his firs t example o f this fam iliarity. And when architecture returns at a key po in t in the m iddle o f the essay, i t is again a question o f fam iliarity. “In order to become more fam ilia r w ith what the question [where does a w ork o f art belong?] involves,” Heidegger puts forw ard the example o f “a bu ild ing”— specifically, a Greek temple—which is elaborated fo r some pages.2 I t appears that the fam iliarity o f architecture is going to be used to make an unfam ilia r philosophical question more fam iliar, bu t in the process architecture is its e lf defam iliarized.

Heidegger starts w ith what seems to be the fam ilia r condition o f a build ing—“I t sim ply stands there in the m iddle o f the rock- cle ft valley”3—but goes on to show how this standing is not so simple. For a start, the bu ild ing is no t simply seen standing in a pregiven site. Rather, the site can only be seen through the build ing. The edifice “makes visible” the ground on which it stands: “The temple, in its standing there, firs t gives to things the ir look and to men the ir outlook on themselves.”4 I t is no t simply looked at by an eye, aesthetic or otherwise. Rather, it constructs the eye. Furtherm ore, this newly constructed eye is no t directed from the bu ild ing toward its site. I t produces what it sees. The bu ild ing produces its site. I t does not stand on a ground that preceded it and on which it depends fo r its structura l integrity. Rather, it is the erection o f the build ing that establishes the fundam ental condition o f the ground. The bu ild ing ’s structure makes the ground possible.5 The ground is constituted rather than simply revealed by that which appears to be added to it. To locate the ground is therefore necessarily to construct an edifice.

This transform ation o f the fam ilia r sense o f bu ild ing is no t lim ited to Heidegger’s reflections on art. H is texts repeatedly


identify construction w ith the production o f a view that produces the very ground it appears to be supported on, as when the th ird volume o f Nietzsche argues that:

First and foremost, thinking is “constructive.” Generally, that means that this thinking first fashions what does not yet stand and exist as something at hand, something that perhaps never was at all. It does not appeal to and depend upon something given for support; it is not an assimilation but is what announced itself to us as die poetizing nature of positing a horizon within a perspective. “Constructing” means not only producing something that is not yet at hand but also setting up and erecting, rising to the heights—more precisely, first gaining a height, securing it, and thus positing a “right direction.” Thus “constructing” is a commanding that first raises the claim to command and creates a realm of command.

Insofar as construction fashions, it must at the same time and even prior to this be founded on a ground. Together with rising to the heights, it at the same time forms and opens a vista onto its surroundings. The essence of construction lies neither in piling up layers of building materials nor in ordering them according to a plan, but solely in the fact that when we set up a new space another atmosphere opens up, precisely through what is set up. Whenever that fails to happen, what has been built has to be explained afterward as a “symbol” for something else; it is established as such by the newspapers for the public. Construction in these two cases is never the same. Justice as the positing of something right, a positing that constructs—that is, founds, erects and opens a vista—is the essential origin o f the poetizing and commanding nature of all knowing and forming.6

This displacement is also explicitly w ritten in to his general rereading o f the architecture w ritten in to the trad ition o f philosophy. The k ind o f ground clearing that Kant explicitly attempts, and that im p lic itly organizes the ancient philosophical trad ition his texts participate in, does not precede the construction o f the philosophical edifice. The ground is no t independent o f the edifice. The edifice is no t simply added to a preexisting ground, it is simply no t an addition. And, as we have seen, fo r Heidegger this transform ation o f the bu ild ing o f philosophy is equally a transform ation o f philosophy’s object, which is trad itiona lly presented in architectural terms. Being is no t ju s t a standing on a ground; it is itse lf grounding, a standing that grounds.7 In the end, it is the ground and, as such, is itse lf not grounded. The ground is an abyss, the G rund is Abgrund.8


In elaborating such arguments, Heidegger is not making an analogy between architecture as a material artwork and the abstract workings o f philosophy. He does not produce a new description o f lite ra l buildings in order to transform the metaphoric use o f architecture by philosophy when it is no t addressing architecture as such. O n die contrary, he produces a d iffe ren t image o f architecture to efface, o r at least complicate, that very d istinction between the lite ra l and the metaphoric, a distinction that is an effect o f the figure o f architecture before it is a philosophical d istinction applied to i t

The philosophy o f a rt Heidegger opposes is produced by and fo r metaphysics and is therefore based on the trad itiona l image Of architecture w ith which that trad ition constitutes itself. This image, and its symptomatic effects, can be found throughout Heidegger’s essay on the artwork even though he rarely makes it thematic as such. When he does address architecture, nam ing it as an example, it is no t one example among the other arts that could have been used to make the same po in t about the condition o f art, all o f which supposedly have the same properties inasmuch as they are arts. Architecture is operative in his argum ent both before and after it is named as an example. By looking more closely at the text, it becomes evident that architecture is both the agent o f the subordination o f a rt by philosophy and Heidegger’s agent in overturning that subordination.

The essay begins by opposing phUosophy’s determ ination o f the artwork as m erely a representative “add ition” to a u tilita rian object, a “superstructure” added to the “substructure” which, in tu rn , is added to the ground. The architectural figure organizes this relationship: “ I t seems almost as though the th ing ly element in the art work is like the substructure in to and upon which the other, authentic elem ent is b u ilt” 9 The m aterial object is the “support” to which the artwork is added; the presentation o f the ground to which the artwork is added as but a representation. W hich is to say tha t art, fo r metaphysics, is not structural. A rt is precisely that which exceeds structure and therefore needs to be subordinated to it. W hat is privileged in art is necessarily subordinated in metaphysics as merely a representation o f an “idea.” A rt is detached and subordinate to the tru th it may or may no t

The Slippery A rt o f Space64________________________

represent. In this way, one o f the arts—architecture— is the mechanism o f the subordination o f a ll art.

Heidegger attempts to resist this subordination, arguing that the tru th sought by the philosophical trad ition is actually made possible by the very realm o f art it subordinates. A rt is neither a representational domain detached from the philosophical quest fo r the tru th , nor a source o f representations that can be employed strategically, but only temporarily, by philosophy to describe that quest o r illustrate a po in t made w ith in it. Philosophy is unthinkable outside o f art. To argue this, Heidegger necessarily disturbs the image o f architecture that made the subordination possible in the firs t place. Architecture must be his key example. Indeed, it is produced at the beginning o f the central section o f the essay entitled "The Work and T ru th .” The way the temple produces rather than represents the ground becomes his paradigm o f the constitutional role o f art in the very production o f tru th .

The revision o f the relationship between philosophy and art that the example initiates is itse lf presented in architectural terms at the end o f the essay when Heidegger argues that art is actually “foundational” to the philosophical trad ition that subordinates it to the level o f ornament. The whole po in t o f the essay is to describe a rt as “founding tru th .” The reversal it seeks is itse lf architectural from the beginning. The essay is necessarily addressing architecture before it appears to speak about it.

In fact, the particular moment die essay speaks about architecture is in the m iddle o f an argument framed in architectural terms not identified as such. Heidegger calls in the example o f architecture to answer the question: how does a work o f art “stand on its own”? The standing up o f a temple is used to explain the standing up o f art, the standing that he w ill later say, when no longer speaking o f architecture, founds tru th , the standing that grounds. The architectural “example” he invokes provides the key concepts w ith which art is now to be thought: “standing,” “ towering up,” “erection,” “arising,” “placing,” “founding.” These terms dominate the end o f the essay but they have been transformed, and it is the labor o f this transform ation


that is the central work o f the essay. The fam ilia r sense o f architecture, indeed its very fam iliarity, has been progressively displaced.

Its not so much that Heidegger appeals to strange elements in our fam iliar experience o f buildings that are no t acknowledged by the tradition. He does not even identify architecture as an object o f “experience.” Rather, experience is understood as an effect o f the institu tiona l trad ition organized around a particular image o f architecture, a construct that has been institutionalized to the extent that is fam iliar, so fam ilia r that it can even act as a figure fo r the fam iliar. I t is by defam iliarizing architecture that Heidegger disturbs the trad ition. The founding o f tru th by art, which is exem plified by a build ing, becomes the establishment o f the unfam iliar rather than the fam iliar. Indeed, the essay concludes by defin ing founding as the unfam iliar “overflow ing” the fam iliar. This founding is itse lf understood as the possibility o f the institution o f philosophy, even i f that institu tion seeks to efface the unfam iliar, which is to say that philosophy effaces its own conditions o f possibility. The enigmatic and self-effacing question o f architecture is, as it were, b u ilt in to the institu tion.

When architecture comes up in the essay, it is in response to a question that is at once architectural and institutional. To ask how the work o f a rt stands on its own is explicitly, fo r Heidegger, to ask how it stands unimpeded by the institutions o f the “art- industry” that fram e it: the spaces o f “collections and exhibitions,” “connoisseurs,” “critics,” “a rt dealers,” and “art-historical study.” He argues that the “setting-up” o f the art-work by these institutions, includ ing that o f philosophy, which ostensibly pu t them in place, is somehow produced by the art-work itself, its fundamental condition as a setting-up, the condition exem plified by a building. The art-work produces its institu tiona l sites ju s t as the temple produces its site, even i f those institutions fa il to recognize the essence o f the art-work. A lthough the structure o f such institutions is d iffe ren t from , and insensitive to, that o f a build ing, it is called fo r and made possible by such build ing.

In these terms, Heidegger’s displacement o f architecture is firs t and foremost a re th inking o f institu tional authority. The

66The S lippery A rt o f Space

philosopher-architect who attempts to produce a grounded structure is not simply adding a bu ild ing to the ground. Philosophy does not emerge from and present the ground; it produces the effect o f ground, an effect o f stability that veils a fundam ental instability. The figure o f architecture acts as a veil, enabling philosophy to disguise its active ordering o f the world as the neutral discovery o f the w orld ’s preexisting order. In this way, Heidegger’s re th inking o f architecture appears to provide the terms fo r a radical dismanding o f the trad ition .

But in the end Heidegger’s account reproduces much o f what it critiques. H is untraditional th inking o f architecture is eventually detached from architecture. Architecture is once again subordinated to and by the very arguments i t has made available. Heidegger’s account o f architecture remains one o f presentation. Indeed, when the essay speaks o f architecture, it does so precisely to bracket o ff representation: “For this attem pt le t us deliberately select a work that cannot be ranked as representational art. A build ing, a Greek temple, portrays nothing. I t simply stands there in the m iddle o f the rock-cleft valley.”10 Heidegger’s progressive displacement o f this “simply,” his complication o f what it is to stand, continues to draw a clear distinction between standing and representation. I t redraws rather than abandons the line that the institutions o f philosophy have always been concerned to m aintain, and have done so by appealing to architecture.

Inasmuch as that distinction is redrawn, architecture is inevitably m aintained in its trad itiona l place. This can be seen at the end o f the essay, where the concepts that were earlier pu t in place w ith the example o f architecture are appropriated by the art o f poetry, the highest art that then “governs” the lower arts like architecture. Architecture is subordinated to the immediacy o f poetic speech in the very terms that it has provided (a gesture that he elaborates in more detail in his lectures o f 1942-43 on Parmenides11). If, as Heidegger argues, philosophy routine ly subordinates the arts that are its possibility, Heidegger’s own argum ent ends up subordinating the art o f architecture on which it is based, reconstituting the trad ition he critiques, and opening up his text to its own criticism .

Spaced O ut67_________

Spaced O ut

D errida’s work is shaped by a reading o f this systemic dup licity in Heidegger’s texts. In “Restitutions o f the T ru th o f Pointing,” his extended reading o f Heidegger’s essay on the artwork, he notes, “I have always been convinced o f the strong necessity o f Heidegger’s questioning, even i f it repeats here, in the worst as well as the best sense o f the word, the trad itiona l philosophy o f art. And convinced o f its necessity, perhaps, to the very extent that it does this.”12 This comment marks his consistently com plicated and ambiguous relationship to Heidegger, and must in some way mark his relationship to Heidegger’s th ink ing o f architecture. Yet while D errida ’s essay goes on to address the question o f ground, foundation, and support that is always at stake in the figure o f architecture, it does not explicidy identify architecture’s role in either Heidegger’s displacement o r repetition o f metaphysics.

Nevertheless, at the beginning o f “Parergon,” his reading o f Kant’s The Critique o f Judgement, Derrida tacidy identifies the way in which Heidegger’s account o f the philosophy o f art is, in the end, defined by its treatm ent o f the question o f space. Pointing to the ultimate subordination o f the plastic arts to speech by Heidegger’s essay, D errida argues that the way it “subjected the whole o f space to the discursive arts, to voice and the logos”13 repeated the trad itiona l philosophy o f art it was attem pting to resist This po in t had been made much earlier in the 1967 interview “Im plications,” in which he singles out the way Heidegger’s essay privileges speech as the best evidence o f his general com plicity w ith the trad ition o f metaphysics. And again, the privileging is understood as the dem otion o f space. Derrida points to the essay’s subordination o f architecture and sculpture to poetry, the spatial arts to the “space o f the poem,” m aterial spatiality to abstract space:

B ut doubtless there is a certain Heideggerian phonologism , a noncriti- cal privilege accorded in his works, as in the West in general, to the voice, to a determ ined “expressive substance.” This privilege, whose consequences are considerable and systematic, can be recognized, fo r example, in the s ign ificant prevalence o f so many “phon ic” metaphors


in a m e d ita tio n on a rt w h ich always re tu rn s , by m eans o f exam ples chosen in a ve ry m arked way, to a rt as th e “appearance o f tr u th ” . . . . T h u s is e xp la in e d th a t a cco rd in g to H e id e g g e r a ll the arts u n fo ld in th e space o f th e poem w h ich is “th e essence o f a rt,” in th e space o f “ language ,” and o f th e “w o rd .” “A rc h ite c tu re and scu lp tu re ,” he says, “o ccu r o n ly in th e o p e n in g o f saying and n a m in g . T hey are gove rned and g u id e d by th e m .”14

To understand the im portance o f this apparently incidental po in t about space, and why Heidegger’s essay on the artwork is singled out to exemplify it, it is necessary to pay closer attention to the argument about space embedded w ith in D errida’s early work. Such an argument can be found, fo r example, in O f Gram- matology o f 1967, perhaps the most read o f D errida’s books. A concern w ith space punctuates the text w ithout ever appearing to be the central issue. I t is a fragmentary subtext whose significance can only be established here by piecing together what seem like isolated fragments to see the coherent argument they assemble that runs through the book, stitched in to it like a fragile thread that holds together the more visible arguments.

As is well known, the text calls in to question the way the trad ition o f metaphysics organizes itse lf around a privileging o f the immediacy o f speech over the mediations o f w riting, but little attention has been paid to the way in which Derr ida explicitly presents this privileging as a subordination o f space. He repeatedly shows how w riting is trad itionally identified w ith space by tracing its role in a number o f canonic thinkers includ ing Plato, Hegel, Saussure, Husserl, Rousseau, and Levi-Strauss. Each in tu rn is seen to locate w riting “in space,”15 the “space o f inscription . . . the spatial distribution o f signs,”16 and to subordinate space, using a concept o f the unmediated presence o f speech to effect this subordination. In each writer, speech “sublimates space.”17 The trad ition o f metaphysics they participate in rejects w riting understood as “the invoking o f an ‘exterior,’ ‘sensible,’ ‘spatial’ signifier in te rrup ting self-presence.”18 Metaphysics is that which subordinates space, associating it w ith “death,” “decay,” “degeneration,” “representation,” “dissim ulation,” “in te rrup tion ,” “seduction,” “m ateriality,” “sensuality,” “monstrosity,” and so on. In Rousseau, fo r example, space is opposed to speech


as death is opposed to life : “voice. . . . transgressing space, mastering the outside, . . . That is to say a certain death signified by space. The arts o f space convey death w ith in themselves.”19 Metaphysics is no m ore than the mastery o f space, and space is mastered by being kept outside. Speech supposedly precedes space and is therefore able to contro l it. W riting, w ith a ll its dangerous spatiality, is cast out to the subordinate exterior.

But although speech “does no t fa ll in to the exteriority o f space,”20 this does no t mean that it simply “occupies” an in terior. The privileged in te rio r from which w riting is excluded is not a space. On the contrary, it is the absence o f space. Speech is precisely that which is w ithout space, and space is always that which is outside.21 And ju s t as speech does not simply occupy the in terio r, w riting does no t simply occupy the exterior. When Derrida speaks o f the “spatial exteriority o f the signifier,”22 the exterio r is space itself. I t is the very gesture o f exclusion that produces space in the firs t place. W riting is no t simply located “in ” space. Rather, it is the production o f space. There is no space before the w riting that appears to go on w ith in it. Consequendy, Derrida refers to w riting as “the possibility o f inscriptions in general, not befalling an already constituted space as a contingent accident but producing the spatiality o f space.”23 Furthermore, he not only speaks o f w riting as spatial but also o f space as w riting. Space is inscription rather than its site. W riting does not have a site. Sites are an effect o f w riting. This sense o f space can be found in a ll o f D errida’s work, as when “Plato’s Pharmacy” speaks o f “the space o f w riting, space as w riting ,”24 which is taken fu rthe r when Speech and Phenomena speaks o f “ the externality o f space, externality as space.”25 I f space is w riting, it is not simply placed in the exterior. The exterior is always, and only, space.

Inasmuch as space is not a static receptacle o f inscriptions bu t an effect o f ongoing inscription, what the trad ition attempts to subordinate is no t so much space as the gesture o f inscription that produces space. For this, Derrida deploys the term “spacing” [espacement], describing w riting as spacing and “spacing as w riting.”26 Speech is on ly able to subordinate space inasmuch as it is “unconnected to spacing.” I t is in this sense that the supposed immediacy o f speech is by de fin ition opposed to the mediations


o f space. Spacing is that which produces both the sense that things are exterior to each other, that they are spaced out in some k ind o f space, and the sense that space is itse lf exterior to some other domain, that the spatial w orld is detached from one that is w ithout space. Spacing is the “distance” o f representation: both the spatial intervals between signifiers and the effect o f substitution, the production o f the sense that the m aterial sig- n ifie r “stands in fo r” something detached from it, the sense that space is an exterior domain o f representation detached from that o f presence, which is to say, the sense o f an exterior divided from an in terio r. In such terms, theories o f representation are necessarily theories o f space. Inasmuch as Derrida complicates the classic account o f representation, which his work is everywhere doing, he necessarily reconfigures the th inking o f space and the role o f space in th inking.

Derrida attempts to resist the trad ition o f metaphysics by showing that space is never a contingent element that can be simply bracketed out in favor o f some higher immutable and im m aterial constant. As O f Grammatobgy puts it, “that language must traverse space, be obliged to be spaced, is no t an accidental tra it bu t the mark o f its o rig in .”27 Space does not befall the pure voice sought by philosophy but is its very possibility. There can be no voice, le t alone the philosophical desire fo r such a voice, w ithout the spatiality that appears to contaminate i t “For the voice is always already invested, undone [sollid tee], required, and marked in its essence by a certain spatiality.”28 The contam ination o f the dream o f philosophy by space turns out to be the very possibility o f that dream.

Speech, that which is supposedly w ithout space, is “fissured” by a demand fo r space and this fissure is itse lf a “spacing” that cannot be removed.29 The supposedly stable prespatial in te rio r so revered by the trad ition o f philosophy is already fractured, opened up, contam inated from the beginning, by the very movements o f space it supposedly precedes, subordinates, and excludes. Inasmuch as Derrida shows that “spacing insinuates in to presence an in te rva l”30 such that “spacing is no t the accident”31 but the possibility o f the rule, the simple opposition between space and presence upon which the trad ition o f philosophy


depends is confused.32 Space cannot simply be subordinated inasmuch as it harbors the possibility o f that which attempts to subordinate it. Equally, space is no longer what the trad ition constructs it as in order to subordinate i t D errida’s reading does no t simply reverse the trad ition by inverting the classic opposition and making space dom inant. The trad itiona l sense o f space is only produced in the very gesture o f its subordination. To in terfere w ith that gesture is to produce a very d iffe ren t sense o f space, a sense that at once disturbs and produces the trad ition. I t is to mark this sense that Derrida uses the word “spacing,” a word that carries some o f the connotations that the trad ition attaches to space in its attem pt to dismiss it but also carries senses that cannot be recognized by the trad ition .

To disturb the trad ition involves subverting its attempt to detach itse lf from space by identifying that attem pt as a form o f institutional resistance that attempts to conceal the convoluted structure o f the trad ition that makes it. The exclusion and subordination o f space produces an orderly facade, or, rather, the facade o f order, to mask an in te rna l disorder. The trad itional anxiety about space marks a forbidden desire that threatens to collapse the edifice o f philosophy from w ith in.

This internal con flic t can be seen when O f Grammatobgy shows how the simultaneous need fo r space and the desire to subordinate space, by configuring it as merely a degenerate and regrettable event, sustains a strangely contradictory bu t normative economy: “even while saying that spacing assures the possibility o f speech and song, Rousseau wishes to th in k o f space as a simple outside by way o f which disease and death . . . make the ir entry.”33 The texts o f the trad ition are marked by an ongoing debt to space that is only partia lly veiled by the ir repeated subordinations o f space, insistent declarations o f the in tegrity o f the interio r that take the fo rm o f a denial, if no t a disavowal. The overt desire to expel space marks a subterranean and structural desire fo r space, a desire that can itse lf only be understood in spatial terms. Derrida’s essays relendessly track the strategic effects o f this desire. Inasmuch as the subordination o f space is tied to a certain image o f architecture, the question o f deconstruction and architecture must be, from the beginning, a question o f


repressed desire or, more precisely, o f the repression o f what O f Grammatology calls the “spacing between desire and pleasure.”34

W hile Derrida goes out o f his way to disassociate his general reading o f Rousseau’s texts from a lite ra l psychoanalysis, (arguing that the texts o f psychoanalysis need to be subjected to the same type o f reading35) the specific question o f space invites such an analysis. In “Desistance,” his more recent text on Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s work, fo r example, the strange role o f space in the trad ition is described as a “haunting,” and its concealment as a symptomatic gesture o f repression. The particular spatiality o f “rhythm ” (which often acts as D errida’s figure fo r spacing) is said to have “such effective deconstructive power” because it destabilizes the metaphysics o f speech it “insensibly” “structures.” This insensibility to spacing is itse lf an institu tional effect produced to mask the threat posed by spacing to the system it at once organizes and disorganizes. Through its ongoing “repression” by institutions, “the inscriptive force o f a spacing . . . has always haunted our trad ition , w ithout ever reaching the center o f its concerns.”36

D errida’s work involves a recovery o f this repressed sense o f space that haunts the trad ition , the spatiality disavowed in and by the space o f philosophy, the sense o f spacing hidden by the trad ition ’s attem pt to contro l space, but whose presence is at the same tim e revealed by the very intensity o f that attempt. If, as he puts it in another interview, the “distance” o f w riting from ph ilosophy “provides the necessary free space from which to in te rrogate philosophy anew,”37 this “space” is, in the end, spatiality itself. D errida’s work is everywhere concerned w ith that which is subversive insofar as it spaces.

A concern w ith space can easily be found throughout D errida’s work, from the earliest texts to the latest. On the one hand, they raise the general philosophical question o f space in the writings o f Husserl, Plato, Bergson, Leibniz, Hegel, Heidegger, and so on. On the other hand, they are concerned w ith general spatial conditions, like line, border, in terior, exterior, threshold, closure, frame, m argin, invagination, and so on, and w ith particular spatia l figures: the labyrinth, ear, pyramid, hymen, circle, colum n, and so on. The general theories o f space and the ir strategic roles in the trad ition are analyzed and rethought, while the spatial


terms are reread in a m u ltip lic ity o f registers and each o f the spatial figures is examined in detail and the ir specific incongruities are mobilized to become the basis o f a general shaking o f the tradition, by showing how each is invested w ith the very authority the trad ition attempts to deny them. A ll o f these in terrelated interrogations o f space are o f interest to architectural discourse, but the firs t concern here must be w ith something between them: the question o f spacing. In the end, it is spacing that the tradition represses, not space in general o r spatial properties o r the particu lar spaces that are overtly addressed and subordinated.

Spacing is precisely not space but what D errida describes as the “becoming space”38 o f that which is meant to be w ithout space (presence, speech, sp irit, ideas, and so on). I t is that which opens up a space, both in the sense o f Assuring an established structure, dividing it o r com plicating its lim its, bu t also in the sense o f producing space itse lf as an opening in the trad ition. Spacing is at once sp lin tering and productive. As Derrida puts it, “spacing is a concept which also, bu t no t exclusively, carries the meaning o f a productive, positive, generative force . . . it carries along w ith it a genetic m otif: it is no t only the interval, the space constituted between two things (which is the usual sense o f spacing), but also spacing, the operation, o r in any event, the movement o f setting aside.”39 Spacing, as d istinct from space, is firs t and foremost n o t a th ing but a movement I f it is anything, it is no-thing: “ Spacing designates nothing, noth ing that is, no presence at a distance; it is the index o f an irreducib le exterior, and at the same tim e o f a movement, a displacement that indicates an irreducible alterity. I do not see how one could dissociate the two concepts o f spacing and alterity.”40 This argum ent renders alterity internal or, rather, problematizes the very sense o f interio r and thereby the whole economy o f identity, propriety, immediacy, presence, and so on, which is based on it: “spacing is the im possibility for an identity to be closed on itself, on the inside o f its proper in te rio rity , or on its coincidence w ith itself. The irreducib ility o f spacing is the irreduc ib ility o f the other.”41

This sense o f “spacing” can be found throughout D errida’s texts. Symptomatically, he employs M allarm e’s use o f the word as the epigraph for the collection o f his earliest essays.42 I t is a key


term in his work, and he usually includes it in his occasional lists o f the chain o f strategic terms successively deployed in his work, most o f which have received more attention. But he resists any treatm ent o f it as some k ind o f master term in the same way that he resists such a privileging o f any o f the other terms. Nevertheless, its role is unique inasmuch as he singles out the term as m arking precisely this im possibility o f privileging any one member o f the chain in which it participates.43 Its trajectory needs to be followed here in more detail than it is usually accorded, but w ithout m onum entalizing it and thereby freezing its at once constructive and disruptive movements.

The Space o f In s c rip tio n

The sense o f the term “spacing” is not fixed or singular, by de fin ition . Its trajectories in D errida’s w riting are necessarily m ultip le, and it is this very m u ltip lic ity that becomes the issue here. W hile O f Grammatology, fo r example, attempts to b ring the sense o f spacing to the surface by paying attention to the moments in which it already marks the surface o f a number o f the canonic texts despite the ir sustained attem pt to efface it, this does not involve tracing the role o f a singular element that can be monumentalized as some master term . The quasi-concept is deployed in the text in many d iffe rent ways. In addition to m arking the “becoming space” o f space, the opening up o f spatial distances, the opening o f another k ind o f distance between the w orld o f those distances and that o f prespatial presence, and the in terna l division o f that world, its prim ord ia l opening to its other, it also marks the lite ra l spatiality o f w riting, the m ateriality o f each inscription and the “architectonics” o f each text, which is not simply its visible and static form al structure, but the complicated and less obvious movements that produce and m aintain it as such.

Having begun his reading o f Rousseau by speaking o f the hidden “spacing” that produces a text and contrasting it w ith what a text may say about its own production,44 Derrida later becomes concerned w ith the lite ra l spacing o f Rousseau’s Essay on the O rigin o f Languages, addressing “the space o f its structure,”

The Space o f Inscrip tion75_____________ _________

and the tension between this “architecture” and the text’s declared intention, includ ing its avowed in ten tion to subordinate space.45 W hile closely reading the text, Derrida notes that the structure o f “its space” reflects the very structure o f language it attempts to describe. Like the text, language is understood as a spatial structure, a “system o f oppositions o f places and values” w ith a particular “orien ta tion.”46 There is a complex interaction between the spatial structure o f the text, what it says about that space, and the ro le it ascribes to space in general. Derrida looks in to this interaction fo r the structural inconsistencies, the variations in the structural and conceptual orders, whether visible o r concealed, acknowledged or n o t I t is these variations that no t only mark the forces at work in the text but give the text its force in the firs t place.

This concern w ith the spacing o f the text, the strategic role o f its “architectonics,” is evident throughout D errida’s work, no t only in his close readings o f the spatial organization o f so many texts but also in the organization o f his own. His essays often focus on the trad itiona l spatial logic o f the text (title , footnotes, preface, divisions, order, columns, and so on47), bu t also on the less obvious spacing that organizes the m ain body o f a text, the gaps in its fabric and argument.48 This is particularly evident in his essay “M allarm e,” which looks at the tension between the idea o f blank space tha t “permeates” M allarm e’s w riting and the actual blank spaces in that w riting, the “rhythm ” o f white spaces whose meaning is undecidable and yet establishes the basic structure o f the texts. These spaces are seen to at once define the space o f the text and yet prevent it from being closed, insta lling its structure yet leaving it “as i f w ithout support.”49 In no t signifying anything, w h ile setting the system o f signification in motion, they can only m ark “the spacing o f reading,” which is to say, “the space o f w riting itse lf.”50 This sense o f spacing as that which at once institutes an architecture and undermines it becomes the basis o f Derrida’s own w riting, which he elsewhere symptomatically describes as the production o f “blank spaces” in the institutions o f philosophical discourse.51 Most o f his texts engage w ith the ir own spatiality, spacing themselves out in polem ical ways and interrogating the ir own spatial structure. This interrogation is


carried ou t as much by the spatial structure as it is by the words it appears to structure. Indeed, D errida’s texts only attain the ir force inasmuch as they underm ine the trad itiona l d istinction between space and discourse.

This is most graphic in Glas w ith its m ultip le and parallel fragments o f text whose quasiargument is both structured by the white spaces that fragment it and is le ft unresolved by them. This double sense is itse lf registered w ith in one o f the fragments when it moves from addressing “w riting ’s spacing”52 to declaring, in a quasi-religious tone, “Let us space.”53 Again, this call is understood in architectural terms. I t is prim arily a question o f columns, both in the lite ra l organization o f the text as two apparently heterogeneous columns that are fractured and entangled and in its central theme which, from the very firs t page, turns on the question o f the column in Hegel and Genet, or more precisely, the inevitable doubling o f the column that at once reasserts and underm ines the trad itiona l psycho-architectonic logic o f erection .54 To name but one other o f so many examples, the m u ltiplication o f sim ilar strategies is evident in The Truth in P ainting. The central theme o f the collection o f essays is the structure o f a frame. Its four essays are presented as the four sides o f a frame; the preface, itse lf understood as a frame, is divided in to four parts; the “Parergon” essay that opens the collection is itse lf continuously structured by the disjointed corners o f frames in serted in to its in te rio r; and so on. In each case, the argument engages w ith its own space, subjecting itse lf to what it describes, making itse lf an example o f what it addresses, disrupting the trad itiona l sense that a text is simply “about” something completely outside it, embedding the text in the very spaces it appears to read.

But it must immediately be noted that such overt plays are no more spatial, le t alone architectural, than any o f D errida’s other texts, no m atter how ind irect the ir concern w ith space or conventional the ir spatial strategy may seem. In the end, Derrida is precisely attem pting to demonstrate that the same kind o f play organizes the structure o f a ll texts. He merely exaggerates certain spatial slippages, which is to say certain in terna l slippages o f the architecture, to identify the ir ongoing structural role in a ll texts.

The Space o f Inscrip tion77______________________

The importance o f this concern w ith the architecture o f the material space o f the text can be seen in “Im plications” where, having identified Heidegger’s subordination o f space to speech—a gesture understood as not ju s t a particular example o f a com plicity w ith the trad ition o f metaphysics, but as the central gesture o f that trad ition— Derrida goes on to identify his own work as a concern fo r the m ateriality o f w riting, the “textual spacing o f differences”55 that are effaced by the metaphysical trad ition they make possible. W ithout nam ing architecture, his work is a theorizing o f space— and perhaps it is no more than that. And inasmuch as it draws on, follows, and yet critiques Heidegger, it is necessarily a rereading o f Heidegger’s architecture even though it does no t present itse lf as such.

In follow ing th is rereading fu rthe r in terms o f architectural discourse, it must be remembered that Derrida has radically displaced the trad itiona l sense o f w riting and, even then, this displaced sense does no t fu lly register the sense o f spacing in his texts. There is a need to hesitate here, as can be seen by looking more closely at his early essay, ‘T he P it and the Pyramid: In tro duction to Hegel’s Semiology,” which, in the way that has been described here, pays attention to the “space” o f Hegel’s argum ent (seen as “ the ultim ate reassembling o f metaphysics”), its “architectonics” o r “topography,” the “topical scheme” that assigns a “place” fo r each philosophical question. This “architectonic reading” locates Hegel’s theory o f the sign w ith in a supplement to a certa in section o f the Encyclopedia o f Philosophical Sciences. In that designated and carefully circumscribed space, the sign is understood as a certain k ind o f negation o f “spatiality.” I t is necessarily spatial, bu t it supposedly effaces its spatiality in favor o f what it signifies. Hegel’s figure fo r this transcendence o f “cold space” is architectural. The sign is like a m onum ent that preserves the soul in the face o f death, a tomb, specifically, a pyramid. As Derrida argues, the “construction” o f a sign is a kind o f “shelter” or “dw elling” fo r that which exceeds it and remains “fore ign” to it, fo re ign no t ju s t to that particular space but to space itself. He compares this use o f the architecture o f the pyram id as a sign o f die sign to the way in which architecture is “studied fo r itse lf’ as a k ind o f sign in Hegel’s Aesthetics. Even


though the figure is employed as the paradigm o f the sign in one part o f Hegel’s system, a ll such “plastic works o f a rt” are subordinated in his aesthetics inasmuch as they are irreducib ly spatial, like w riting. The purest sign is that which “erases its own spacing.” The one least contam inated by the mediations o f space in this sense is speech. A lthough there is no sign w ithout space, that spatiality must be effaced. Space is understood as a contingent prop that must never be mistaken fo r the tru th it makes available: “I f the passage through . . . spacing, externality and death . . . is a necessary passage . . . this necessity becomes perversion and regression as soon as it is taken as a philosophical model,”56

Im p lic it in D errida’s essay is the strategic role o f architecture we have been follow ing here. I f the spatial sign always gives way to what it signifies, the figure o f the build ing, as the sign o f the sign, must give way to the conceptual system it makes available. There would be no philosophical model w ithout architecture, bu t the generic image o f architecture cannot be mistaken fo r it and indeed is subordinated by it. Derrida appears to understand architecture as a k ind o f w riting, the pyram id being, as he puts it, a “hard text o f stones covered w ith inscrip tion,” the lite ra l “inscrip tion” o f the “facade o f a m onum ent.” Even though the essay does no t move beyond reading the w riting on the surface o f the stone toward th ink ing o f the stone itse lf and the space it defines as an effect o f w riting, his general account o f w riting as spacing would seem to open up a persuasive account o f architecture, an account he occasionally touches on but does not elaborate.

But it is precisely at this prom ising po in t that we must hesitate. When D errida’s essay argues that the immediacy o f the “phonic makes every spatial language— and in general a ll spacing—remain in fe rio r and exterior,” he immediately notes that “w riting, according to an extension that transforms our notion o f it, may be considered as an example o r as the concept o f this spacing.”57 Even i f the sense o f w riting is transformed from an example o f spacing to its very concept, it should no t itse lf be monumentalized as spacing or vice versa. Just as w riting is necessarily exceeded by the sense o f spatiality it m ight exemplify, the subversive quality o f that spatiality is frozen whenever it is treated as


a “concept.” Spacing, by de fin ition , can never be a concept. I t is, in the end, precisely that which exceeds the conceptual. D errida everywhere tries to th in k beyond the regime o f concepts, the philosophical regime that is always that o f a fixed space.58 Spacing is o f interest only inasmuch as it exceeds the conceptual order it makes possible. In feet, i t is spacing only in this very excess. W riting is only the concept o f spacing fo r the trad ition o f philosophy, a concept that cannot fu lly comprehend the threat that spacing poses to that conceptual trad ition , le t alone the spacing involved in the very construction o f that specific concept. The trad itional concept o f w riting (as being like the inscriptions on a pyram id) is an im portant part o f the resistance to spacing.

W hat is provocative in D errida’s work fo r architectural discourse is therefore more than ju s t his w riting “about” space, the ro le o f spatial figures in w riting and the spatiality o f w riting. Rather, it is the spacing between the architecture im plied in the trad itional sense o f w riting and the architecture im plied in the sense o f w riting i t attempts to conceal, what D errida at one po in t calls “the immense problem o f figurative spatialization (both in speech or w riting in the current sense and in the space between the current sense and the other, o f which the current sense is only a figure).”59

In these terms, what marks w riting is its spatiality and what marks space is w riting but, in the end, it would be more valuable fo r architectural discourse to th in k o f D errida’s work as being com mitted to the question o f spacing rather than to that o f w riting, especially since most o f his readers have simply associated w riting w ith w ritten words, i f no t the institu tion o f literature, even though his texts explic itly warn against this lim ita tion. A t the same time, i t has to be said that his texts equally repeatedly invite this very association through a sustained privileg ing o f the lite ra ry as a strategic response to the trad itiona l subordination o f w riting. This strategy leaves open the possibility that the texts sustain the equally trad itiona l displacement o f th inking away from material space and therefore away from architecture. Even i f w riting is being subversively privileged fo r its m ateriality and spatiality, this would reproduce the trad ition being subverted i f


these were seen to be fundam entally d iffe ren t from the m ateriality and spatiality o f buildings.

Such a conservation o f the trad ition has been sustained by over twenty-five years o f conferences in which the readers o f D errida’s work have employed an architectural rhetoric to enthusiastically embrace the loss o f foundations, the subversion o f structure, and so on, while actively resisting the possibility that such arguments could be deployed to analyze the architecture o f the very rooms w ith in which these claims were being made (unlike Heidegger, who repeatedly elaborated his arguments by analyzing the room in which he was lecturing60). I t is not that the extensive use o f this rhetoric requires that it be employed in the architectural domain from which it appears to have been appropriated. In deed, one o f the consequences o f paying attention to the specific ity o f that domain may be, ironically, to conclude that an entirely d iffe ren t rhetoric would be involved in the deconstruction o f architecture. Rather, the issue is simply (although its consequences are far from simple) the sustained absence o f such attention and, furtherm ore, a tacit p roh ib ition against it. Many d iffe rent kinds o f gestures made w ith in the evolving discourse around deconstruction can be understood as forms o f resistance to such an in terrogation o f architecture, a resistance that fa ith fu lly maintains the very logic ostensibly being threatened and renders much o f that threat illusory.

Consequendy, it is necessary to carefully study each o f Derrida ’s gestures to see i f it disturbs or reproduces the trad itional economy w ith in which architecture has a unique role, only to be subordinated to some conceptual order. I f Heidegger explicitly addresses architecture only to detach his th inking from it in a way that reproduces metaphysics, D errida’s work is o f interest to architectural discourse only inasmuch as it rethinks space in a way that radically transforms architectural th inking and cannot be detached from architecture, even i f architecture is never discussed as such. Rather than applying D errida’s discussion o f space to architecture, its architectural condition needs to be more precisely identified. Instead o f th ink ing o f architecture as a k ind o f w riting (as so many readings o f deconstructive theory


in architectural discourse have attempted to do), it is at the very least a matter of th ink ing o f w riting as a k ind o f architecture and tracing the architecture already embedded w ith in D errida’s discourse.

In these terms, the question here becomes whether or not Derrida distances h im self from Heidegger in a way that rethinks the subordination o f space in general and architecture in particular. And, given that the trad itional scene o f architecture in philosophical discourse is one o f identification sustained by repression, this raises the additional question o f whether there is a relationship between the way D errida draws so extensively on Heidegger’s work, only to detach him self from it, and the way Heidegger draws so extensively on architecture, only to detach him self from i t Does Derrida detach him self from Heidegger at precisely the po in t at which Heidegger detaches him self from architecture? Could D errida’s work be understood as continuing the reth inking o f architecture that Heidegger prematurely abandoned?

To approach these questions, which can so easily, and necessarily, be m ultip lied here, involves carefully tracing the role o f space in Derrida’s th ink ing as d istinct from his th inking about space. I t is a matter o f identifying the relationship between spacing and the trad itiona l architectural figure, which is to say, between spacing and the space o f the edifice. This must be a uniquely complicated relationship inasmuch as the figure o f the edifice is already tha t o f the ongoing contro l o f w riting by speech. Architecture already appears to stand fo r the repression o f spacing. Indeed, it seems to appear only inasmuch as it represses. I t is, as it were, the very appearance o f repression.

The figure o f the grounded structure designates the fundamental project o f metaphysics, the identification o f a universal language that controls representation in the name o f presence: the logos. As we have seen, D errida traces the way in which the trad ition o f metaphysics maintains this logocentric protocol, which privileges presence over representation, w ith an account o f language that privileges speech over w riting. W hile speech is prom oted as presentation o f pure thought, w riting is subordi-

The Slippery A rt o f Space82________________________

nated as the representation o f speech. The role o f architecture in establishing this hierarchy can be seen in Heidegger’s identifica tion o f the orig inal sense o f the word logos as a “gathering” in a way that lets things “stand,” the standing o f “construction.” A lin k between structure and presence organizes trad itional accounts o f language. The means by which language is grounded is identified w ith structure. Speech is identified w ith the way the structure o f a build ing makes visible the condition o f the ground it is bonded to. Phonetic w riting, as the representation o f speech, is identified w ith the ornam entation o f a bu ild ing that represents the structure to which it is added. And w riting that ceases to be phonetic, losing its bond to speech, representation detached from presence, is seen as ornam entation that refers away from the structure to which it is attached, dissimulating the build ing. The hierarchical protocol o f metaphysics (presence-presentation- representation) is sustained by the architectural figure (ground-structure-ornam ent).

In these terms, the figure o f the edifice is employed to subordinate spacing, where spacing is understood as the detachment o f w riting. The structure’s attem pt to contro l the ornam ent that exceeds it is the attempt to contro l spacing, an attempt that turns on the division o f ornam ent. The line between space and spacing cuts through ornament. But the architectural figure is not ju s t the figure o f the control o f spacing, a m etaphor fo r the ongoing work o f the trad ition , it is the figure itse lf that controls, the metaphor itse lf that does the work. Architecture, the “a rt” o f space, is called in to subordinate spacing, and, in the end, to subordinate space. I f space is configured as the control o f spacing, it is then itse lf subordinated. Architecture ends up subordinating itself. And this com plication is, as it were, structural. To trace the role o f space and spacing in Derrida’s work, it is therefore necessary to fo llow the role in it o f the architectural figure that is trad itionally employed to subordinate them, a figure whose widespread strategic operations can never be pinned down and that remains elusive even in those moments in which it seems to be clearly articulated, an enigmatic figure that is always, at the very least, double.

The S tructure o f O rnam ent83__________________________

The Structure o f O rnam ent

I t is significant that D errida ’s reading o f Kant’s philosophy o f art distances itself from Heidegger’s by focusing on the question o f ornament. He argues that Kant’s text turns on the possibility o f making a clear d istinction between the inside and the outside o f the artwork, between its in terna l meaning and its external circumstances. A ll philosophical discourse on art from Plato on (including Heidegger) is seen to attem pt to draw this line, but it is always disturbed by ornam entation (Parergon), which is neither simply inside no r simply outside the work (Ergon). For Kant, ornam ent is “only an adjunct, and no t an in trinsic constituent.”61 I t is supposedly that which can be detached from the work, that which has been added to it, an external addition, a supplement subservient to the work, in the service o f the work.

The Critique o f Judgement handles the question o f ornam ent by sp litting it in two. The work o f philosophy is no t to separate structure and ornam ent but to separate good ornam ent from bad. The Critique exp lic itly authorizes ornam ent to enter the work it is attached to inasmuch as it is “fo rm ” o r “design,” but inasmuch as the ornam ent is m aterial, bodily, sensual, it is excluded from the in te rio r as seductive, a dangerous object o f desire, dangerous because desirable. In the fine arts “the design is what is essential. Here it is not what gratifies in sensation but merely what pleases by its form , that is the fundam ental prerequisite fo r taste.”62 In this way, the critique employs the distinction between form and m atter w ith which the trad ition o f metaphysics has always organized itself. Aesthetics is subservient to metaphysics. I t is the application o f metaphysics to art—or so it would seem.

This attempt to con tro l ornam ent does not only come up when philosophy comes across art. I t is w ritten in to every operation o f metaphysics. Metaphysics is a certain th inking o f ornam ent that only manifests itse lf w ith in aesthetics where the philosophical trad ition is bound to address ornam ent as a subject, but this th inking is operative throughout the trad ition , actually constituting it as such.


Derrida disturbs this trad ition by questioning its ability to contro l ornament. He notes that what Kant’s three examples o f ornam ent (the frame on a painting, drapery on a statue, and the colonnade on a palace) share is that they cannot be detached w ithout destroying the work. There is a gap, a lack, a crack in the structure o f the work that must be fille d by the ornament. The work no t only admits the external ornament, in all its sensuality, in to its in te rio r bu t is constituted by that entry, made possible by that which appears to be excluded from it, that which serves it, that which it supposedly masters. The ornam ent is an outsider that always already inhabits the inside, an in trinsic constituent o f the in te rio r from which it is meant to be banished. There could be no work w ithout the play o f that which appears to be merely its supplement.

This argument m ight no t seem architectural, architecture being but one o f Kant’s three examples, but in each case the rhetoric employed is architectural. The issue is invariably that o f structure. In each ornament, Derrida identifies the “in terna l structural lin k which rivets them to the lack in the in te rio r o f the ergon” 63 And this argument, in turn , is no t lim ited to the question o f art. On the contrary, it is raised throughout D errida’s w riting, which is always concerned w ith the status o f such supplements, that which appears to be added, whether it be the title , preface, metaphor, signature, and so on. And in each case, it is a question o f its “structural” role. Indeed, at one point, O f Gram- matology identifies its concern w ith what it elsewhere calls the “structure o f supplementarity” 64 as a concern w ith “supplementary as structure” 65 O rnam ent is therefore no t just an example o f the operations o f the supplement, one o f a long chain o f equivalen t terms in D errida’s w riting. Each o f these terms is understood as an ornament, and the issue is always that o f the “structural lin k ” that binds it to what it appears to be detached from . Most o f D errida’s work is work on ornament. Inasmuch as i t always involves identifying the structural role o f a supplement, ornam ent is not ju s t an example o f the work o f deconstructive discourse but its ongoing theme. And this thematic question o f ornament, which is not simply, i f ever, a question o f o r fo r art, is

The Structure o f O rnam ent85_________________________

always architectural.66 I t involves a th inking about space that cannot be as easily separated from the question o f a bu ild ing as m ight at first appear. W hat is at stake in ornam ent is the distinction between inside and outside. I t is ornam ent that defines space. There may be no space w ithout ornament, and no thought about ornament that is not a thought about space.

Derrida’s th inking o f ornam ent has many im plications fo r architecture, not because it can be simply applied to architecture, but because it is from the beginning a reth inking, a repositioning, o f architecture. Indeed, such a th inking m ight not, in the end, be very d iffe ren t from certain subtexts o f trad itiona l theories o f ornament in architectural discourse. M uch o f what Derrida argues is already explicidy w ritten in to canonic architectural theory. I t is relatively easy to po in t to sim ilar theories o f the enigmatic centrality and structural role o f ornam ent, like G ottfried Semper’s in the nineteenth century, fo r example, whose traces are everywhere manifest in the very canonic tradition o f architectural discourse that suppresses it.67 A t the very least, deconstructive discourse redirects attention to the traditional resources o f architectural discourse. I t may be that deconstruction is no t so much a transform ation o f architectural discourse as an appropriation o f certain architectural enigmas already bu ilt into that discourse. D errida ’s work may appropriate more from architecture than it offers in retu rn. Indeed, that appropriation o f certain architectural qualities may, ironically, be precisely what it offers inasmuch as it in itiates a sustained selfreflection in architectural discourse. W hat is at issue then in reading Derrida’s w ork in architectural discourse is not a new architecture, or even a new theory o f architecture, but a reposition ing o f architecture, a d iffe ren t space fo r architecture rather than a different architectural space.

Clearly, Derrida is no t w riting “about” architecture as such. Indeed, on those few occasions when his earlier work addresses architecture as an art, he seems to rehearse some o f the most routine assumptions about architecture and resist the ir com plication, accepting and re inforcing the fam ilia r image even in the m iddle o f pointing to the ways in which that image could be


opened up but symptomatically not doing so in the end. This ambivalence about architecture is not so much an isolated event in D errida’s discourse, but a structural condition that pervades the discourse and surfaces most clearly in those isolated moments when architecture is addressed.

This structural ambivalence can be seen in the two moments o f his essay on Kant’s The C ritique o f Judgement that explic itly address architecture as such by discussing the properties o f buildings. The firs t elaborates the architectural “analogy” in Kant’s text by distinguishing between the material structure o f a building and the view at it:

A spatial, so-called plastic, a rt object does not necessarily prescribe an order o f reading. I can move around in fro n t o f it, start from the top o r the bottom , sometimes walk round it. N o doubt this possibility has an ideal lim it. . . . In terms o f the analogy (bu t how to measure its terms) one ought to be able to begin anywhere and fo llow any order, although the quantity and the quality, the force o f the reading may depend, as w ith a piece o f architecture, on the po in t o f view and on a certain re lation to the ideal lim it—which acts as a frame. There are only ever points o f view: but the solidity, the existence, the structure o f the edifice do not depend on them. Can one say the same, by analogy, o f a book. One does no t necessarily gain access to a piece o f architecture by fo llow ing the order o f its production, starting at the foundations and arriv ing at the roof-ridge. And we must distinguish here between perception, analysis, penetration, u tiliza tion , even destruction. But does one read a book o f pure philosophy i f one does not begin w ith the foundations and fo llow the ju rid ic a l order o f its w riting. W hat then is it to read philosophy and must one only read it.68

W hile Derrida appeals to the ability to engage with architecture relatively independently o f the ground-foundation-structure- ornam ent logic that it represents to reconfigure the reading o f philosophy that preserves the same logic, the passage preserves a clear separation between the angle o f view and the m aterial bu ild ing it is directed at—a separation, that is, between subject and object. This is significant inasmuch as it can be argued that architecture is not merely an example o f this split but is its very possibility, as can be seen in the way Heidegger explicitly understands his attem pt to identify the build ing as the construction o f a view, rather than something that is viewed, as the d isruption o f

The S tructure o f O rnam ent87_________________________

that split. When speaking o f architecture, Derrida hesitates to track the com plications he everywhere else relentlessly pursues.

Likewise, in the second m oment in which Derrida addresses the material bu ild ing, he takes apart Kant’s architectural example o f the detachability o f ornam ent (the colonnade on a building) but, in so doing, echoes the claim that a bu ild ing “does not represent anything” that Heidegger’s essay orig ina lly asserted precisely in order to be progressively displaced:

Why would the colum n be external to the building? W here does the crite rion , the critica l organ, the organum o f discernm ent come from here? . . . the parergon is added this tim e to a work which does not represent anything and which is itse lf already added to nature. We th ink we know what properly belongs o r does not belong to the hum an body, what is detached o r n o t detached from it even though the parergon is precisely an ill-detachable detachment. But in a work o f architecture, the Vorstellung, the representation is no t structurally representational o r else is so only through detours com plicated enough, no doubt, to disconcert anyone who tried to discern, in a critica l manner, the inside from the outside, the in tegra l part and the detachable part. So as no t to add to these com plications, I shall leave to one side, provisionally, the case o f columns in the form o f the bu ild ing , those that support o r represent the support o f a window (and does a window fo rm part o f the inside o f a b u ild in g o r not? And what about the window o f a bu ild ing in a painting?), and which can be naked o r clothed, . . . *®

Again, the com plications o f architecture are successively invoked rather than pursued, le ft “ to one side.” Furtherm ore, it can be argued that just as th e ir invocation has a decisive affect on the course o f the argument, which then appears to proceed w ithout them (enabling D errida to immediately identify “the in terna l structural lin k ” tha t binds the ornam ent to a gap in the structure), so too does the reluctance to follow them further. Again, this is significant because architecture is not simply an example o f the relationship being explored. I t is precisely the relationship between structure and representation that is always at stake in the architectural figure and, indeed, that relationship can only be thought in term s o f that figure. The figure is routinely in voked by the trad ition fo r its capacity to articulate the distinction between presentation and representation. By invoking but u ltimately bracketing ou t the com plication o f this distinction in


architecture itself, Derrida short-circuits the question even while elaborating an argument that necessarily bears on the figure o f architecture and would transform it precisely through those very “detours” that confuse inside and outside.

In the end, Derrida doesn’t hesitate and follow this in te rrup tion o f the trajectory o f his argument as it passes through architecture, which raises the possibility that his th inking m ight already be coming to a stop w ith architecture in a way that calls in to question its ostensible force everywhere else, that architecture—which is to say, a certain image o f architecture— is itse lf acting as. some kind o f stable ground on which the rest o f his work plays, w ithout pu tting it in to question. We must remain constantly a lert to this possibility here. But it is equally possible that the force o f D errida’s work derives from a particular re th inking o f architecture that m ight not be identified as such, or cannot be identified inasmuch as it is a reth inking o f that which is supposedly the focus o f the discipline o f architecture but actually constitutes its central b lind spot, that which m ight no t be recognized as architecture precisely because it is so central, that which is hidden in and by the center o f the discourse, making the very institu tiona l mechanisms that veil it possible.

Again, it has to be said that this is not a question o f what Derrida says about architecture, but o f the role a certain image o f architecture plays in his th inking. I t does not involve reading his texts from some external position— that o f the institu tion o f architectural discourse— and adjudicating the ir th ink ing o f architecture to be sophisticated or naive, radical or reactionary, and so on. The very idea that architecture is “external” to ph ilo sophical discourse and the role o f that idea in the organization o f both institutions is precisely what is at stake here. Rather, it is a matter o f fo llow ing the texts, tracing the ir contours in detail to see how they construct themselves, fo llow ing the way they themselves follow other texts. Such a parasitic reading, endlessly indebted to its host texts, is not so much concerned w ith locating the architecture hidden in , i f not by, D errida’s work, but o f seeing what it m ight say about such a hiding, seeing what it reveals about concealment, what it opens about closure, and so on. In the end, these are the architectural questions.

The Threat o f A rchitecture89______________________

The T hreat o f A rch ite c tu re

I t is in these terms that it is necessary to return to D errida’s reading o f Kant’s aesthetics and look at the other level at which architecture comes up in the essay. Its re th inking o f ornam ent has been set up by a certain th ink ing about architecture, or, rather, a th inking about Kant’s th ink ing o f architecture. I f Heidegger identifies and undermines the way in which aesthetics defines art as a superstructural addition to an object, Derrida identifies and underm ines the way that aesthetics is itse lf treated as a superstructure added to the substructure o f philosophy. Philosophy understands itse lf as a grounded structure to which is attached the ornam ent o f a rt I t subordinates the arts, including architecture, by em ploying the vertical hierarchy dependent on a certain understanding o f the a rt o f architecture. A rt is subordinated by being located furthest from the ground. The subordination is made possible by the trad itional image o f architecture, the image that w ill itse lf be subordinated w ith in the arts and detached from philosophy as merely a contingent metaphor superfluous to the fixed structure o f philosophy. Everywhere, architecture is involved in its own subordination.

Derrida’s essay points to this strange economy by paying attention to the way The C ritique o f Judgement introduces itse lf in terms o f the design project fo r an edifice sketched out in the Critique o f Pure Reason:

For i f such a system is some day worked ou t under the general name o f Metaphysic . . . the critica l exam ination o f the ground fo r this edifice must have been previously carried down to the very depths o f the foundations o f the faculty o f principles independent o f experience, lest in some quarter it m igh t give way, and, sinking, inevitably bring w ith it the ru in o f a ll.70

Aesthetic judgm ent depends on rules but, unlike metaphysics, it cannot give them. I t is only the presumed universality o f the im m aterial voice listened to when faced w ith the material art object that establishes the rationality o f aesthetic judgm ents—a presumption that cannot be confirm ed w ithout contam inating taste w ith reason. Aesthetic judgm ent is recognized “ a p rion as a law fo r everyone w ithout being able to ground it upon proofs,”

The S lippery A rt o f Space90_____________________

without, that is, being able to identify its “determ ining ground,”71 Consequently, aesthetics cannot be constructed on the ground like metaphysics. The Critique o f Judgement constructs itse lf as a “bridge” over the “abyss” between Kant’s firs t two critiques and the ir respective theoretical and practical realms. From this bridge, the ground at the very bottom o f the abyss, on which the projected metaphysics w ill eventually stand, can be surveyed. The Critique o f Judgement is constructed to produce a groundplan, a plan fo r the foundations o f metaphysics. I t is only a temporary structure which, like scaffolding, precedes the bu ild ing but becomes an ornam ent to it which must be detached. But the convoluted logic o f ornam ent ensures a certain d ifficu lty in detaching a rt from the in te rio r o f philosophy, a d ifficu lty that binds architectural discourse to philosophy. In describing metaphysics as an edifice, Kant organizes philosophy in terms o f a certain account o f the art o f architecture before the architectural object, o r any o f the other arts, has been examined in aesthetics. As Derrida puts it:

Kant proposes another metaphor. He borrows it, already, from art, which has not yet been discussed, from the technique of architecture, architectonics: the pure philosopher, the metaphysician, w ill have to operate like a good architect, like a good technites of edification. He will be a sort o f artist. Now what does a good architect do, according to Kant? He must first o f all secure the ground, the foundation, the fundament . . . the architect o f reason excavates, sounds, prepares the terrain, in search o f a solid foundation, the ultimate Grund on which all metaphysics may be erected . . . Here philosophy, which in this book [The Critique o f Judgement] has to think art through—art in general and fine art—as a part of its field or of its edifice, is here representing itse lf as part o f its part, philosophy as an art o f architecture. It represents itself, it detaches itself, dispatches from itself a proxy, a part o f itself outside itself to bind the whole, to fill up or heal over the whole that suffers from detachment. The philosophy o f art presupposes an art of philosophizing, a msgor art, but also a miner’s art in its critical preliminaries, an architect’s art in its edifying erection. . . . if this pure philosophy or fundamental metaphysics here proposes to account for, among other things, desire, pleasure and unpleasure, it exposes itself and represents itself first o f all in its own desire. The desire of reason would be a fundamental desire, a desire for the fundamental . . . a metaphor o f reason to account for all other metaphors. It would figure the being-desire o f desire, the desire o f/fo r reason as desire for a

The Threat o f Architecture91______________________

grounded structure. Edifying desire would be produced as an art of philosophizing, commanding all the others and accounting for [rendant raison de] all rhetoric.72

By representing itse lf as a work o f art, metaphysics is subject to its own analysis o f art. Just as it admits ornam ent in to the artwork only inasmuch as it is “design,” it admits its own ornam ent—aesthetics—in to its own in te rio r only inasmuch as it is architecture. Architecture must be adm itted to cover some k ind o f gap w ith in metaphysics.

Derrida’s argument can be developed fu rthe r by suggesting that architecture enters by virtue o f its claim on “design.” The “trace” that is the signature o f the divine artist is design and, fo r Kant, fine art is on ly able to give life to the dead body o f an object because it is authorized by that signature: “no one would ascribe design, in the proper sense o f the term , to a lifeless m aterial.”73 Fine a rt im itates the orig ina l productivity o f the d ivine artist, the capacity to produce originals, to be original, by presenting design rather than im ita ting his products by representing specific designs. It must have the appearance o f design and yet “must have the appearance o f being undesigned and a spontaneous occurrence.”74 In this way, the Critique produces its famous form ulation o f the beautiful as the presentation o f purposiveness w ithout the representation o f a specific purpose, like “nature which in her beautifu l products displays herself as art, no t merely by chance, but, as it were, designedly, in accordance w ith a regular agreement as purposiveness w ithout purpose.”75 The Critique depends on the trad itional argument that the appearance o f design in the world presupposes the presence o f a designer, an architect, a “supreme A rchitect.”76 I t is only by employing such an argum ent from design that the philosophical trad ition can describe itse lf as architecture and the philosopher as an architect.

Architecture, then, plays a curious strategic role. I t is able to pass between philosophy and art in a unique way. I t is involved in a kind o f translation. The m etaphor circulates between and w ith in the two systems, com plicating them as it folds back on itself. A convoluted economy is sustained by the description o f architecture as ornam ented structure that enables a rt to be sub-

The S lippery A rt o f Space92_____________________

ordinated to philosophy even while philosophy describes itse lf as architecture. Philosophy describes itse lf in terms o f the very th ing it subordinates.

In organizing itse lf around an account o f objects as grounded structures, philosophy projects an account o f architecture outside itself, which it then appeals to as an outside authority. In so doing, it lite ra lly produces that architecture. The divisions between inside and outside, structure and ornament, philosophy and architecture, and so on, do not precede the exclusion o f architecture— they are produced by it. The production o f architecture is at the same tim e the production o f the space o f ph ilosophy. Architecture, which appears to be the good tame ornam ent o f philosophy, is actually the possibility o f philosophy. But it is so only inasmuch as it secretly w ild, exceeding philosophy’s attempts to describe it, le t alone define and thereby position it, which is to say that architecture is the possibility o f philosophy only inasmuch as it is not strictly architectural.

Architecture can only be subordinated as such inasmuch as it can be rendered metaphoric, that is, only inasmuch as a clear d istinction can be m aintained between m aterial space and immateria l space. The maintenance o f this line takes the form o f a denial, a fetishistic disavowal that becomes the very basis o f both philosophy as a cultural institu tion and each the arguments it sanctions. If, as Derrida suggests, philosophy, in appealing to architecture, “represents itself, it detaches itself, detaches from itse lf a proxy, a part o f itse lf outside itse lf to b ind the whole, to f ill up or heal over the whole that suffers from detachment,”77 it does so to cover some kind o f gap, some in terna l fracture o f its structure. Metaphysics produces the architectural object as the paradigm o f ground as support in order to veil its own lack o f support, its ungrounded condition. Philosophy represents itse lf as architecture, it translates itse lf as architecture, producing itse lf in this translation. The lim its o f philosophy are established by the m etaphorical status o f architecture.

Derrida closely follows the part o f Heidegger’s work that in te rferes w ith that status before his texts restore it and re turn architecture to its “proper place.” One im plication o f D errida’s reading o f ornam ent is that it is the way in which the thought o f

The Threat o f Architecture93____________________

architecture as a simple addition to bu ild ing covers the structural role o f architecture that actually makes possible the thought o f the naked ground as support. This possibility could be developed by looking again at Heidegger’s later essays, which explicidy address architecture and seem to underm ine the division between building and architecture in order to displace the trad itional sense o f the ground. For example, “Build ing, Dwelling, Th inking” asserts: “But the nature o f the erecting o f buildings cannot be understood adequately in terms either o f architecture o r o f engineering construction, nor in terms o f a mere combination o f the two.”78 This description o f actual bu ild ing is sustained when he employs architecture as a figure fo r philosophy, as, fo r example, when his Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence o f Hum an Freedom locates philosophy in the “uneasy” place “between” structure and ornament, between the closure o f a foundation and the openness o f that which needs no ground.79 In these terms, the thought o f that which is neither bu ild ing nor architecture that is elided by trad itiona l discourse is the thought o f the original ground that precedes the ground-as-support—the sense o f support being no more than an effect o f that elision. The linear logic o f add ition that architecture is invariably called in to reinforce is confused. The bu ild ing is not simply added to the ground, the ornam ent is not simply added to the structure, a rt is not simply added to philosophy. The vertical hierarchy o f g round/structure /ornam ent put in place by the architectural figure is radically convoluted. The architectural figure undermines itself and, ironically, in so doing, it underm ines its own subordination. Inasmuch as the figure subverts what it supposedly stands for, i t can no longer be dismissed as a mere ornament. On the contrary, it derives its force precisely from its ornamental role.

But while certain Heideggerian moves subvert the logic o f addition by displacing the trad itional account o f architecture, Heidegger ultim ately contradicts that possibility, confirm ing the trad itional logic by looking fo r a stable structure while bracketing o ff architecture, or, more precisely, he establishes a stable structure by bracketing architecture. In his reading o f ‘The O rig in o f the Work o f A rt,” D errida argues that Heidegger is in the end


unable to abandon the trad ition o f ground as support, ground as that which is “underneath,” even while “discovering a few cave-ins o f the terrain, some abysses too in the fie ld where we advance so tranquilly.”80 Indeed, Heidegger retains it in the very account o f translation he uses to identify the way its emergence conceals the abyss:

A t the very m om ent when Heidegger is denouncing translation in to Latin Words, at the m om ent when, at any rate, he declares Greek speech to be lost, he also makes use o f a “m etaphor.” O f at least one metaphor, that o f the foundation and the ground. The ground o f the Greek experience is, he says, lacking in this “translation.” 81

The thought o f ground as support is no t ju s t produced by a m istranslation. I t is itse lf no more than a certain account o f translation. Translation is trad itionally understood as presentation o f the ground, and m istranslation is understood as detachment from ground, loss o f support. I t must be recalled that it is the collapse o f the Tower o f Babel that establishes the necessity o f translation as one o f reconstruction, edification.82 Heidegger’s account o f translation undermines itse lf when dealing w ith the translation o f the orig inal ground in to the idea o f the edifice w ith which philosophy organizes itself. He appears to employ an account o f translation sim ilar to D errida’s inasmuch as he argues that the vio lation o f the orig ina l ground is already there in the Greek orig inal. But then he attempts to go “underneath” this sense to erase the violation, and, in so doing, restores a traditional account o f translation.83 He rebuilds the very edifice he appears to have underm ined, putting the subversive qualities he drew from architecture in to play but only after he detaches them from buildings, rendering architecture metaphoric, pu tting architecture back in its place and, in so doing, putting philosophy back in its place.

D errida’s work disturbs this metaphoric status. Having pointed to the figure in Heidegger’s account o f translation, he im m ediately calls it in to question: “What I have ju s t too hastily called ‘m etaphor’ concentrates a ll the d ifficu lties to come: does one speak ‘m etaphorically’ o f the ground fo r ju s t anything?”84 The relevance o f D errida’s work fo r architecture and vice versa hangs

The Threat o f A rch itecture95______________________

on this question. H is work attains its greatest force when it interferes with the trad itional categorization o f architecture as either a literal, irreducib le , and inescapable m aterial reality—the almost hyperreal status credited to buildings in our culture— or a contingent and im m aterial metaphor. The two categories are actually interdependent. The more fundam ental buildings are seen to be, the m ore metaphoric the ir role in discourse seems. Architecture, as it were, clarifies the opposition between material object and im m aterial discourse, acting as philosophy’s paradigm. Derrida can only disrupt this opposition by disrupting the image o f architecture that constitutes it, rather than being its product.

I f Heidegger ends up reconstituting the trad ition o f metaphysics sustained by subordinating architecture and p roh ib iting other accounts o f it, this p roh ib ition marks a repression. Something about architecture cannot be said w ithout calling in to question the whole system. Deconstructive discourse is o f interest to architectural discourse inasmuch as it can be used to identify the threat that architecture poses to the trad ition o f metaphysics to which it is contracted, the threat that causes that trad ition to subordinate architecture. Such an appropriation o f deconstructive discourse makes available accounts o f architecture prohibited by the terms o f the ancient contract that binds architecture in to discourse, and continues to orchestrate “theoretical” discourse, including those discourses that identify themselves, however cautiously, as “deconstructive.”

4

The Dom estication o f the House

Heidegger’s “late” work develops his early m o tif o f the edifice— the grounded structure— in to that o f the house. As his w riting becomes increasingly com mitted to the question o f language, the trad itional architectonic structure o f language discussed in the early work becomes a “house.” Language as grounding becomes language as “dw elling” [ Wohnen]. The figure o f “standing” becomes that o f “enclosing.” The structural system binding sign ifie s to the ground becomes an enclosure. In the famous form ulation o f the 1947 “Letter on Humanism” : “Language is the house o f Being. In its home man dwells.”1 This focus on the house is often iden tified w ith Heidegger’s so-called turn . In tu rn ing, he turns to the house. This is not so much a tu rn from the edifice o f the early w ork toward the house. Rather, the edifice is turned in to a house, bu ild ing is now understood as housing.

In this way, Heidegger develops a whole architectural rhetoric out o f the trad itiona l architectural metaphor w ith which philosophy institutes itself. Philosophy becomes no more than th inking about housing or, more precisely, the institutions o f philosophy are to be displaced by a th inking that houses. This displacement is firs t and foremost a rejection o f philosophy’s construction o f space. Beginning w ith the central argument o f Being and Time, Heidegger’s texts present an extended critique o f the conception o f space that has been progressively institutionalized since ancient Greece, a conception that is, fo r him , the institu tion o f space itself. The m om ent that philosophy’s central architectural

The Dom estication o f the House98___________________________

metaphor becomes explic it as such—with Descartes—is also the moment its ancient basis in a certain account o f space becomes e xp lic it To deconstruct this trad ition, Heidegger employs a spatia l rhetoric— '‘house,” “enclosure,” “shelter,” “abode,” “lodging,” “inner,” “proxim ity,” “neighborhood”— but asks us not to hear it spatially. The fam iliar sense o f architecture as the de fin ition o f space is invoked and then displaced, h ighlighted then w ithdrawn. W hat we unproblem atically take to be the space o f the house (as the paradigm o f space itself) is seen to both emerge from and veil a p rio r and more fundam ental condition from which we have become alienated. But what distinguishes Heidegger’s arguments from so many other sim ilar-sounding critiques o f m odern life is that the process o f alienation is understood to be an ancient one that is only becoming manifest w ith m odernity and, furtherm ore, that the basic condition it alienates us from is itse lf one o f profound alienation. The alienating space o f the home veils a more fundam ental and prim ord ia l homelessness. To be at home in such a space is precisely to be homeless.

To dismantle the trad ition o f metaphysics, Heidegger has to dismantle our most fam iliar experiences o f architecture, which are but the product o f the trad ition o f metaphysics and are therefore com plicitous w ith the necessarily vio lent regime o f technology that is its contemporary manifestation. He employs an architectural rhetoric in a way that dispels, among other things, the apparent innocence o f architectural space. But this gesture, which has so much to say about architecture— and a certain dimension o f it has been in fluen tia l in architectural discourse— is susceptible to its own criticism in a way that opens fu rthe r possibilities fo r that discourse. Indeed, it is precisely the dimension that has already been so eagerly appropriated by the discourse that is the focus o f this criticism . In the end, Heidegger’s architectural rhetoric sustains the very trad ition it is deployed to displace.

D is fig u rin g the House

Heidegger’s work is almost always double sided. I t repeatedly perform s a rigorous dismanding o f some aspect o f the trad ition

D isfiguring the House99_________________

o f philosophy, only to later revive that very aspect in a displaced form that consolidates whatever had been destabilized. The risk b u ilt in to Heidegger’s orig ina l argum ent that construction depends upon, and is no more than, an ongoing destruction from w ith in ultimately, and perhaps necessarily, turns on his own w riting, his critical unbu ild ing becoming constructive o f the very system it places in question. As D errida argues, when reading Being and Time, “A t a certain point, then, the destruction o f metaphysics remains w ith in metaphysics, only making explicit its principles.”2 A ll o f his many readings o f Heidegger’s texts locate this po in t by applying those texts’ own strategies to themselves. Consequendy, his relationship to Heidegger is, at the very least, “enigmatic” as he once put it.3 He thinks through Heidegger in detail in order to depart from him , taking each text to the lim it, elaborating each o f its arguments further, but no t simply as “an extension or a continuous radicalization,” as he points out elsewhere.4 He departs from Heidegger by follow ing him in a ma- neuvre that is fa r from straightforward. Heidegger’s w riting is seen to both exem plify the often subde and elusive operations o f the hegemonic trad ition that need to be u nb u ilt and to provide the strategies fo r doing just that.

I do m aintain . . . tha t Heidegger’s text is extrem ely im portant to me . . . That being said . . . I have marked quite explicitly, in a ll the essays I have published, as can be verified, a departure from the Heideggerian problem atic . . . I sometimes have the feeling that the Heideggerian problem atic is the m ost “profound” and “pow erfu l” defence o f what I attem pt to put in to question under the rub ric o f the thought o f presence?

Derrida is at once closer to and fu rthe r away from Heidegger than is usually acknowledged. The “departure” is never simple or complete. His w ritin g never simply moves beyond or outside Heidegger’s discourse. Rather, it interrogates that discourse from w ith in, locating and explo iting certain openings in it.

Architecture plays an im portant role in this interrogation. One o f the key symptoms o f Heidegger’s allegiance to the very tradition he appears to displace—which Derrida identifies and which is equally, and necessarily, a po in t o f departure fo r D errida’s own work, an opening fo r a radical displacement o f that trad ition— is the figure o f the house. When reading the “Letter on Human-

The Dom estication o f the House100__________________________

ism,” Derrida argues that it is by employing the chain o f metaphors that surround the house that Heidegger “remains w ith in ” metaphysics:

Whence, in Heidegger’s discourse, the dominance of an entire metaphorics of proximity, of simple and immediate presence, a metaphorics associating the proximity o f Being with the values of neighboring, shelter, house, service, guard, voice, and listening. As goes without saying, this is not an insignificant rhetoric; . . . the choice o f one or another group of metaphors is necessarily significant. It is within a metaphorical insistence, then, that the interpretation of the meaning of Being is produced.6

By making the house thematic, Heidegger identifies the figure that organizes the trad ition he attempts to dismantle, but in the end he fails to dismantle the house. O n the contrary, he repeatedly advocates a re turn to it, a withdrawal to the prim al shelter, the site o f unmediated presence, in order to take refuge from the m odern—which is to say technological—age o f representation that is condemned inasmuch as it produces a generalized “homelessness.” He inhabits metaphysics in a way that does not threaten the authority o f the house, succumbing to the risk im p lic it in his strategy o f destruction, the same risk that faces the contem porary appropriations o f that strategy by deconstructive discourse that Derrida pointedly describes in terms o f the house:

To attempt an exit and a deconstruction without changing terrain, by repeating what is im plicit in the founding concepts and the original problematic, by using against the edifice the instruments or stones available in the house, that is, equally, in language. Here, one risks ceaselessly confirming, consolidating, re lifiing {relever), at an always more certain depth, that which one allegedly deconstructs. The continuous process of making explicit, moving toward an opening, risks sinking into the autism of the closure.7

Secure housing is the greatest risk o f deconstructive discourse. It is always possible to rearrange the stones o f the house w ithout, in the end, disturbing its capacity to house. D errida’s prolonged elaboration o f Heidegger’s displacement o f the architecture o f the edifice, problem atizing the cumulative logic o f bu ild ing (ground-foundation-structure-ornam ent), which plays such a decisive role in organizing discourse in our culture, must therefore

1 0 1

D isfiguring the House

also be, in some way, a displacement o f the architecture o f the house.

But deconstructive discourse cannot simply reject Heidegger’s use o f the trad itional figure o f the house, or even its “dom inance” in his work, since Heidegger’s firs t argument, picked up so insistently by D errida, is that it is necessary to inhab it metaphysics in precisely this way, explo iting a ll its resources, especially its central m etaphorical figures, in order to overcome it. Such metaphors cannot simply be abandoned. Rather, they have to be affirm ed, elaborated, and redeployed to identify exacdy what the ir use both constructs and covers over. Heidegger’s w riting never simply upholds the trad ition it occupies. Rather, it is “at once contained w ith in it and transgresses i t ”8 through an ever shifting double movement. By occupying metaphysics, it establishes the strategic roles o f the metaphors that organize it. Heidegger’s appropriation o f the house from the trad ition is a key example o f this. But in occupying that house, he has to transgress it to d isrup t the trad ition, appropriating it in a way that recovers that which even this forgotten image forgets, identifying the image’s own transgressive potentia l. Heidegger does not, at first reading, appear to do this despite his exp lic it rejection o f the modern sense o f the house as a spatial in terior, a space that is itse lf understood as an alienating technology o f control that operates as an agent o f metaphysics. The house appears to be simply consolidated rather than deconstructed.

Such a deconstruction would be uniquely complicated because the m o tif o f the house, like that o f the edifice, is not simply another metaphor ( if metaphors are ever sim ple), but is that which determines the condition o f m etaphor in the firs t place. Metaphor is supposedly defined by its detachment from a “proper” meaning. In ‘T he R etrait o f M etaphor,” one o f Derrida’s most extended readings o f the question o f metaphor that is always at stake in his work, this sense o f the proper is seen to be bound to that o f the house. The essay points to “the economic value o f the dom icile and o f the proper both o f which often (or always) intervene in the de fin ition o f the m etaphoric.”9 Throughout his w riting , Derrida draws on the Greek association between the household (oikos) and the proper (oikeios). When

The Domestication o f the House1 0 2 __________________________________________

speaking o f Freud, fo r example, the house is described as the “fam iliar dwelling, the proper place.”10 And elsewhere Derrida notes that in Hegel “the general form o f philosophy, is properly fam ilia l and produces itse lf as oikos: home, habitation, . . . the guarding o f the proper, o f property, propriety, o f one’s own.”11 A ll o f these readings follow a consistent trajectory from his po in t in “The Ends o f Man” that it is precisely in Heidegger’s w riting that “ the themes o f the house and the proper are regularly brought together.”12 This po in t can be elaborated by looking at the way Heidegger binds the metaphor o f the house to language by link ing it to his concept o f “appropriation” (Ereignis). Build ing, understood as housing, is repeatedly described as appropriation .13 Language is a house because it is a mode o f appropriation whereby thought recovers presence in the face o f alienating representations rather than a form o f representation. I t is a house because it appropriates, making proper by excluding representation and establishing a “proxim ity” to presence.14

In these terms, the house is the metaphor o f that which precedes metaphor. I t determines the condition o f the proper, from which the metaphorical is then said to be detached and in ferior. As the trad itional figure o f an in te rio r divided from an exterior, it is used to establish a general opposition between an inner world o f presence and an outer world o f representation that is then used to exclude that very figure as a “mere” metaphor, a representation to be discarded to the outside o f philosophy. But the figure always resists such an exclusion. Inasmuch as the condition o f metaphor is established by the metaphor o f the house, the house is not simply another m etaphor that can be discarded. And, more than this, although metaphor is understood as a departure from the house, it is s till not a departure from housing. Rather, it is the temporary occupation o f another house, a borrowed house. M etaphor is an im proper occupation, a being at a home w ithout being at home. Consequently, the figure o f the house is neither metaphorical nor proper. I t is, as Derrida argues in ‘The R etrait o f Metaphor,” “not only metaphoric to say that we inhabit metaphor . . . it is not simply metaphoric. N or anymore proper, lite ra l o r usual.”15 As the figure

D isfiguring the House103________________

o f the house is what makes the distinction between metaphor and proper possible, it is not, according to “W hite Mythology” :

one metaphor among others; it is there in order to signify metaphor itself; it is a m etaphor o f m etaphor; an expropriation, a being-outside- one’s-own-residence, bu t s till in a dw elling, outside its own residence but s till in a residence in which one comes back to oneself, recognizes oneself, reassembles oneself o r resembles oneself, outside oneself in oneself. This is the philosophical m etaphor as a detour w ith in (o r in sight of) appropriation, parousia, the self-presence o f the idea in its own ligh t. The m etaphorical tra jectory from the Platonic eidos to the Hegelian Idea.16

W hat Derrida, echoing Heidegger, refers to so often as “the metaphysics o f presence” is sustained by the figure o f the house in the same way as it is sustained by the figure o f the edifice. Since Plato, the house has always been that trad ition ’s exemplar o f presentation. The governing concept o f “Idea” as presence, and o f the visible w orld as in form ed matter, the material presentation o f im m aterial ideas, is trad itiona lly established w ith the metaphor o f the house produced by an architect, the house as the presentation o f an “idea,” as can be seen in M arsilio F icino’s commentary on Plato:

I f someone asks in what way the fo rm o f the body may be sim ilar to the fo rm and reason o f the sp irit and the Angel, I ask this person to consider the edifice o f the Architect. From the beginning the A rchitect conceives in his s p irit and approxim ately the Idea o f the edifice; he then makes the house (according to his ability) in the way in which he has decided in his m ind. W ho w ill deny that the house is a body, and that it is very sim ilar to the incorporeal Idea o f the artisan, in whose image it has been made? I t must certainly be judged fo r a certain incorporeal order ra the r than fo r its m atter.17

I t is only possible to abruptly po in t to this canonic form o f the metaphor here in lieu o f tracing its long history in detail by follow ing the curious trajectories and slippages between terms like “maker,” “bu ilder,” “architect,” “dem iurge,” “ techne,” and so on. Such a detailed reading would show the way in which architecture, and, in particular, the house, is no t simply the paradigm o f the operations o f the idea. Rather, the idea is itse lf understood as a paradigm—lite ra lly, fo r Plato, a paradeigma—or architectural


model. This particular image plays an im portant role in the trad itional analogy between the philosopher and the architect that has been exploited by both discourses.

Philosophy does not depart from itse lf to illustrate its concepts w ith the figure o f the house. On the contrary, it forever circulates around the house, departing from it only to stage a re tu rn to it. This can be seen when, in defin ing the essence o f technology, Heidegger notes that the orig ina l sense o f techne, from which philosophy has departed, is “to be entirely at home [zu Hause] in something.”18 But to define essence, he uses the example o f the “essence o f a house [H aus\ ” and then draws on Plato’s theory o f “Ideas” to describe the house’s condition. To determ ine the essence o f techne as housing, he determines the sense o f essence by reference to the house. The house is not simply an example o f essence. I t does not simply illustrate presence o r essence. Rather, it is used to define them. Neither can be thought outside the house.

In such involuted circulations between concepts and the image o f a house, which regularly punctuate the trad ition o f philosophy, the sense o f the house as an in te rio r never goes away, even in Heidegger’s texts, despite the ir insistent attempt to discard it. The house is always firs t understood as the most prim itive drawing o f a line that produces an inside opposed to an outside, a line that acts as a mechanism o f domestication. I t is as the paradigm o f in te rio rity that the house is indispensable to philosophy, establishing the distinction between the in te rio rity o f presence and the exteriority o f representation on which the discourse depends.

In all the binary pairs o f terms w ith which metaphysics organizes itself, as Derrida argues when reading Plato, “each o f the terms must be simply external to the other, which means that one o f these oppositions (the opposition between inside and outside) must already be accredited as the m atrix o f a ll possible opposition .”19 Consequently, the philosophical system is organized by spatial metaphors it cannot abandon. It is itse lf necessarily spatial. When noting the way in which Freud’s theoretical system both invokes and discredits spatial metaphors, Derrida claims “a certain spatiality, inseparable from the very idea o f system, is

D isfiguring the House105________________

irreducib le.”20 This argum ent is even more exp lic it in his early reading o f the way Emmanuel Levinas identifies being as an “exteriority” only to argue that it is not spatial. Insisting on “the necessity o f lodging oneself w ith in trad itiona l conceptuality in order to destroy it , ” Derrida argues that “one would attempt in vain, in order to wean language from exteriority and in te rio rity . . . fo r one would never come across a language w ithout the rupture o f space.”21 Space is the very possibility o f language and the trad ition o f th ink ing that believes it can transcend space and employ language as merely a tem porary and necessarily inadequate vehicle fo r its pure (which is to say, aspatial) thought. Consequendy, one must “inhabit” the spatial metaphor that is “congenital” to philosophy in order to question it:

[I] t is necessary s till to inhab it the [spatial] m etaphor in ruins, to dress oneself in trad ition ’s shreds and the devil’s patches—a ll this means, perhaps, that there is no philosophical logos which must not firs t le t itse lf be expatriated in to the structure Inside-Outside. This deportation from its own site toward the Site, toward spatial locality is the metaphor congenital to the philosophical logos. Before being a rhetorical procedure w ith in language, m etaphor would be the emergence o f language itself. And philosophy is only this language . . . one must no t expect, henceforth, to separate language and space, to empty language o f space.22

Here Derrida is clearly follow ing Heidegger’s claim in Being and Time that spatial significations (Raumbedeutungen) are irre ducible in language: “Is it an accident that proxim ally and fo r the most part significations are ‘worldly,’ sketched out beforehand by the significance o f the world, tha t they are indeed often predominandy ‘spatial’?”23 In a la ter reading o f Heidegger Derrida draws on this argument, brie fly elaborating it by simply restating it, but in a way that identifies a spatiality w ith in the philosophical trad ition in its very attem pt to exclude spatiality: ‘The phenomenon o f so-called spatializing metaphors is not at a ll accidental, nor w ith in the reach o f the rhetorical concept o f ‘metaphor.’ I t is no t some exterior fatality.”24 The concept o f metaphor cannot be thought outside that o f exterior. Space cannot simply be excluded, as any act o f exclusion constructs a space by dividing an inside from an outside.


To this we can add that this irreducible spatiality turns around the figure o f the house. The spatial metaphor that must be “inhabited” is actually the metaphor o f inhabitation itself. The house is constitutionally bound in to the metaphysical trad ition and cannot simply be subordinated as a metaphor. I t can never be exterior to philosophy, as it produces the very sense o f in te rio r on which that trad ition is based. The edifice o f metaphysics is necessarily a house. W ith in every exp lic it appeal to the necessity o f stable construction is an im p lic it appeal to the necessity o f a secure house. The philosophical economy is always a domestic economy, the economy o f the domestic, the fam ily house, the fam ilia r enclosure. Deconstructive discourse must therefore be firs t and foremost an occupation o f the idea o f the house that displaces it from w ith in.

Taking S he lte r in the U ncanny

A rhetoric o f the house can be found throughout Derrida’s texts w ithout it ever being the ir ostensible subject. I t is a k ind o f subtext that surfaces in radically d iffe rent contexts and usually in small and scattered fragments. A sense o f this house and its strategic role can be b u ilt by assembling some o f these fragments here.

In D errida’s work all o f the associations w ith the trad itional figure o f an edifice on secure foundations slide in to that o f the secure domestic enclosure. I f to ground a structure is to bu ild a house, to constrain the unru ly play o f representations is to house them, to domesticate them. Just as D errida’s sporadic but m u ltiple references to the edifice identify speech as structural and w riting as superstructural, his references to the house identify speech as inside the house, whereas w riting is outside. In his account o f Plato, fo r example, the logos “does not wander, stays at home,” whereas w riting is “unattached to any house,”25 such that “in nothing does w riting reside.”26 To sustain the trad ition that privileges presence by rejecting the “other” is therefore, as he puts it in another essay, “to take shelter in the most fam ilia l o f dwellings.”27 And in another context, the “ law o f the house, the in itia l organization o f a dwelling space” represses play when

Taking Shelter in the Uncanny107________________________

difference is “enclosed.”28 Elsewhere, the economy o f metaphysics lite ra lly attempts to “arrest, domesticate, tame”29 the other. In these terms, all his work “ ‘analyzes’ philosophical power in its domestic regime,”30 as he once describes his earliest readings o f Husserl. This domestic regime is both the space that philosophy claims fo r itself and the arguments made w ith in that space. In appropriating the space as its own and de lim iting its territory, it is defin ing its law, defin ing it precisely as a law o f domesticity, philosophical law as the law o f enforced domesticity. The space o f philosophy is no t ju s t a domestic space, it is a space in which a certain idea about the domestic is sustained and protected.

The house’s ab ility to domesticate is its capacity to define inside and outside, but not simply because that which is located inside is domesticated. For Derrida, the “outside” o f a house continues to be organized by the logic o f the house and so actually remains inside it. By being placed outside, the other is placed, domesticated, kept inside. To be excluded is to be subjected to a certain domestic violence that is both organized and veiled by metaphysics.31 Metaphysics is no more than a determ ination o f place, the production o f the sense o f a pure in te rio r divided from an im proper exterior, a privileged realm o f presence uncorrupted by representation. Whatever disrupts metaphysics disrupts this sense o f in terior. D errida’s work is concerned with tha t which “threatens the paternal logos. And which by the same token threatens the domestic, hierarchical in te rio r.”32 His texts everywhere, albeit obliquely, question the sense o f the house ultim ately reinforced by Heidegger.

But, significantly, D errida’s “departure” from Heidegger is no t a departure from the house. The in te rio r space o f presence is no t simply abandoned fo r that o f representation, nor is the realm o f representation sim ply seen to occupy the in terio r. Rather, the economy o f representation is seen to structure the in te rio r as such. The sense o f in te rio r is actually an effect o f representation. I t is produced by what it supposedly excludes. Derrida departs from Heidegger by tacidy locating a vio lation w ith in the structure o f the house that is repressed by a systematic domestic violence that is itself in tu rn concealed by the apparent structure o f the house. The constitutional vio lation o f the edifice by the abyss


that Heidegger demonstrated to be necessary fo r that structure to stand is equally the constitutional vio lation o f the house that makes its capacity to house possible. The fracturing o f the ground is equally, in D errida’s hands, a fracturing o f the walls. The house o f metaphysics is deconstructed by locating the “ traces o f an alterity which refuses to be totally domesticated”33 and yet cannot be excluded, that which resists metaphysics because it cannot be placed either inside or outside, and is therefore “undecidable,” and yet is indispensable to the operations o f metaphysics.

In a footnote in “The Double Session,” Derrida identifies its account o f undecidability as a “rereading” o f Freud’s essay “The Uncanny” (Das Unheimliche) which, as is well known, describes the uneasy sense o f the unfam iliar w ith in the fam iliar, the unhomely w ith in the home. Freud pays attention to the way the term fo r homely (heim liche) is defined both as “belonging to the house, not strange, fam iliar, tame, intim ate, friendly, etc.” and as what seems at firs t to be its opposite: “concealed, kept from sight, so that others do not get to know o f or about it, w ithheld from others.”34 In this structural slippage from heimliche to unheimliche that which supposedly lies outside the fam iliar com fort o f the home turns out to be inhabiting it a ll along, surfacing only in a re turn o f the repressed as a foreign element that strangely seems to belong in the very domain that renders it foreign. D errida’s footnote goes on to say that “we find ourselves constantly being brought back to that text.”35 But despite, or perhaps because of, the unique attraction o f this text or, more likely, its subject, it is never explic itly analyzed in the essay other than as a b rie f po in t in another footnote. N or is it read in depth anywhere else in D errida’s writings. Like the figure o f the house to which it is bound, it is a theme that can be traced throughout D errida’s work w ithout it ever becoming a discrete subject, as i f it is itse lf repressed, re tu rn ing only occasionally to surface in very isolated and what seem, at first, to be m inor points. But precisely fo r this reason it can be argued that its effects actually pervade all the texts that are unable o r unw illing to speak about it.36

Derrida repeatedly, one m ight almost say compulsively, identifies the undecidables that uncannily intim ate the violence

Taking Shelter in the U ncanny109________________________

w ith in the fam iliar domain, which is to say, the domain o f the family, the homestead, the house. Being, as he puts it, “domestic but utterly fore ign,”37 the uncanny exposes the covert operations o f the house. For this reason its constitutional vio lation o f the ostensible order o f the house is itse lf repressed, domesticated by the very domestic violence it makes possible. Metaphysics is no more than the disguising o f this domestic violence that in tu rn represses the fundam ental strangeness o f the house. The house o f metaphysics represses the violation that made it possible. More than a domestic violence, this is the violence o f the domestic itself. Derrida locates w ith in the house that which is actually, as O f Grammatology puts it, “the sickness o f the outside (which comes from the outside bu t also draws outside, thus equally, o r inversely, the sickness o f the homeland, a homesickness, so to speak).”38 Heidegger’s sickness fo r the home is displaced by D errida’s sickness o f the home.

As their shared insistence on the necessity o f a strategic inhabitation o f the trad ition would lead us to expect, this revision o f the status o f the house s till closely follows Heidegger—indeed, goes even further in to his work. Long before Heidegger explicidy raised the question o f the house, his Being and Time had argued that the fam iliar everyday world is precisely a “fleeing in the face o f uncanniness” that “suppresses everything unfam iliar.”39 The concept had already been introduced in his 1925 lectures at M arburg in terms o f the feeling o f dread when “one no longer feels at home in his most fam iliar environm ent.”40 Through the systematic concealment o f the uncanny in everyday life , the fam ilia r is actually a mode o f uncanniness.41 Just as the alienation o f modern life is no t simply produced by the abyss underlying all structures but by the covering over o f that abyss, it is equally produced by covering over the uncanniness behind and o f the fam iliar.42 The apparent innocence o f the fam ilia r is but a mask that alienates by masking a more fundam ental alienation: “the obviousness and self-assurance o f the average ways in which things have been interpreted are such that while the particular Dasein drifts along towards an ever-increasing groundlessness as it floats, the uncanniness o f this floating remains hidden from it under the ir protecting shelter.”43 The mask o f the fam ilia r is a

The Dom estication o f the Housen o __________________________

prim itive shelter, a house, or rather a pseudohouse, which veils a fundam ental unfam iliarity. The uncanny is lite ra lly a “not- being-at-home,” an alienation from the house experienced w ith in it. W ith its discovery, “everyday fam iliarity collapses,” and the “not-at-home” concealed by this fam ilia rity “must be conceived as the more prim ord ia l phenomenon.”44 Heidegger attempts to in te rro gate the fam ilia r to discover what he la ter describes as the “danger” concealed w ith in it: “Such questions bring us in to the realm o f what is fam iliar, even most fam iliar. For th inking, this always remains the real danger zone, because the fam iliar carries an air o f harmlessness and ease, which causes us to pass ligh tly over what really deserves to be questioned.”45 From the beginning, his work attempts to displace the fam iliar, or at least place it at risk, in a way that raises the question o f the danger in and o f the fam ilia r house. This question would be tacitly raised but symptom atically never answered by his later work.

To comprehend D errida’s th inking o f the house, we need to go even fu rthe r in to Heidegger’s th ink ing about it. Instead o f simply rejecting Heidegger’s ultim ately reactionary use o f the figure,46 we have to locate the circuitous openings w ith in his argument that can be used to displace it.

The V io lence o f the House

The symptomatic way in which Heidegger’s questioning o f the fam ilia r through a questioning o f home begins to slide in to a questioning o f the house can be seen when the 1935 essay ‘T he O rig in o f the Work o f A rt” locates the uncanny danger w ith in the very com fort o f home:

We believe we are at home in the im m ediate circle o f beings. That which is fam iliar, reliable, ordinary. Nevertheless, the clearing is pervaded by a constant concealment in the double form o f refusal and dissembling. A t bottom the ord inary is no t ordinary; it is extraordinary, uncanny.47

This sense was developed in the same year by An Introduction to Metaphysics, which again argues at length that metaphysics is the mechanism o f the concealment o f the uncanny by the fam iliar,

I l l

The Violence o f the House

but does so in a way that redefines inhabitation. A reading o f Sophocles’ Antigone (itse lf described as a “poetic edifice”) is used to affirm that “m an”48 is the “uncanniest o f a ll beings”49 and to identify two sides o f th is uncanniness, each o f which involve a certain violence. O n the one hand, man is violent, vio lating both enclosure and structure (“he who breaks out and breaks up”50) and violendy domesticating things w ith technology (“he who captures and subjugates”51) in defin ing a home. O n the other hand, there is the “overpowering” violence o f Being, which the fam iliar space o f the home attempts to cover over but which compels a certain panic and fear w ith in it, and inevitably forces man out o f i t The endless con flic t between these two forms o f violence is constitutional rather than simply a historical event. And it is not that one is an act o f violence by a subject while the other is an act o f violence against that subject. Rather, the conflic t between them is the very possibility o f the subject’s existence, indeed, the existence o f any th ing as such. “Man” does no t bu ild a home in the same way that man does not bu ild a language. Rather, “man” is b u ilt by the home. But, equally, it must be emphasized here, “man” is b u ilt by its destruction.

Heidegger is n o t speaking about lite ra l houses, that is, spatial enclosures erected on particular sites. Significantly, he always describes the home as a k ind o f in terior, but it is the very sense o f spatial in te rio r that masks the in te rio rity he is describing. From his earliest texts, Heidegger always insists that the fundamental sense o f the word “in ” is not spatial in the sense o f the occupation o f a “spatial container (room , b u ild in g )” but is the sense o f the fam iliar.52 Through the endless double movement o f the “fundamental violence” (G ew alt-tdtigkeit), man “cultivates and guards the fam iliar, only in order to break out o f it and to le t what overpowers it break in ”53 [m y emphasis]. Man both occupies the enclosing structure and “ tears it open,” but cannot master the overpowering and so is “tossed back and fo rth between structure and the structureless,”54 between using the structure to violently master and vio lating it—both o f which “flin g him out o f the hom e”55 [my emphasis], the “hom eland,” the “place,” the “solid ground,” and in to the “placeless confusion” o f the “groundless” “abyss” as a “homeless” “a lien”:

The Dom estication o f the House1 1 2 ___________________________________________

We are taking the strange, the uncanny [das Unheimliche\, as that which casts us out o f the “homely,” i.e. the customary, familiar, secure. The unhomely [Unheimische] prevents us from making ourselves at home and therein it is overpowering. But man is the strangest o f all, not only because he passes his life amid the strange understood in this sense but because he departs from his customary, familiar limits, because he is the violent one, who, tending toward the strange in the sense of the overpowering, surpasses the lim it of the familiar [das Heimische]. . . . not only that in so doing he is a violent one striving beyond his familiar sphere. No, beyond all this he becomes the strangest of all beings because, without issue on all paths, he is cast out of every relation to the familiar. . . . without city and place, lonely, strange, and alien . . . Man embarks on the groundless deep, forsaking the solid land. . . . he abandons the place, he starts out and ventures into the preponderant power of the placeless waves.56

This is no t just an argument using spatial metaphors to make a po in t that is not itse lf spatial. The text is organized around an exp lic it argument about space. Its rejection o f the sense that material bu ild ing is an act o f man, rather than its possibility, is developed in to a rejection o f the fam ilia r sense that a bu ild ing is produced in space, as distinct from producing space (Raum), or, more precisely, place (O rt). For Heidegger, this sense is seen to be sustained by the basic claim o f metaphysics inaugurated by Plato that m aterial objects stand in a preexisting space, offering surfaces to the eye o f a subject who also occupies that space, an “outward appearance” that presents an im m aterial idea. The degeneration o f philosophy is seen to begin w ith its ancient account o f space. Heidegger argues that the Greeks had no word fo r “space” and refers to Plato’s Timaeus to demonstrate that the theory o f ideas as models (paradeigma) is actually the orig ina l theory o f space.57 In speaking o f ideas, Plato is seen to have invented space and thereby in itia ted the degeneration that is only reaching its most extreme and exp lic it form w ith modernity.

This argument was picked up in Heidegger’s lectures on Nietzsche o f the fo llow ing year. A t one point, they closely follow a section o f Plato’s Republic that explains the doctrine o f the ideas w ith examples o f objects produced by a craftsman (demiourgos) . Plato’s tripa rtite distinction between the idea, the way the craftsman’s object presents the idea, and its representation in a painting is exem plified fo r Heidegger in the way that “ the amassed

The Violence o f the House113_____________________

stone o f the house” is a “presencing” that acts to “bring the idea in to appearance” d iffe ren tly than its representation in a painting.58 Against Nietzsche, Heidegger attempts to argue that fo r Plato this difference is, in the end, but one o f degree. The house itse lf becomes an image, albeit a superior one as it is closer to tru th . But Plato’s text does no t actually ta lk about the house. I t refers to objects that, as Heidegger notes, “we fin d commonly in use in many homes,”59 namely, tables and bedframes, but not the home itself. And Heidegger does not ju s t add this example. He begins and ends his reading w ith it, refram ing and refocusing the orig inal argument. Clearly, he cannot separate the question o f metaphysics from the question o f the house. H is argument about the violence o f home inevitably heads toward the house.

The violent construction o f a home and exile from it that he describes are not simply historical events. They are b u ilt in to the home as its very structure in the same way that the abyss is the possibility o f any edifice erected upon it. Like the loss o f ground, this violence is “fundam ental” but is covered over by the interdependent senses o f secure structure and secure enclosure. The house is made possible by the very violence it conceals. Heidegger’s revision of the condition o f bu ild ing— such that structure rises rather than fells w ith the loss o f ground—is also a revision o f the condition o f enclosure, as can be seen when he addresses the question o f the house more directly in a later essay: “Language speaks. I f we le t ourselves fa ll in to the abyss denoted by this sentence, we do no t go tum bling in to emptiness. We fa ll upward, to a height. Its loftiness opens up a depth. The two span a realm in which we would like to become at home, so as to find a residence, a dw elling place fo r the life o f man.”60 I t is the absence o f the ground that makes a residence. Housing, like build ing, is abysmal.

Just as the edifice conceals itse lf in concealing the abyss, the house conceals itse lf in concealing the uncanny (the theme o f the abyss being entangled w ith that o f the uncanny throughout Heidegger’s w ork). I t is because the house conceals the unhomeliness that constitutes it that the “mere” occupation o f a house, which is to say the acceptance o f its representation o f in terior, can never be authentic dwelling. Those “residing” in the home—

The Domestication o f the House114__________________________

“ the merely casual possession o f domestic things and the inner life ”61—are not a t home. Home is precisely the place where the essence o f home is most concealed.

Homecoming is therefore not simply the return to the space o f the home, because it is w ith in that space that the home most "withdraws” itself, “shuts away” its own essence. W ith in the spatial in te rio r there is another kind o f in terio r, w ith in which the essence o f the home resides. The home is therefore “mysterious” to those who occupy it: “proxim ity to the source is a mystery.”62 To be at home is precisely to be at home w ith this irreducible mystery. Heidegger plays on the way the word fo r mystery— Ge- heim nisvoll—has the home’s capacity to conceal, to make secret ( Geheim), b u ilt in to it. I t is therefore the homeless that come nearest to the essence o f home that can never simply be occupied. Just as it is only by fa lling in to the abyss that a poet can determ ine the condition o f the structure,63 it is only the poet’s exile from the home that can establish its strange condition, the unfam ilia rity o f its apparently fam iliar enclosure: “ In his exile from home, the home is firs t disclosed as such. But in one w ith it and only thus, the alien, the overpowering, is disclosed as such. Through the event o f homelessness the whole o f the essent is disclosed. In this disclosure unconcealment takes place. But this is nothing other than the happening o f the unfam iliar.”64 In the end, it is only the alien that dwells.

In this way, the o rig in around which the trad ition o f philosophy organizes itse lf is no t a “prim itive” innocence: “A beginning, on the contrary, always contains the undisclosed abundance o f the unfam iliar and extraordinary, which means that it also contains strife w ith in the fam ilia r and ordinary,” 65 which is to say that the orig in itse lf becomes uncanny. I t is already defined by an exchange between in terna l vio lation and external violence. The orig ina l sense o f logos on which metaphysics is based necessarily participates in this violence. I t is itself, fo r Heidegger, an “act o f violence.”66

This fundam ental sense, however, has been lost. Metaphysics is institutionalized by repressing the orig inary violence, making fam ilia r that which is actually a departure from the fam iliar, a departure from the orig ina l sense o f the house. Metaphysics

In te rio r Violence115____________

produces homelessness by repressing the orig inary homelessness “insofar as the home is dominated by the appearance o f the ordinary, customary, and commonplace.”67 “M an” is detached from the house and the ground precisely by follow ing philosophy in th inking o f them as secure. The radical insecurity o f the uncanny is concealed by the fam iliar sense that “man” speaks language, rather than language speaking “man,” that “man” builds, rather than bu ild ing constructing man as such.68 “Man” occupies the fam iliar, which is “out o f” its essence rather than being “at home in ” it, which is not to say that its essence lies elsewhere, in some other in terior. On the contrary, it is the uncanniness that “resides” in the fam ilia r that is his essence.

Heidegger’s argument convolutes trad itiona l th ink ing about space. Spaces are no t simply b u ilt and occupied. I t is only w ith metaphysics that a stable ground is seen rather than an abyss, a secure house rather than an exile from it. Because o f the very fam iliarity o f these images, the ir violence is concealed. And more than this, they become generic figures o f the exclusion o f violence. For Heidegger, the “supreme” act o f violence is to conceal the orig inary violence behind the mask o f the fam iliar.

I t is this constitutional violence o f the house that is the opening w ith in Heidegger’s discourse that could be exploited to displace the philosophical trad ition from w ith in. But whereas Heidegger explicitly identifies the violence o f the figure o f the edifice, associating violence w ith the uncanny,69 and arguing that it is precisely because violence is b u ilt in to the apparent innocence o f build ing that violence is itse lf uncanny,70 he never d irectly identifies the violence o f the house itself. He identifies the uncanniness o f “housing” but not the uncanniness o f the house. Like Freud, he seems to preserve the fam ilia r status o f the house while defin ing an unfam ilia r scene w ith in it. The house becomes the site o f a violence o f which it is innocent.

In te rio r V iolence

I t is in these terms that we must reread D errida’s work before it explicitly addressed architecture as a subject, le t alone engaged w ith specific architectural projects. The question to be asked o f

116The Dom estication o f the House

that w riting becomes something like: I f Derrida locates the uncanny w ith in the house by follow ing Heidegger who, in the end, restores the very space o f the house he repeatedly undermines, what about the house itse lf in D errida’s work? But, o f course, the question is s till too quick. Can we even speak o f such a th ing as “the house itse lf”? To expose houses to deconstruction, which is actually to expose ourselves to the deconstructive movements that are the very possibility o f the house, would surely be to problematize the distinction between the lite ra l and the metaphorical house. To raise the question o f the material house, and therefore, o f architectural spaces and practices in general, in D errida’s w riting would no t be to look fo r “houses” as such but to look fo r the problem atization o f such an idea.

Yet again, such a gesture can firs t be found in D errida’s reading o f Heidegger. He appropriates that dimension o f Heidegger that neither consolidates the trad itional space o f the house nor dismantles it, but is the side-effect o f an oscillation between these gestures. Heidegger’s repeated attempts to detach the lite ra l sense o f the house from his argument have already radically transform ed the house in a way that is covered over when he equally repeatedly slips and restores the lite ra l figure. The lite ra l sense is never simply abandoned in favor o f the metaphorical. In “The Ends o f Man,” Derrida argues that the “Letter on Humanism” makes the house uncanny by locating it beyond or before that opposition. The house is no longer simply the site o f the uncanny, the fam iliar space w ith in which the unfam iliar resides. I t is itse lf already uncanny.

Just as Heidegger had argued in 1935 that Kant’s architectural rhetoric is no “mere ‘ornam ent’ ”71 o f his philosophy, he argues in the “Letter on Humanism” that his own th inking about the house is no t an independent ornam ent added to an otherwise self-sufficient philosophy in order to reveal its inner structure; the house is no “mere” image fo r philosophy. The relationship between the figure and the philosophy that appears to employ it is subtle and convoluted: “ [it] is no adornm ent o f a th inking . . . The talk about the house o f Being is no transfer o f the image ‘house’ to Being. But one day we w ill, by th inking the essence o f Being in a way appropriate to its matter, more readily be able to

In te rio r Violence117____________

th ink what ‘house’ and ‘to dwell’ are.”72 This displaces the traditional status o f architecture, radically subverting the trad ition o f philosophy that is defined by its determ ination that the architectural images it employs are “merely” metaphorical, temporary supplements to the m ain body o f the argum ent that w ill eventually, and necessarily, be abandoned. Philosophy’s fam ilia r image o f presence— the house— becomes doubly unfam iliar when it is no longer seen as an innocent image o f innocence, separable from the arguments it is attached to, but is a construction o f those very arguments whose dependence on them is veiled in order that it can act as the ir guarantee, an independent witness to the ir tru th , a testament to the ir very innocence.

In this way, that which is most fam ilia r becomes unfam iliar. The house is no longer the paradigm o f presence. I t is firs t and foremost a representation (albeit o f the absence o f representation). I t is n o t ju s t that the house’s status as an institu tionally produced and sustained image is simply exposed, but that the fam iliar itse lf becomes an image. The ostensible realm o f proxim ity, immediacy, nearness, and so on becomes a realm o f extreme detachment. To remove the metaphorical status o f the house fundam entally displaces the trad ition o f metaphysics that maintains it as such. The whole economy tu rn ing around the house is disrupted. “Being,” that which is, by defin ition , nearest, is no longer simply explained by the image o f that which is nearest, the house. But, as Derrida points out, nor is the house to be simply explained by the study o f Being. Both are made strange. The opposition between that which is known and that which is unknown, that which is near and that which is far, is radically disturbed. And the loss o f the innocence o f the house is somehow w ritten in to the structure o f the philosophical tradition that constitutes itse lf by endlessly denying that loss.

“House of Being” would not operate, in this context, in the manner o f a metaphor in the current, usual, that is to say, literal meaning (sens) o f metaphor, if there is one. This current and cursive meaning . . . would transport a fam iliar predicate (and here nothing is more familiar, familial, known, domestic and economic, one would think, than the house) toward a less familiar, and more remote, unheimlich (uncanny) subject, which it would be a question of better appropriating for one-


self, becoming fam ilia r w ith, understanding, and which one would thus designate by the ind irect detour o f what is nearest—the house. Now what happens here with the quasi-metaphor o f the house o f Being, and what does without m etaphor in its cursive direction, is that it is Being, which, from the very m om ent o f its withdrawal, would le t o r promise to le t the house or the habitat be thought. . . . One could be tem pted to form alize this rhetorical inversion where, in the trope “house o f Being,” Being says more to us, o r promises m ore about the house than the house about Being. But this would be to miss what is most strictly proper in what the Heideggerian text would say in this place. In the inversion considered, Being has no t become the proper o f this supposedly known, fam iliar, nearby being, which one believed the house to be in the common metaphor. A nd i f the house has become a b it unheim- Uch, this is no t fo r having been replaced, in the ro le o f “what is nearest,” by “Being.” We are therefore no longer dealing w ith a simple inversion perm utating the places in a usual tropical structure.73

I t is this double displacement that organizes the figure o f the house in D errida’s w riting. The lin k between the house, law, economy, and fam ily is an im portant theme throughout his work. The house is always invoked as the fam iliar abode, the abode o f the fam ily bu t equally the abode o f the fam iliar. But although he repeatedly identifies the chain o f house-economy-law-family w ith metaphysics, the fam ily scene he reconstructs is no t simply a m etaphor o f metaphysics, a fam iliar image that offers access to an unfam iliar conceptual structure. On the contrary, metaphysics is, i f anything, a kind o f metaphor o f the family, the fam iliar means o f access to the endlessly strange structure o f the fam ily.74 In this Heideggerian gesture, the very fam ilia rity o f the fam ily is the product o f metaphysics, which is no more than the institu tion o f domestication itself. I t is the violence o f the “household” o f metaphysics that produces the fam ily in producing the image o f individual subjects independent from the house whose in te rio r they occupy. That is, o f subjects as that which can be housed, violently domesticated by a structure that can dissimulate that violence. D errida’s displacement o f metaphysics’ capacity to domesticate must also be a displacement o f the figure o f the house, which is its paradigmatic mechanism o f domestication. To displace metaphysics is already to displace domesticity. The house no longer simply houses. The paradigm o f security becomes the site o f the most radical insecurity—indeed, the very source o f

119In te rio r Violence

insecurity. Security becomes but the uncanny effect o f the repression o f insecurity.

Yet again it is im portant to note that this displacement o f architecture in D errida ’s work does not occur in explicidy architectural terms. To raise the question o f the unfam iliarity o f architecture, the strangeness o f even its most routine defin itions o f space, the terms o f the discourse must shift. I t is no t a question o f simply applying the discourse to something seemingly outside it, like “material space,” but o f re th ink ing the space o f discourse itself. That which seems most proper to m aterial architectural practices, the articu la tion o f space, is actually the product o f m ultip le systems o f representation that construct the very sense o f a material w orld that can be shaped or read by discourses detached from it. A rchitecture is firs t and foremost the product o f mechanisms o f representation that seem to be independent o f it and whose disguise produces this sense o f independence on which its unique cu ltura l role is based. These mechanisms are exem plified by the institu tion o f philosophy, but are also embedded w ith in the m u ltip le cu ltura l practices o f so-called everyday life .

The deconstruction o f this institu tion therefore does not simply have architectural consequences. I t must be architectural from the beginning, which is to say that as long as architecture is seen to remain outside, or even after, the “unbu ild ing” o f philosophy, then tha t philosophy is actually being consolidated by what appears to deconstruct it. I t is precisely when deconstructive discourse “turns to ” architecture— by describing particular buildings or even by simply raising the question o f buildings— that it runs the greatest risk o f reestablishing the trad ition o f metaphysics, which defines itse lf by keeping architecture in a certain place. The trad ition ’s capacity to domesticate lite ra lly depends on the domestication o f architecture. In the end, the philosophical economy turns on the domestication o f the idea o f house. But, equally, deconstructive discourse is bound to run the risk o f domesticating architecture, as any refusal, or even delay, to engage w ith build ings also reinforces the ir trad itional status. Buildings can no more be isolated from deconstruction than particular houses can be isolated from Heidegger’s w riting

The Dom estication o f the House1 2 0 ___________________________________________

and its politics. I t is in terms o f the risk o f architecture, which is necessarily a po litica l risk, that D errida’s engagement w ith architecture must be read.

I t is im portant to note here that before it begins to speak o f architecture, a ll o f D errida’s w riting is a reth inking o f in teriority. This re th inking had already begun w ith his orig ina l appropriation o f Heidegger when “deconstruction” is itse lf understood as a certain way o f inhabiting the trad ition . When Heidegger says “we shall place ourselves w ith in the structure itself,”75 “keeping it [destruction] w ith in its [the trad ition ’s] lim its ,”76 he has already given the edifice o f philosophy an in terior. In fact, it is already a house. In reth inking that space, both Heidegger and Derrida address the question o f housing long before either uses the word “house.” They already participate in the trad ition organized around a certain image o f housing inasmuch as they describe that trad ition as something that can be occupied, something that has an in te rio r and can be inhabited:

The movements o f deconstruction do no t destroy structures from the outside. They are no t possible and effective, nor can they take accurate aim, except by inhabiting those structures. Inhab iting them in a certain way, because one always inhabits, and a ll the more when one does not suspect it. O perating necessarily from the inside, borrow ing a ll the strategic and economic resources o f subversion from the o ld structure, borrow ing them structurally.77

Deconstructive discourse, i f it is anything, is no more than a reth inking o f inhabitation. I t never involves a simple departure from an enclosure. On the contrary, it goes fu rthe r in to the structure, runn ing the risk o f consolidating it in order to locate the cracks that both hold it up and produce the sense o f in te rio r in the firs t place. In so doing, it locates the subtle mechanisms o f institu tional violence, which is to say the violence that makes institutions possible but is concealed by them in a way that produces the effect o f a space. There is no violence w ithout institu tion, no institu tion w ithout space, no space w ithout violence. And more than this, violence is always domestic, but not because it goes on w ith in an in terior. Rather, it is the violence o f the in te rio r as such, a violence that is at once enacted and

Interior Violence1 2 1 ____________________

dissimulated by fam ilia r representations o f space, representations that are so fam iliar that they are no t even understood to be representations. The question o f deconstruction is therefore firs t and foremost a question o f the uncanniness o f violence. To speak here o f “deconstruction and architecture” is no t to simply speak o f an uncanny o r violated architecture but the uncanniness o f architecture as such, the violence o f even, i f no t especially, the most banal o f spaces, spaces that are vio lent in the ir very banality.

5

Throw ing U p A rch ite c tu re

To disrupt the house by identifying its constitutional uncanniness is at the same tim e to d isrup t the place o f architecture, as there is a structural relationship between the house’s ability to position things and the tra d itio n ’s ability to position the house. To understand exactly how deconstructive discourse displaces architecture, it is necessary to re tu rn again to the institu tiona l contract that positions architecture and elaborate some o f its terms in more detail, paying attention to the fine p rin t and looking fo r the loopholes, openings in the structure that are constantly being exploited in unrecognized, and often unrecognizable, ways. This can be done here by re tu rn ing to the positioning o f architecture by Kant’s texts.

If, as we have seen, architecture, understood as an edifice (an ornamented structure in which the ornam ent is meant to be subordinate to the structure it articulates) is doubly subordinated by philosophy (located w ith in the in fe rio r aesthetic domain and then subordinated w ith in that domain) yet plays a central role in establishing the very mechanism o f that subordination, the question becomes: what is the strategic ro le o f architecture when it is understood as housing? W hat ro le does the image o f the house play in the positioning o f architecture? And, more precisely, what role do the hidden com plications o f the house play in that positioning?

To ask these questions does not involve looking fo r “houses” in the discourse, bu t fo r the discursive effects o f particular ideas

Throw ing U p A rchitecture124____________________

about housing; ideas that often do no t manifest themselves as such but are embedded w ith in the discourse and surface only by way o f various forms o f displacement These displacements even operate w ith in those moments where the discourse is explicidy addressing o r deploying the figure o f the house. Talk o f houses usually acts as a cover fo r that which is threatening about houses. Furtherm ore, there can be no talk about anything w ithout this cover. The idea o f a discourse can never be separated from a certain talk about houses, that is really to say a certain silence, not the absence o f talk but a certain fo ld w ith in the fabric o f the discourse which hides something unspeakable. To locate these folds in order to comprehend the strategic role o f the house cannot involve simply listening to the overt discourse. I t requires a d iffe ren t k ind o f reading, one that actively employs gestures that are at once more oblique and more brutal. And, in the end, the question o f the house turns out to be precisely one o f obliqueness and brutality.

The Taste o f D e rrid a

W ith in The Critique o f Judgement we can easily fin d the subordination o f space to speech that Heidegger reproduces and Derrida undermines, a subordination made possible by the architectural figure o f the edifice. Kant describes fine art as a form o f expression in which the dead body o f an object is given life by an artist, animated in a way that presents the artist’s soul: “through these figures the soul o f the artist furnishes a bodily expression fo r the substance and character o f his thought, and makes the th ing itse lf speak, as it were, in m im ic language . . . attributes to lifeless things a soul suitable to the ir form , and . . . uses them as its m outhpiece.”1 Fine art speaks. I t is listened to rather than read. Aesthetic judgm ent depends on the be lie f that the in terna l “voice” attended to when confronted by a beautiful object is common to a ll m ankind and is, therefore, the voice o f nature rather than culture. Whereas cultural conventions organize signs that remain in the bodily realm detached from and subordinate to what they represent, aesthetic taste requires a complete disinterest in the bodily existence o f the object: its u tility , function, or

The Taste o f D errida125_______________

purpose. Taste is that encounter w ith an object in which the object is not consumed, not mastered through appropriation, not made servile, no t used as a means to some independent end. Aesthetic pleasure is attained through the suspension o f a ll bodily desire and its “g ra tifica tion” in the “mere enjoyments o f sense found in eating and d rink ing .”2 To taste is to spit the object out before it is consumed, to detach oneself from the object.

Aesthetic detachment is explicidy opposed to the consumption (use) o f an object in an economy. For Kant, fine art transcends the economic realm in which the exchange o f objects is organized by contracts, by being “free” precisely “in a sense opposed to contract work, as no t being a work the magnitude o f which may be estimated, exacted, o r paid fo r according to a defin ite standard.”3 This exclusion o f the economic from the aesthetic is also the exclusion o f representation (the contractually organized exchange o f signs fo r th ings). The Critique o f Judgement is organized by the need to privilege expression over representation by preventing the contam ination o f fine a rt by the bodily economy from which it detaches itself, but on which it nevertheless depends. I t establishes a hierarchy o f the arts in which poetry is the most privileged because it most resembles the im m ateriality o f speech, and architecture is the least privileged because it remains in the contractual economy o f consumption— representing bodily function rather than presenting the soul:

The determining ground o f whose [architecture’s] form is not nature but an arbitrary end . . . In architecture the chief point is a certain use of the artistic object to which, as the condition, the aesthetic ideas are limited. . , . adaption o f the product to a particular use is the essential element in a work o f architecture.4

Buildings are subordinated to speech because they are bound to consumption. For philosophy, there is a structural a ffin ity between architecture, physical desire, eating and drinking. The art o f space is degenerate. But i f the figure o f the house, like that o f the edifice, is employed by philosophy to effect this very subordination by being aligned w ith speech, the house must be seen as detached from digestion, no t to m ention indigestion. Indeed, it must act as the very figure o f this detachm ent I f the figure o f the house is that o f the privileged in terior, the space o f

Throw ing Up A rchitecture126____________________

unmediated presence, or, more precisely, the site o f the exclusion o f space by presence, it must be unlike a stomach. There should be no consumption in the ideal house, no exchange w ith in or across its borders. The architectural figure is again double, sometimes acting as the model o f philosophy’s desire and sometimes the model o f what that desire attempts to transcend. When architecture is explicitly addressed, it is excluded as the paradigm o f consumption. But when it is understood as a figure, it is the paradigm o f that very exclusion. For philosophy, there is a world o f difference between architecture and its figure. But what is it about architecture that allows this reversal to take place? How can the figure o f architecture “stand” against architecture? This cannot simply involve a reversal. The figure must be tied in some way to what it appears to detach itse lf from . Philosophy’s opposing constructions o f architecture cannot be separated. Its fundamental ambivalence about architecture, an ambivalence w ithout which it couldn’t function, actually occurs w ith in both its ideal construction o f architecture as some k ind o f abstract spatiality and its construction o f architecture as a material spatiality.

The digestive system that the house both exemplifies and opposes is the site o f the internalization o f the outside. The figure o f the house is that o f exclusion that maintains a line between inside and outside, while the digestive system is that which confuses inside and outside, endlessly fo ld ing the lim it, transform ing one in to the other. A t the same tim e, digestion’s messy realm o f confusion is also the space o f separation, that which makes possible the sense that the body has an in te rio r in the firs t place. The digestive system, which is neither inside or outside the body, maintains the lim its o f the body. Likewise, the sense o f the house depends on that which subverts it. The two senses o f architecture are interdependent. I t is the labor o f philosophy to preserve the sense that they can be separated.

I t is significant that D errida’s work, which is everywhere concerned w ith such confusions o f lim its that actually makes them possible and always understands the house as a mechanism o f consumption whose “domestic law” is economic, an “assmilatory power”5 that works to preserve what he once calls its “intestine” 6 condition, does not simply abandon the aesthetic but exploits a


subversive possibility w ith in it. His reading o f The Critique oj Judgement in “Economimesis” argues that fine art only detaches itse lf from the representational economy o f m aterial objects in order to participate in a “divine economy” in which the artist im itates God by transcending the w orld o f products fo r that of pure productivity. The human artist’s non-exchangeable productivity becomes exchangeable w ith that o f God. This exchange takes place on the basis o f what Kant describes as a “regular agreement,” an “accordance,” a “compact,” sealed by the “trace” inscribed in nature that authorizes nature as a work o f art. In the moment o f transcending the realm o f contracts, a divine economy constitutes itse lf on the basis o f a contract sealed by the signature o f the divine artist. This hidden contract provides the rules fo r fine a rt by organizing an expressive language: “the cipher in which nature speaks to us figuratively in its beautiful forms.”7 The human artist is able to im itate the divine artist by speaking this natural language.

Derrida examines the conditions o f this contract to see i f it does sustain an economy o f expression rather than representation, taste ra ther than consumption. He notes that as fine art is a form o f speech, the aesthetic tu rn away from bodily consumption toward taste does not leave the m outh. The mouth is the site o f both bodily consumption and ideal detachment. The privileging o f expression, o f speech over w riting, o f production over consumption, by the trad ition o f metaphysics disguises an economy o f secret consumption, covert representation governed by repressed desire.

Throughout his work, Derrida argues that to exclude someth ing by placing it “outside” is actually to contro l it, to put it in its place, to enclose it. To exclude is to include. The very gesture o f expelling representation appropriates it. Metaphysics appropriates whatever it places in “its” outside, such that “ its outside is never its outside” 8 To expel representation to the “outside,” fo r example, is to place it in “the exteriority, that it represses: that is expels and, which amounts to the same, internalizes as one o f its moments.”9 Expulsion is consumption. To lock something up doesn’t involve simply im prisoning it w ith in fou r walls. I t is im prisoned simply by being banned. In fact, it is enclosed even

Throw ing U p A rch itecture128____________________

before it is o ffic ia lly excluded inasmuch as it can be defined, portrayed as some kind o f object that can be placed, whether inside or outside. I t is not so much a question o f placing it w ith in visible lim its as declaring that it has lim its: “expulsed, excluded, objectified o r (curiously am ounting to the same thing) assimilated and mastered as one o f its moments . . . constituting its contrary as an object in order to be protected from it and to be rid o f it. In order to lock it up .”10 Each offic ia l p roh ib ition marks the presence o f a forbidden desire, the covert assimilation o f that which should no t be eaten: “ to renounce the other (not by being weaned from it, but by detaching oneself from it, which is actually to be in re lation to it, to respect it while nevertheless overlooking it, that is, while knowing it, identifying it, assimilating it ) . ”11 The metaphysics o f production is always a secret economy o f consumption. Everywhere, the trad ition carries out its work o f consumption behind the disguise o f detachment, consuming what it claims to detach itse lf from .

In these terms, aesthetic detachment only excludes bodily consum ption in order to master the object by consuming it ideally: “it also passes through a certain m outh . . . assimilates everything to itse lf by idealizing it w ith in in te rio rity . . . refusing to touch it, to digest it naturally, but digests it ideally, consumes what it does no t consume and vice versa.”12 The divine economy is an economy o f consumption like the m aterial economy it seeks to transcend. The Critique o f Judgement attempts to exclude the sensual as “positively subversive o f the judgem ent o f taste . . . it is only where taste is s till weak and untrained that, like aliens, they are adm itted as a favor, and only on terms that they do not violate that beautifu l fo rm .”13 Derrida exploits the subversive possibility o f aesthetics by dem onstrating that the constitutional possibility o f pure form is precisely its vio lation by a subversive alien; a fore ign body that already inhabits the in te rio r and cannot be expelled w ithout destroying its host; an alien that can only be repressed. This constitutional vio lation o f ideal form by the body in aesthetics is the constitutional vio lation o f presence by representation, speech by spacing.

D errida’s work is fu ll o f such gestures, which locate the aliens w ith in that have been consumed to produce the effect o f pres-


ence, arguing that, as he states when reading Hegel, “the act o f consumption . . . is no t the negative o f presence.”14 W hat makes his reading o f aesthetics so pivotal in this extended series o f readings is that in the case o f aesthetics, the alien that is secredy consumed is itse lf a certain k ind o f consumption. W hat is being ostensibly excluded by Kant’s text, and therefore coverdy consumed by it, is consumption itself. In aesthetics, the already convoluted economy o f metaphysics is doubled again, and this doubling involves the architecture o f the house. W hen D errida’s ‘Ja, ou le faux-bond” refers to “exclusion enclosing what it wants to neutralize or cast out,”15 he is speaking o f the production o f an enclosure, the sense o f an in terio r, a space. But what is unique about this space, and crucial to the question o f deconstruction and architecture being raised here, is that it is a domestic space that attempts to domesticate space.

On the one hand, the space is domestic inasmuch as the very form o f domestication is that o f an exclusion that covertly in cludes. When another o f his essays refers to that which is “excluded or mastered— that is to say domesticated—by philosophy,”16 Derrida is tacitly describing the production o f a particular domestic space, the house o f the philosophical trad ition . On the other hand, what philosophy excludes from that house, the designated “outside” that is actually repressed on the inside o f the domestic space, is space itself, and philosophy’s paradigm o f space is the house, that which divides an inside from an outside. What is excluded is the material bu ild ing that supposedly produces an unquestionable sense o f in te rio r and, as such, is repeatedly pointed to in order to legitim ize philosophical practice. W hat is excluded from the inside o f philosophy is the material production o f an inside that it employs to guarantee the very idea o f interior, includ ing its own. Philosophy is only able to organize itself around the idea o f in te rio r by excluding its paradigm o f that idea in order to repress certain effects o f that paradigm, effects tha t are threatening inasmuch as they are structural, which is to say, in ternal. The house o f philosophy is produced as such by repressing something about houses.

W hat is repressed is not simply something about the material reality o f houses tha t must be hidden to cleanse the im m aterial


discourse, but something in the representational system o f that discourse that makes the idea o f house possible in the firs t place, something that must be hidden precisely because, among other things, it calls in to question the opposition between im m aterial and material. To identify this repression does not involve looking fo r some architectural reality the trad itional discourse overlooks, but looking more closely at the architecture b u ilt in to that discourse, the architecture that allows the discourse to look in the firs t place. Indeed, what is at stake here is the trad ition ’s representation, which is to say construction, o f the house as something that precedes representation, firs t in the sense o f being some kind o f object standing in the world that can be represented and is independent o f its representations, and second and more crucially, in the sense that this object is not in itse lf a mechanism o f representation, that it is so detached from representation that it can act as the very figure o f presence.

The question here becomes: what disruptions o f the house are ostensibly excluded, while being systematically repressed w ith in the discourse, in order to sustain this generic image o f the house as that which simply and unproblem atically excludes through the institu tion o f a spatial division like a wall?

This is an even more complicated question than it m ight at firs t appear, because the house can never simply be repressed inasmuch as it is repression that makes possible the image o f the house and, equally, the idea o f repression is unthinkable “outside” that o f the house. It has to be recalled that Freud often employs the figure o f the house, its rooms, and the doorways between them to describe the mechanism o f repression. Likewise, he employs the figure o f digestion. For the trad ition to constitute itse lf as a house by repressing a certain part o f the house must involve secretly digesting that disturbing part, secreting it inside, secreting it to produce the very sense o f inside. The trad ition consumes the threatening aspect o f the house and conceals that consumption, or, rather, conceals the indigestion that it produces. What the trad ition represses, in order to at once represent itse lf as a house and represent the house as unm ediated presence, is its own indigestion. In the end, metaphysics is the suppression o f the indigestion o f the house, the indigestion

The Indigestion o f the House131_______________________

that must be repressed in order that any house can appear as such; the indigestion that makes the house possible; literally, the in terna l structure o f the house, its always veiled constitution.

A house, then, is no more than the repression o f a constitutional indigestion. There is no house w ithout either indigestion or its concealment. The line drawn by a house is not that between what appears as an inside and what appears as an outside, but the less clearly defined and much more convoluted one between the visible and the invisible. The security o f a house is no t its capacity to enclose o r exclude, but its capacity to conceal.

The Ind igestion o f the House

To understand how indigestion and the house are bound together, it is necessary to see how architecture, and the house in particular, are w ritten in to aesthetics and its argument about consumption rather than simply being subjected to i t The argum ent is put in place by architecture before it is used to pu t architecture in its place. In fact, as we have already seen, the very firs t example in The C ritique o f Judgement, the one that establishes the sense o f aesthetic disinterest, is architectural. The book begins by distinguishing a rustic hu t from a palace, bu ild ing from architecture. The disinterested eye is opposed to the hungry stomach by sp litting bu ild ing and architecture:

I f any one asks me whether I consider that the palace I see before me is beautiful, I may, perhaps, reply tha t I do no t care fo r things o f that sort that are merely made to be gaped at. O r I may reply in the same strain as that Iroquois sachem who said that noth ing in Paris pleased h im better than the eating-houses. I may even go a step fu rth e r and inveigh w ith the v igor o f a Rousseau against the vanity o f the great who spend the sweat o f the people on such superfluous things. Or, in time, I may quite easily persuade myself that i f I found myself on an uninhabited island, w ithou t hope o f ever again com ing among men, and could conjure such a palace in to existence by a mere wish, I should s till no t trouble to do so, as long as I had a hu t there that was com fortable fo r me. A ll this may be adm itted and approved; only it is no t the po int now at issue.17

The degeneration o f taste in to consumption is the degeneration from the house detached from consumption (the palace) to the

Throwing Up Architecture132____________________

house o f consumption (the eating-house). Kant contrasts the u tilita rian concern w ith bodily consumption o f the prim itive w ith the aesthetic disinterest o f the cultivated: “ taste that requires an added element o f charm and emotion fo r its de light . . . has not yet emerged out from barbarism.”18 To become cultivated is to “raise ourselves above the level o f the senses,”19 to move from the bodily to the ideal, from gratification to pleasure, from the unadorned u tilita rian rustic hut to the ornamented house that is superfluous to u tility, the house o f the aristocracy: the palace. The desire to transcend the body by adorning it begins w ith the social acquisition o f language: “w ith no one to take in to account but h im self a man abandoned on a desert island would not adorn e ither him self o r his hu t.”20 The C ritique o f Judgement p riv ileges the very th ing that Rousseau condemns: fine art based on the transcendence o f bodily function that is only available to the aristocracy.

For Rousseau, architecture is a corruption o f the purity, the innocence o f bu ild ing. The prim itive hut, the basic house that does no more than define an in te rio r space, occupies the p riv ileged place between nature and its substitution w ith language, a substitution firs t required w ith the weaning o f the child. Language originates as a substitute fo r m other’s m ilk, the voice o f m other nature, and so is itse lf a form o f speech, a form o f expression organized by a “social contract” s till tied in to the order o f nature. But w ith the rise o f luxury came what A Discourse on the O rig in o f Inequality describes as “the easiness o f exciting and gratifying our sensual appetites, the too exquisite foods o f the wealthy which overheat and f il l them w ith indigestion,” upsetting “ the good constitution o f the savages.”21 The unnatural excesses that produced this indigestion also produced art through the adornm ent o f the naked body o f the prim itive and “his” hut w ith representations detached from the purity o f nature and, therefore, in the words o f A Discourse on the M oral Effects o f the A rts and Sciences, a form o f perversion, a “vice”:

It is beneath the rustic clothes o f a farmer and not beneath the g ilt of a courtier that strength and vigor of the body will be found. Ornamentation is no less foreign to virtue, which is the strength and vigor of the soul. The good man is the athlete who likes to compete in the nude.


He disdains all those vile ornaments which would hamper the use of his strength, most o f which were invented only to hide some deformity.22

This degeneration from expression to representation, from the living voice o f nature to the dead body o f a sign, is also fo r Rousseau a degeneration from bu ild ing to architecture, from the unadorned rustic h u t to the ornamented temple that conceals some structural deform ity: ‘Then came the height o f degeneracy, and vice has never been carried so far as it was seen, to speak figuratively, supported by marble columns and engraved on Corinthian capitals.”23 For Rousseau, the undecorated house precedes indigestion. But again we are bound to ask, what exactly is it “to speak figuratively” here?

The Social Contract attempts to remove the excesses o f fine art by restoring a contract, a restoration that itse lf turns out to be a bu ild ing project: “Before putting up a large build ing, the architect surveys and sounds the site to see i f it w ill bear the weight.”24 Rousseau appeals to this architectural image again in A Discourse on the O rigin o f Inequality in order to argue that the institu tion o f the social contract turns out to be grounded in nature: “all human institutions seem at firs t glance to be founded merely on banks o f shifting sand. It is only by taking a closer look, and removing the dust and sand that surround the edifice, that we perceive the immovable basis on which it is raised, and learn to respect its foundations.”25 Kantian aesthetics, on the other hand, is governed by the same architectonic figure but attempts to restore a divine contract by cultivating fine art based on excess. Whereas Rousseau attempts to reject ornament, Kant attempts to tame it.

Nevertheless, K ant’s privileging o f fine art and Rousseau’s condemnation o f it veils a fundam ental com plicity between them. Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragm atic P oint o f View significandy explains the standard use o f the “organic” word “taste” (which usually refers to the sensuous surface o f “the inside o f the m outh” ) fo r the “ideal” power o f aesthetic judgm ent by arguing that the host’s selection o f a variety o f food at a d inner party is the model.26 His early lecture “On Philosopher’s Medicine o f the Body” not only addresses the dinner party when discussing the

Throwing Up Architecture134____________________

relationship between th inking and eating, but raises the question o f what it is fo r a cerebral philosopher like him to address such a bodily scene.27 In his Metaphysics o f M orals,26 Kant shares Rousseau’s condemnation o f overeating as an im m oral “vice.” In these terms, his The Critique o f Judgement remains bound to Rousseau’s account o f the prim itive. I t employs the metaphor o f taste precisely fo r its links w ith the m other’s breast—such that it is the m other’s voice that is listened to when appreciating fine art. Equally, Rousseau’s account maintains the same aesthetic as Kant, in which color is subordinated to design as “purely a pleasure o f the sense.”29 Both argue that expression has been, as the C ritique puts it, “violated and rendered im pure”30 by the sensuality o f representation, and both attem pt to restore its purity, its innocence and primacy. In so doing, they sustain the trad ition o f metaphysics that attempts to domesticate representation. Both are com m itted to a regime o f domestication— com mitted, that is, to m aintain the house.

The strategic operation o f this domestication in the maintenance o f metaphysics is very lite ra l in Rousseau. His exp lic it rejection o f slavery, fo r example, is based on a ho rro r o f the domestication o f “man,” which im plicidy establishes the necessity o f the domestication o f man’s other as slave. The house is the mechanism o f this mastery. In the Discourse on the O rig in o f In equality, men and women ceased to be equal w ith the orig in o f the house: “The sexes, whose manner o f life had been h itherto the same, began now to adopt d iffe ren t ways o f living. The women became more sedentary, and accustomed themselves to m ind the hu t and the ir children, while the men went abroad in search o f the ir common subsistence.”31 Language is acquired by the men outside the hut rather than w ith in it, as can be seen in Essay on the O rig in o f Languages: “genuine languages are not at all o f domestic o rig in . They can be established only under a more general, more durable agreement. The American savages hardly speak at a ll except outside the ir homes. Each keeps silent in his hut.”32 The expressions sustained by this fraternal contract are violated by representations when the woman assumes the man’s authority by leaving the house.

The Indigestion o f the House1S5_______________________

The same oppressive sense can be found throughout Kant’s w riting, but is most exp lic it in his “po litica l” texts, as can be seen when The Philosophy o f Law speaks o f the “equality” o f the partners in a marriage contract only to im m ediately argue that the husband’s “supremacy” over the wife does not violate this equality because o f the “natural superiority o f the husband compared w ith the wife.”33 The same duplicity is evident in his insistence on the politica l equality o f all subjects in the essay “On the Common Saying: ‘This May be True in Theory, But it Does N ot Apply in Practice,” ’ which immediately goes on to conclude that the only th ing that disqualifies any person from citizenship is being a woman, a person who has no property precisely because she is property.34 This exclusion from the public domain presupposes both physical and legal confinem ent to the domestic as well as the confinem ent o f authority to the domestic, as can be seen when Anthropology from a Pragm atic Point o f View argues that the w ife’s “ legal voicelessnes w ith regard to public transactions makes her all the more powerful in domestic matters.”35 Kant repeatedly associates the figure o f the woman w ith the superficia lity o f m aterial ornam ent, the seductions o f representation that distract reason, while the man is associated w ith the supposed penetration o f reason to the in fin ite depth o f im m aterial ideas.

For both Kant and Rousseau, woman is the figure o f the dispossession o f the authority o f immediate expression by the mediations o f representation. She is a double figure: the paradigm o f nature when domesticated in the house and the paradigm o f the alienation from nature when outside the house, untamed. In O f Grammatology, Derrida looks at the way in which, fo r Rousseau, women’s power is the “paradigm o f violence and politica l anomaly” hence the necessity o f “containing them w ith in domestic governm ent” such that “woman takes her place, remains in her place.”36 This domestic order is understood as the basis o f a ll po litica l order. The threat the woman poses to that order is, fo r Derrida, “directly linked” to the subversive spacings o f w riting. Its n o t that w riting is like a woman who must be domesticated. Rather, the woman has to be domesticated inas-


much as she is like w riting. In the face o f this threat, which is that o f a supplement, an ornam ent that is somehow necessary to the system and yet violates it, Rousseau attempts to “arrest it, domesticate it, tame it .”37 The logic o f ornam ent installed by the architectural figure o f the edifice is inseparable from that o f the house.

Fem ininity is not simply one example o f the supplements that must be placed under house arrest. A ll supplements are constructed as fem inine. The fem inine being that which is domesticated, produced as such in the moment o f domestication, or, rather, produced in the ongoing but always frustrated attem pt to domesticate. Metaphysics is a determ ination o f place that attempts to domesticate the other, as it domesticates woman, rendering whatever it domesticates “fem inine” by placing it. The fem inine is that which is placed. The mastery o f philosophy is that o f the master o f the house, the patriarchal authority that makes the other a slave w ith in the house, a domestic servant or servant o f domesticity. Whatever threatens the authority o f the “man o f the house” threatens metaphysics. Again, this is no t so much a m atter o f placing the other in a particular space as it is o f placing it in the subordinate realm o f m aterial space. The institu tion o f space that Derrida obliquely interrogates is, from the beginning, organized around a certain th inking about— which is to say, construction o f—the space o f the house.

And i f the question o f architecture is most exp lic it in deconstructive discourse when it is addressing politics, the politics o f architecture become more exp lic it when the edifice is figured as a house. N ot because o f the lite ra l politics o f the house— the oppression o f women, fo r example, as a po litica l reality (someth ing both more “po litica l” and more “real” than other subjects o f deconstructive discourse)— but because the very sense o f the politica l, the classical de fin ition o f politics, (no t to m ention the sense o f reality) comes from a certain representation o f the house. The law is always, in the end, the law o f the house. The question o f politics is always one o f domestic economy. As Derrida argues in “Interpretations at War” : “oikonomia here names the law o f the fam ily oikos as the law, period.”38 W hether it addresses politics o r not, philosophy can never be apolitical. I t


can never be detached from the vio len t law o f the domestic. On the contrary, it is at once its manifestation and its defense, as alluded to in a passage from Glas that identifies the domestic regime in and o f Hegel’s philosophy:

Economy: the law o f the fam ily, o f the fam ily home, o f possession. The economic act makes fam iliar, proper, one’s own, intim ate, private. The sense o f property, o f propriety, in general is collected in the oikeios. . . . And so political. The po litica l opposes itse lf to the fam ilia l while accom plishing i t . . . The eidos, the general fo rm o f philosophy, is properly fam ilia l and produces itse lf as oikos: home, habitation, apartm ent, room, residence, temple, tom b [tombeau], hive, assets [avoir], fam ily, race, and so on. I f a common sense is given therein, it is the guarding o f the proper, o f property, propriety, o f one’s own . . ,39

This identity between the law o f the house and the trad ition o f metaphysics is one o f the most insistent themes throughout Derrida ’s work. But the sense that philosophy is the defense o f the politics o f the house is not, as it were, forced onto the trad ition. I t is already w ritten in to it, often explicitly, as when Rousseau’s A Discourse on P o litica l Economy identifies the domesticity o f po litics: ‘The word Economy, or Oeconomy, is derived from oikos, house, and nomos, law, and meant orig ina lly only the wise and legitimate government o f the house fo r the common good o f the whole family.”40 Furtherm ore, the privilege o f the house is not w ritten in to the texts o f the trad ition as one theme among others. W hether explicit o r not, it operates as the ir organizational principle.

The sense o f security associated w ith the m aterial space o f the house that philosophy draws on can never be detached from the vio lent subordination o f the fem inine, where the fem inine is understood as spacing. To subordinate is to suppress spacing in favor o f space, or, more precisely, to produce the effect o f space by suppressing spacing. The house is no t simply the site o f a particular subordination, a particular k ind o f violence. I t is the very principle o f violence. To dom inate is always to house, to place in the domus. Dom ination is domestication.

Yet the house does no t simply precede what it domesticates. The house is itse lf an effect o f suppression. The classical figure o f the fem inine is that which lacks its own secure boundaries,


producing insecurity by disrupting boundaries, and which therefore must be housed by masculine force that is no more than the ability to m aintain rig id lim its or, more precisely, the effect o f such lim its, the representation o f a space, a representation that is not only violendy enforced by a range o f disciplinary structures (legal, philosophical, economic, aesthetic, technical, social, and so on), but is itse lf already a form o f violence. Masculinity is not only erection but also enclosure, the logic o f the house is as phallocentric as that o f the tower. The tower, in the end, is a house. Kant discloses this im p lic it agenda that organizes the architectural figure in philosophy at the very end o f the Critique o f Pure Reason when he redesigns the edifice it attempts to construct as a house: “although we had contemplated bu ild ing a tower which should reach the heavens, the supply o f materials suffices only fo r a dwelling house . . . bu ild ing a secure hom,e fo r ourselves.”41 This house is no t simply a substitute that w ill be abandoned when the tower o f metaphysics is fina lly completed. Rather, the house is what is always installed behind the more visible dream o f philosophy.

Architecture is bound to metaphysics because it represents the capacity to domesticate. I t is no t simply a question o f the solidity o f its foundations. Rather, it is the apparent solidity o f its walls, the security o f its enclosure, its de fin ition o f space, its production o f place. Deconstructive discourse threatens the trad ition o f metaphysics by disturbing the ability o f its constructions to put things in the ir place. It produces this displacement by identifying the series o f undecidable figures that resist domestication inasmuch as they can be neither housed nor evicted. In so doing, it necessarily disturbs architecture.

The D isgusting T ru th

As the house is the privileged site o f the ideal speech o f logos dreamed o f by philosophy, to locate that which resists domestication is to locate that which resists the mastery o f the m outh, eluding the relentless economy o f consumption. D errida’s “Economimesis” interrogates the lim its o f both the overt bodily economy and the covert ideal economy o f metaphysics by look-

139The Disgusting T ru th

ing closely in to the mouth they share fo r that which resists consumption because it is neither bodily nor ideal and therefore cannot be digested, assimilated, appropriated, or mastered, that which “cannot be eaten either sensibly o r ideally and which . . . by never le tting itse lf be swallowed must therefore cause itse lf to be vomited,”*2 He notes that The C ritique offudgem ent explicitly identifies this inconsumable other that removes the distinction between representation and presentation and resists the aesthetic eye as the “disgusting”:

One kind of ugliness alone is incapable o f being represented conformably to nature without destroying all aesthetic delight, and consequently artistic beauty, namely, that which excites disgust For, as in this strange sensation, which depends purely on the imagination, the object is represented as insisting, as it were, upon our enjoying it, while we still set our face against it, the artificial representation o f the object is no longer distinguishable from the nature of the object itself in our sensation, and so it cannot possibly be regarded as beautiful.43

Aesthetics is defined by its exclusion o f the disgusting. I t is a disgust fo r that sensuality which imposes enjoyment, enslaving the observer by seducing it and thereby reversing the mastery o f the ideal over the bodily dictated by metaphysics, a mastery that can never be separated from the mastery o f the house. W hat is true ly disgusting is no t simply what is seen but the disruption o f vision it produces. A t one po in t in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View, Kant symptomatically associates vom it w ith the extent to which certain visual perceptions can remove the distinction between m ental and physical:

The illusion caused by the strength of our imagination often goes so far that we think we see and feel outside us what is only in our mind . . . The sight of others eating loathsome things (as when the Tunguse rhythmically suck out and swallow the mucus from their children’s noses) moves the spectator to vomit, just as if he himself were forced to eat it.44

Vomit marks the lim it o f vision, its inab ility to be aesthetically detached. As Kant argues in his Observations on the Feeling o f the B eautifu l and the Sublime: “N othing is so much set against the beautiful as disgust.”45 Symptomatically, he says so in defin ing the difference between the sexes. Inasmuch as the “beauty” o f the

140Throw ing Up A rchitecture

domesticated woman is the very figure o f the aesthetic, the disgusting is that which threatens her domestication. Women are meant to be “cleanly and very delicate in respect to a ll that provokes disgust,”46 such that the ir most “pa in fu l” insult is “being called disgusting” as distinct from the man who, as the “natural” agent o f reason which is the force o f domestication, is most offended by being called a “fo o l”*1 Kant’s whole system turns on a phallocentric resistance to the contam inations o f the disgusting.

In naming the disgusting as that which cannot be consumed, that which belongs “outside” aesthetics at the greatest distance from reason, the philosophical economy attempts to appropriate it, consume it as its “other.” But as the real other o f this economy that consumes whatever it represents (consuming it in representing it) is that which cannot be represented, words like “disgusting” s till do not name it. As Derrida argues: “the word vom it . . . is then fo r philosophy still, an e lixir, even in the very quintessence o f its bad taste.”48 The expulsion o f any threat to the “outside” represses the ho rro r o f that which violates the ph ilo sophical economy but cannot be detached from it, the subversive alien that inhabits the very m outh that represses it, the “inas- sim ilable, obscene other which forces enjoyment and whose ir repressible violence would undo the hierarchizing authority”49 o f metaphysics. In the end, the distastefully enslaving violence o f the visceral is no t outside the trad ition that condemns it. O n the contrary, it is the very possibility o f both taste and the reason that cultivates it.

This argument draws on Nietzsche’s identification o f the strategic role o f disgust in the constitution o f institutions, which Derrida brie fly discusses in a footnote to “O tobiographies” :

Nietzsche constantly draws our attention to the value o f learn ing to vom it, fo rm ing in this way one’s taste, distaste and disgust, knowing how to use one’s m outh and palate, moving one’s tongue and lips, having good teeth or being hard-toothed, understanding how to speak and to eat (but no t jus t anything!). A ll this we know, as well as the fact that the word “Ekel” (disgust, nausea, wanting to vom it) comes back again and again to set the stage fo r evaluation . . . it is disgust that controls everything.50

V io la ting the C rypt141______________

In such terms, D errida does not identify the distasteful alien in order to simply escape the regime o f metaphysics. The disgusting is not outside the institu tion , as the outside is as much a mechanism o f consumption as the inside. To simply go “outside” metaphysics is not to escape its m outh but to remain inside it, even to be “swallowed” by it as “Structure, Sign and Play” reminds us: ‘The step ‘outside philosophy’ is much more d ifficu lt to conceive than is generally im agined by those who th ink they made it long ago w ith cavalier ease, and who in general are swallowed up in metaphysics in the entire body o f discourse which they claim to have disengaged from it.”51

Derrida locates the gastric disorder w ith in the institu tion o f metaphysics itself, w ith in the line it constantly draws between inside and outside. In m aintaining the trad itiona l economy o f consumption, the texts o f Rousseau and Kant, fo r example, priv ilege the scene in which, as Rousseau puts it in Em ile, “indigestion is unknown,”52 the scene set, as Kant argues in Education, by regulating the woman’s behavior such that the ch ild does not “throw up” its m other’s m ilk.53 Rather than abandoning this trad ition, deconstructive discourse disturbs its authority by tracing the effects o f an indigestible other w ith in it, philosophy’s indigestion, the irreducib le and irresistib le foreignness w ith in philosophy that disseminates itse lf cryptically throughout ph ilo sophic practice. I t begins to do so by demonstrating that each o f the binary oppositions o f concepts that organize the trad ition o f metaphysics is made possible by a double figure that radically convolutes the opposition, that the trad ition is made possible by that which violates it by resisting consumption and giving it permanent indigestion. These “undecidables” uncannily occupy the house but cannot be domesticated by it. Neither inside nor outside the house, unable to be swallowed or spat out, they are the very possibility o f the house. The uncanniness o f the house itse lf is produced by its constitutive indigestion.

V io la tin g the C ryp t

Freud’s essay on the uncanny w ith which Derrida identifies his th ink ing about undecidability tracks the “double” gesture by

T hrow ing Up A rchitecture142____________________

which the fam ilia r becomes frightening, the hdmliche resonating w ith what it supposedly excludes, such that what doesn’t “belong in the house” somehow belongs and the unfam iliar remains all too fam iliar. W ith in the security o f the homely is an im proprie ty that is ho rrify ing i f exposed, precisely because it does not befall an innocent subject. Indeed, it constitutes the subject as such, being “in reality nothing new or alien, bu t something which is fam iliar and old-established in the m ind and which has become alienated from it only through the process o f repression.”54 I t is no t simply that the subject is frightened. Rather it is the constitu tion o f the subject that is frightening. The secret o f this constitutional vio lation haunts the house in the same way as the “residues” and “traces” o f prim itive people haunt the supposedly civilized person and those o f the ch ild haunt the adult. For Freud, the passage from ch ild to adult is that from prim itive to civilized. Rather than a passage from innocence to vio lation (as in Rousseau’s account), it is a passage from (what w ill be seen in adulthood as) violation to its repression. The uncanny horrifies because it exposes an orig inary violation that has been repressed.

Freud argues that the gesture o f the “double” originates as a means fo r prim itive people to resist the fear o f death by d ividing the world in to body and soul, which is to say that metaphysics emerges as the suppression o f a fear. But this prim itive fear returns in civilization whenever the distinction between imagination (representation) and reality (presentation) based on that orig inal division is “effaced.” The double reverses to become the “uncanny harbinger o f death,”55 re tu rn ing the civilized subject to the prim itive fear and the adult to the childhood scene o f violation. This re tu rn to the prim al scene, this “re tu rn o f the repressed,” horrifies in a way that activates “the urge towards defence which has caused the ego to project the material outward as something fore ign to itself.”56 Elsewhere, Freud argues that this defensive mechanism o f repulsion is erected during the “latency” period in which the ch ild /p rim itive is trained to sublimate its o rig ina l perversions w ith feelings o f “disgust, feelings o f shame, and the claims o f aesthetics and m oral ideals.”57 In these terms, aesthetics is a defensive mechanism o f repression that excludes whatever disgusts by forcing the effacement o f the dis-


tinction between presentation and representation. As aesthetics operates in the service o f metaphysics, which is noth ing more than the maintenance o f that d istinction, it is unsurprising that Freud finds:

As good as noth ing is to be found upon this subject [the uncanny] in comprehensive treatises on aesthetics, which in general prefer to concern themselves w ith what is beautifu l, attractive and sublime— that is, w ith feelings o f a positive nature— and w ith the circumstances and the objects that call them fo rth , rather than w ith the opposite feelings o f repulsion and distress.58

The aesthetic exclusion o f the disgusting resists the prim itive fear o f death revived by the uncanny. I t is a certain com ing to terms w ith death. Aesthetic pleasure is that o f m ourning which, fo r Freud, derives from systematically detaching and taking w ith in oneself (“in tro jecting”) a ll the parts o f oneself contained in what has been lost. As he argues in “M ourning and M elancholia” : “the ego, confronted as it were w ith the question whether it shall share [the] fate [o f the lost object], is persuaded by the sum o f the narcissistic satisfactions it derives from being alive to sever its attachment to the object that has been abolished.”59 As the detachment o f all interest, a ll desire, from the object, m ourning is the paradigm o f aesthetic pleasure. That which forces one to desire to vom it is, as D errida argues, that which prevents m ourning: “le t it be understood in all senses that what the word disgusting denominates is what one cannot resign oneself to m ourn.” 60 The trad ition o f reason, which, as Heidegger argues, depends on, rather than simply orchestrates, aesthetics,61 can be displaced by demonstrating that this inab ility to m ourn o f the disgusting not only inhabits taste but makes it possible. Good taste cannot detach itse lf from the forbidden pleasure o f the distasteful. I t can only, indeed has to, conceal it.

Derrida offers a more detailed account o f the disgusting in his reading o f the psychoanalysis o f the refusal to m ourn by Nicholas Abraham and M aria Torok, who reread Freud by arguing that the pathological cond ition o f this refusal is a fantasy o f “incorporation,” o f taking in to the body the lost object itself, lite ra lly consuming the object bu t doing so precisely to preserve it, to deny its loss: “It is to avoid ‘swallowing’ the loss, that one imag-


ines swallowing, or having swallowed, what is lost, in the form o f an object.”62 As Derrida notes, the object is appropriated to keep it as other, as foreign, as a foreign body w ith in one’s own body, taken in to the body precisely to stop it from contam inating and disfiguring the body by keeping it w ithdrawn in indefin ite quarantine: “reta ining the object w ith in itse lf but as something excluded, as a foreign body which is impossible to assimilate and must be rejected.” 63 Unable to simply expel the object, “the fantasy involves eating the object (through the m outh o r otherwise) in order not to in tro ject it, in order to vom it it, in a way, in to the inside, in to the pocket o f a cyst.” 64 The forbidden object is thrown up in to some folds in the body’s lim it, hidden in a space that is neither inside nor outside.

Such a fantasy is necessary when norm al m ourning would expose and destroy the pleasure o f a shameful experience w ith an indispensable object. To preserve this secret pleasure, the subject preserves and protects the object, keeping it alive. Or, more precisely, allowing it to survive, to live on, neither alive nor dead, as some kind o f phantom. The orig ina l trauma o f the illegitim ate experience transformed the subject’s psychic topography, and this transform ation has been hidden ever since. The fantasy o f incorporation m aintains this hidden topography in the face o f the reality o f a loss that, i f acknowledged, would make the transform ation visible and compel an unbearable topological change. I t does so by m aintaining the illusion that the ille g itimate experience never occurred. To do so requires an “act o f vom iting to the inside,”65 which defines a secret vault w ith in the subject, what Abraham and Torok call a “crypt,” constructed by the lib id ina l forces o f the traumatic scene which, as Derrida argues, “through the ir contradiction, through the ir very opposition, support the in terna l resistance o f the vault like pillars, beams, studs, and reta in ing walls, leaning the powers o f in to le rable pain against an ineffable, forb idden pleasure.”66

As both the hid ing o f a secret and the h id ing o f that hiding, the crypt cannot simply take its place in the topography it preserves. The trad itional demarcations between inside and outside, the closure established by the drawing o f a line, the division o f


a space by a wall, is disturbed by the in terna l fracturing o f the walls by the crypt. The crypt organizes the space in which it can never simply be placed, sustaining the very topography it fractures. However, these fractures are no t new. They have been present in the topography ever since the orig ina l traumatic scene, organizing the self and making the illusion that the scene never occurred possible. The fantasy o f incorporation maintains a crypt that was already secreted w ith in a pocket in the topography.

N ot having been taken back inside the self, digested, assimilated as in a ll “norm al” m ourning, the dead object remains like a liv ing dead abscessed in a specific spot in the ego. I t has its place, ju s t like a crypt in a cemetery or tem ple, surrounded by walls and a ll the rest. The dead object is incorporated in th is crypt—the term “incorporated” signalling precisely that one has fa iled to digest o r assimilate it totally, so that it remains there, fo rm ing a pocket in the m ourn ing body . . . By contrast, in norm al m ourning, i f such a th ing exists, I take the dead upon myself, I digest it, assimilate it, idealize it, and in te rio rize it . . .67

By resisting consumption, this cryptic “architecture” disturbs the operation o f language that Abraham and Torok argue is acquired through m ourning: the substitution o f signs fo r the absence o f objects, which “makes up fo r that absence by representing presence.”68 In orthodox terms, this substitution begins w ith the absence o f the m other’s breast w ith in the m outh: “First the empty mouth, then the absence o f objects become words, and fina lly experiences w ith words themselves are converted in to other words.” 69 The cryp t is constructed because o f the impossib ility o f using language in the norm al way (by exchanging words fo r certain objects in voicing g rie f fo r the ir absence) w ithout revealing a shameful secret: “the im possibility o f expressing, o f placing words onto the market.”70 Nevertheless, it hides itse lf w ith in the marketplace as another kind o f contract, organizing another operation o f language. Even while keeping its secret, the crypt leaks. I t does so through convoluted transform ations o f the word as a material object, which displaces words that cannot be spoken w ithout giving away the secret in to words that can be safely uttered.71 Through these displacements, in which, as Der-


rida puts it, “a certain foreign body is here working over our household words,”72 the crypt is secreted w ith in the visible space o f the house.73

This cryptic language can be decoded by “procedures that are far from classical in psychoanalysis.”74 As the crypt (de)constructs itse lf in a way that displaces trad itional architectural th inking, its analysis can neither simply enter nor violendy fracture the crypt to fin d its secret Rather, it involves a double play that patiently locates the cracks through which the crypt is already leaking and then forces entry. In this way, the analyst violates that which is already violated, that which is actually “ buiU by violence.”75

To track down the path to the tomb, then to violate a sepulchre: that is what the analysis o f a cryptic incorporation is like. The idea o f vio lation [ viol] m ight im ply some kind o f transgression o f a righ t, the forced entry o f a penetrating, digging, force, but the violated sepulchre itself was never “legal.” I t is the very tombstone o f the illic it, and marks the spot o f an extreme pleasure [jouissance], a pleasure entire ly real though walled up, buried alive in its own p roh ib ition .76

I t is in this sense that Derrida tacidy associates Abraham and Torok’s work w ith his own. Deconstructive readings involve the k ind o f strategic violence advocated by Heidegger when reading Kant: “Certainly, in order to wring from what the words say, what it is that they want to say, every in terpretation must necessarily use violence. Such violence, however, cannot be roving arb itra riness.”77 The violence is not that o f an external force applied to an innocent victim . On the contrary, it is an exploitation o f the covert violence o f the very trad ition it disturbs.78 The appearance o f innocence is m aintained by an ongoing violence, a double violence. The sanctity o f the domestic enclosure is m aintained by the repression o f both these form s o f domestic violence. The overdy forced entry o f deconstructive readings rehearses the violence o f both the regime that polices domestic space and its ongoing subversion, what O f Grammatology describes as the covert “forced entry” o f the representations that secredy in filtra te and constitute the domain o f presence that supposedly excludes them, the “archetypal violence: eruption o f the outside w ith in the inside,”19 which the trad ition can mask but no t eradicate w ithout collapsing its own space. V io len t transgression has always already

V io la ting the Crypt147______________

begun w ith in the very site privileged fo r its innocence.80 The alien has always already im properly ‘Violated the in te rio r o f the system.”81 The in te rio r is, in the end, but an effect o f this violation. Deconstructive discourse is therefore at once vio lent and fa ith fu l, fa ithful in its very violence.

[V ]io len tly inscribing w ith in the text tha t which attem pted to govern it from w ithout, I try to respect as rigorously as possible the in ternal, regulated play o f philosophemes by m aking them slide—w ithout mistreating them—to the po in t o f the ir non-pertinence, th e ir exhaustion, the ir closure. To “deconstruct” philosophy, thus, would be to th in k—in the most fa ith fu l, in te rio r way—the structured genealogy o f philosophy’s concepts, bu t at the same tim e to determ ine— from a certain exterior that is unqualifiable or unnameable by philosophy—what this h istory has been able to dissimulate o r fo rb id , m aking itse lf in to a history by means o f th is somewhere m otivated repression. By means o f this simultaneously fa ith fu l and vio lent circulation between the inside and the outside o f philosophy—that is o f the West—-there is produced a certain textual w ork that gives great pleasure.82

This gesture, whose very pleasure in te rrup ts and embarrasses, i f no t disgusts, the philosophical trad ition , does not simply violate spaces but traces the entangled violences o f those spaces and the spacing embedded w ith in them, the economy o f violence in scribed in to spaces that constitutes them as such. D errida’s reading o f the crypt does not direct attention to some new kind o f architectural figure that m ight supplant the trad itional architectura l rhetoric and could be appropriated by architectural discourse. Rather, it directs attention to the im p lic it violence o f architecture by identify ing the subtle mechanisms w ith which a space can conceal, the precise but elusive geometry o f concealm ent that produces the effect o f space by orchestrating a sustained double violence.

6

D oing the T w ist

The critica l architectural condition o f the crypt is that both the illic it pleasure it buries and the buria l site are illegal. The crypt hides the forbidden act w ith in the very space in which it is forbidden. I t breaks the law merely by occupying that space, and this violation must itse lf be concealed. To locate this spacing that disrupts space and is itse lf hidden, Derrida too must break the law by rupturing the space in some way.

Violence is not sim ply addressed by deconstructive discourse, but is enacted by it, though not in the sense o f an external force exerted upon a preexisting space. The violence o f deconstructive discourse, like that o f the trad ition , is already bound in to both space and spacing. The discourse engages w ith the ir respective and interrelated form s o f violence. A sense o f this engagement can be gained here by even more slowly tracking the in te rm itten t traces o f a particular argument about the violence o f space embedded w ithin D errida ’s texts. I t is only by somewhat mechanically accumulating these traces here, m ultip ly ing them, o r rather, showing the way in which they are already m ultip ly ing themselves in his w riting and overdeterm ining its overt trajectory, that the architectural force o f deconstructive discourse can be fe lt

One way o f beginning such a reading is by follow ing a line o f argument that can be found runn ing through the extended chain o f essays in which Derrida addresses the question o f law. The question o f the law o f the house is, after all, that o f the status o f law itself. The law is never more than domestic.

D oing the Twist150___________

Build ing a Case against the Law

In “T itle (To Be Specified),” a reading o f Maurice Blanchot’s short story “La Folie du Jour,” Derrida looks at the curious architectonic role o f any title . The title appears to be a supplem entary label attached to a text, a supplement that can easily be detached and d rift away from it (to a table o f contents o r the cover o f a book or a catalogue, and so on). The tide obviously comes before the space o f the text to which it refers, divided from that space by what seems to be a clear border. But even though it is over the border, it can only perform its role by entering the space, violating it in a way that produces the sense o f the border in the firs t place—which is to say the sense o f the in terior, the text’s de fin ition , its rule, its law. The title ’s transgressive “spacing” actually produces the sense o f space it disrupts: “No title w ithout spacing, o f course, and also w ithout the rigorous determ ination o f a topological code defin ing borderlines.” * Space is but an effect o f spacing. N either inside nor outside the text, the title ’s spacing is “a violence, an illegality which founds the law and the righ t o f its procedure”2 such that “it only makes the law righ t from a violence before the law.”3 The foundation o f the law, that which comes before it and secures it, is the very violence it legislates against. Security is made possible by that which threatens i t The law is based on insecurity, and it is not distinct from the space it polices. Rather, it is the space, a topology produced by systems o f lines that demarcate te rrito ry by d ivid ing insides from outsides. As Derrida puts it, “topology poses the law.” More than simply defin ing o r m aintaining a space, the law is a space, a kind o f in terio r, such that to break the law is to be “outside” it, an outlaw. And i f the space o f the text is produced by the spacing o f the title that illegally violates it, it is the very violence that effects the production. There is no space w ithout violence. But this violence is hidden by the space it institutes, buried w ith in the very sense that there is a space.

Any space, in tu rn , is a regime o f overt violence, the always vio lent enforcement o f the law. There is no space w ithout police action and no police action that is no t the maintenance o f a space. D errida’s reading o f Benjamin’s “C ritique o f V iolence,” in

Building a Case against the Law151_________________________

“Force o f Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation o f A u tho rity ’ ,” looks at the relationship between this overt violence and the covert violence that founds the law it enforces, the relationship between legal and illegal violence. Again, the law is understood, and understood to understand itself, as a space. I t is an institu tion that makes decisions, drawing lines when it “cuts” and “divides” the terrain it m onitors. Any legal system is a spatial system, a de fin ition o f space that continually redraws itself. Laws are endlessly reinscribed in , or, rather, as, space. Derrida argues that the institu tional violence o f this space cannot be separated from the violence that makes it possible in the firs t place. Legal violence cannot be separated from illegal. The orig inary violence is not a singular historical act that puts the institu tion in place and then submits to the authority o f that institu tion, which would immediately and forever attem pt to banish it. Unable to be evicted, it can only be repressed. I t withdraws from the space, as d istinct from leaves, by secreting itse lf w ith in the very structure o f the space and endlessly calls fo r its repetition in the regime that represses it. Legal violence is produced by illegal violence. The regime o f vio lently enforced legal decisions is but an unw itting extension o f the vio len t movements o f the undecidability that occupies it, that about which a decision can never be made but upon which all decisions depend. The overt violence o f space remains indebted to the violence o f spacing that it cannot contro l, even while it derives its authority from everywhere announcing its ability to do so.

Deconstructive discourse reenacts rather than simply addresses this doubly violent scene, d irecting itse lf against institu tional spaces in a way that those spaces cannot control, vio lating them according to a com plicated and unstable protocol, which does no t collapse a space bu t articulates the violence involved in its construction. In “L iving On: Border Lines,” fo r example, which gives an extended reading o f the same story by Blanchot, the “law o f the text” sustained by the suppression o f the violence that pu t it in place “calls fo r a violence that matches it in intensity, a violence different in in ten tion , perhaps, bu t one that exerts itse lf against the firs t law only in order to attem pt a com mitm ent, an involvement, w ith that law. To move, yieldingly, towards it, to

Doing the Twist152___________

draw close to it Actively. The vio lent tru th o f ‘ reading.’ ”4 Derrida ’s concern is not the dem olition o f the law but its construction, the ruses by which it establishes authority and exercises its force. To trace these complications, he proceeds to read Blan- chot’s text “w ith great violence,” focusing on the questions o f spacing in i t W hich is to say, both the form s o f spacing w ith which Blanchot undermines the trad ition and those embedded in his own text, making its own law, its own space, possible. Derrida traces the heterogeneous effects o f violence before the law, effects that are always spatial.

This oblique argument about spatial effects that is embedded in D errida’s essays, which is, in the end, about the very effect o f space, becomes clearer in “Before the Law,” his reading o f Kafka’s story w ith the same tide. In the story, the law is even more explicidy a space, lite ra lly an in te rio r accessible through a door, and the “before” [devant] is again both spatial and temporal, or, more precisely, in D errida’s reading, it is the spacing that comes before the space o f the law. The “before” is like that o f the tide positioned before the text: neither inside nor outside it (such that Kafka’s tide reproduces what it describes). As Derrida points out, the space in the story turns out to be “empty.” The law cannot be found beyond the door. I t is no t simply “in ” the space but is encrypted by its markers. The essence o f the law, which is to say, o f the space, turns out to be its violation by spacing, a vio lation that is always hidden, “always cryptic.” The door is therefore “an in terna l boundary opening on noth ing.”5 The space it marks is no more than the maintenance o f this “secret.” The orig in o f the law is “safeguarded” by the space, no t by being hidden w ith in it but by being hidden by the space itself, which is to say, by the representation o f a space. I t is the very idea that there is an in te rio r that encloses the secret. The most secure h id ing place is the representation o f in te rio r made possible by an ongoing repression.

The way in which the representation o f space necessarily harbors a secret is elaborated fu rthe r w ith in the essay “Shibboleth,” which pays attention to one o f the markers o f a text’s place in space and time: the date. The date ostensibly positions the text, no t only in the place and tim e o f its orig in , but also in the

B u ild ing a Case against the Law153_________________________

institutional space o f a lite ra ry category (in the case o f the texts by Celan being read, the category o f "poetry” ). The date is "marked o ff” “detached,” from the space it marks and yet it makes a “cut or incision” in that space, vio lating its ostensible lim its. This violation is concealed. I t is necessary that the marker “encrypt itself,” effacing itse lf precisely in order to mark. Defying the logic o f trad itional space, there is no simple access to this crypt, no passage through any door: “I f there is indeed a door, it does not present itse lf in this way.”6 But while there is no access to the crypt, it is the crypt that provides access to the space o f the text. Occupation o f the space is made possible by that which defies it. It is necessary to read this strange mark, the mark o f a secret that does no t appear “in ” the space, in order “to get over the border o f a place or the threshold o f a poem, to see oneself granted asylum o r the legitim ate habitation o f a language.”7 The space cannot be inhabited w ithout the spacing o f the crypt. To inhabit the space is to share its secret.

The sense that the inhabita tion o f a space depends on the maintenance o f a secret, the secret o f that which defies the space, is always, at least, po litica l. The politics o f space tu rn on that which exceeds it. I f spaces are always institu tiona l and institutions always spatial, it is the maintenance o f the ir secret, the secret o f the space’s constitutional violation, that is the basis o f the ir power. In Derrida’s essay, the membership o f an institu tion that gives access to its power requires knowledge o f the crypt. The key to the space is a secret code shared by the members. A sim ilar argument is made in “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials” when it describes the “politopology” in which the maintenance o f a secret produces at once a space and a com m unity which claims it as its own. The visible sense o f place is bound to the concealed place o f the secret. C ryptic figures are no t simply exchanged by the members o f tha t community, but act as “po litica l stratagems” inasmuch as they establish “ the solid barrie r o f a social division.”8 The solidity o f this socio-spatial division is a product o f the spacings the figures conceal, the unspeakable complications that precede space. And this enigmatic production o f space as p o litical space is not sim ply a unique condition described by the particular texts o f negative theology that the essay is reading. I t

D oing the Twist154___________

goes on to locate precisely such “an irreducib le spacing in te rio r to (but hence also exterior to, once the in te rio r is placed outside)” the ongoing trad ition o f philosophy inaugurated by Plato.9

This, in tu rn , recalls another o f D errida’s lesser known essays, “Scribble (W riting-Power),” which also addresses the role o f crypts in the establishment o f po litica l institutions. It does so in reading W arbuton’s Essay on Hieroglyphs, which argues that the orig ina l function o f w riting as the transmission o f natural law, the “communication o f laws and the order o f the city,” is “perverted” by another kind o f w riting that vio lently poses another order, an unnatural structure that benefits an elite through the operations o f a crypt that only they share. In this “cryptopolitics o f w riting ,” as Derrida describes it, w riting “becomes the instrum ent o f an abusive power.”10 Acting in the name o f nature, that which is supposedly “at home” w ith itself, but actually vio lating natural order, it becomes “like the exteriority o f the alien, the parasite: the necessity, at once natural and unnatural, o f the crypt.”11 The o ffic ia l law encrypts its own violence. It is the crypt that gives the institu tion, which is to say the space constructed by and as a po litica l body or corporation, a certain natural authority. The institu tion is able to assume power inasmuch the crypt enables it to represent its unnatural force as natural.12 I t is precisely by defying space that the crypt gives space its force, a force that is always aligned w ith a certain systemic brutality.

This line o f argument about law that binds violence and space in addressing the organization o f institutions can be traced throughout D errida’s w riting, but becomes most exp lic it when he addresses the relatively recent institu tion o f law itse lf as a discipline, which he argues is symptomatically contemporary w ith those o f literature, art, and the university. In ‘T itle (To Be Specified),” the constitutional role o f the tide in relationship to the space o f the text it appears to supplement is also understood to be that o f lite rature and the other arts in relationship to the space o f the university that they supplement. The ir various spacings “before” the law o f that space, which actually institute that law and, in so doing, that space, are then immediately subordinated by that law and excluded from the space it makes possible under names like “lite ra ture” and “a rt,” before being eventually

Building a Case against the Law155_________________________

domesticated w ith in it by disciplines apparendy devoted to the ir study. These disciplines conceal rather than study the ruses o f space on which they are “b u ilt.”13 Derrida notes the key role that “lite rary and artistic form s in general” played in the production o f the “structure” o f the university, which immediately claims to be concerned only w ith “higher” things. W hich is to say, the constitutional role o f the ir spacing in the production o f its space, the orig inary and ongoing vio lation o f the space that produces the institution as such and then is effaced w ith in it, even, i f no t especially, w ith in those recently adm itted departments ostensibly dedicated to them.

To elaborate D errida ’s argument, it can be argued that the emergence o f these disciplines marks the continuation o f the attem pt to discipline the ir respective form s o f spacing that began w ith the assigning o f proper names. Such categories are already mechanisms o f dom estication before they are used to mark an institutional space.14 The disciplinary spaces are only a certain repetition o f the conceptual space, a m onum ent to a domestication achieved long before. To name something is always to locate it w ith in a space. The sense o f the proper name is that o f the proper place. Names are always place names. By designating something as “a rt” o r “law,” fo r example, is already to resist its subversive qualities and to make a place fo r it in a conceptual scheme, marking its site, de lim iting its domain. And this resistance, which takes the form o f systemic repression, doesn’t ju s t make space available. Rather, it is what makes space in the firs t place. There is no space w ithout resistance.

In Derrida’s texts, these repressive institu tiona l spaces are again tacitly associated w ith the space o f a build ing. I f “T itle (To Be Specified)” speaks o f the “structure” o f the institu tion, “Living On: Border Lines” speaks o f the institu tion “b u ilt on ” the ju d ic ia l fram ing o f the “law o f the text,” and “Force o f Law” speaks o f the law as a “standing” that is “constructed” on the “ground” through an orig inary act o f “foundation,” which establishes a “structure” and “superstructure.”15 And it must be noted yet again that this architectural rhetoric most exp lic itly surfaces in D errida’s w riting when the question is most explicitly po litica l and more than ever when it is a question o f the politics o f


deconstruction itself. The essay “Force o f Law,” fo r example, elaborates its argument to show that deconstructive discourse only “apparently” fails to address politics, ethics, and justice, asserting that it has not only addressed them from the beginning, but has done nothing but address them, even though such an address, i f it is to be rigorous, must often be “oblique.”16 Again, it would seem that it is when the stakes are highest fo r deconstructive discourse that architecture comes to the surface.

The repression o f the orig inary violence o f spacing that empowers institu tional violence must therefore be, in this sense, architectural or, at least, bear upon the structure o r status o f architecture. I t does so by way o f the quasi figure o f the crypt. In the erection o f law, the orig inary violence is “buried, dissimulated, repressed”17 only to return in a displaced form . Its buria l takes the form o f an incorporation. As Derrida puts it at one point, “carnivorous sacrifice” founds the law. Both the buria l and the return are made possible by the strange anarchitecture o f the crypt. The incorporation o f the undecidables in to the structure, as the very possibility o f its law, suppresses them through a “silence” that “is walled up in the vio lent structure o f the founding act. Walled up, walled in ”18 in an act o f “forgetfulness.” The structure does not simply fo rge t I t is a structure only inasmuch as it forgets. Structure is forgetting and the crypt is noth ing more than the structure o f forgetting, the perverse structure o f structure. The forbidden violence is hidden w ith in the walls themselves that it makes possible, encrypted w ith in the sense o f space its effacement produces. There is “noth ing” in the space beyond that violence. O nly spacing is secreted in space, which is only to repeat that the secret o f space is spacing.

Such a reading in no way calls in to question the capacity o f institutions to define space and thereby institute regimes o f suppressive and repressive violence. On the contrary, it identifies the inevitably vio lent ruses o f space. Spaces cannot be cleansed o f violence. Institu tions are not collapsed by dem onstrating that the ir architecture does no t obey the very laws they enforce (and all laws are, in the end, arguably architectural). On the contrary, architecture is seen to derive its force from the way its own vio lation o f the law is vio lently concealed. Architecture is an effect o f this concealment.

The Deconstructive Dance157____________________

When deconstructive discourse deploys a strategic violence against institutional spaces, it does so to trace the workings o f the ongoing but h idden violence that makes those spaces and the ir overt violence possible. The violence o f deconstruction sometimes appears to be that o f the law itse lf and other times appears to be that o f an abuse o f the law. In each space it reads, it passes from an extremely, i f not obsessively, strict application o f the particular institu tiona l codes that define that space to what seems to be a flagrant disruption o f those codes. But its own force derives from problem atizing this distinction, demonstrating that the most strict adherence to a law ends up vio lating that very law and vice versa. In these terms, the double violence o f deconstructive discourse reproduces that which founds an edifice. Such a discourse teases an architecture, explo iting all its visible and hidden resources in a way that explores the strange economy that makes it possible, the strange space o f architecture itself, a space that is precisely not architectural.

The D econstructive Dance

Although deconstructive discourse has read many heterogeneous architectures in this way, they are always domestic. Each structure masks its own structural violence in order to produce the effect o f a space, an in te rio r governed by a legal system that has the power to include o r exclude. Inasmuch as institutions are always “in te rio r spaces”19 o f dom ination, as “Before the Law” puts it, the ir regimes o f violence are mechanisms o f domestication. The edifice is always a house, the law can only ever be the law o f the house.

W hile Derrida’s essays on law only once explic itly and momentarily touch the question o f “the law o f oikos” that punctuates so much o f the rest o f his work, the ir analysis is critica lly marked by the effect o f tha t punctuation. The way they call the space o f the law in to question transforms the sense o f domestic space. I t is not just that each particular space is made strange. Rather, space itse lf becomes a strange effect. The encrypted spacing that makes the institu tional space o f the law possible also makes the law “even more frigh ten ing and fantastic, unheim lich or uncanny.”20 A ll legal decisions, a ll defin itions o f space, become, like

Doing the Twist158

the one made in Kafka’s story, “uncanny, unhdm lich.”21 Spatial markers, like the date in “Shibboleth,” fo r example, are uncanny inasmuch as they install a covert spatiality “w ith in the habitation” o f the domestic space they supposedly mark. Such an installation “takes on the strange, coincident, unheim lich dimensions o f a cryptic predestination” by m arking a “secret configuration o f places”22 w ith in the visible space, the very space that only becomes visible as such because o f the covert operations o f the mark. In a thoroughly Heideggerian gesture, the fam iliar sense o f a space becomes one o f “strangeness, estrangement in one’s own home, no t being at home, being called away from one’s homeland o r away from home in one’s homeland.”23 In such terms, deconstructive discourse at once traces and reenacts the violence o f the hidden spacings that establish domestic space, or, rather, establish space as domestic. Its gestures do not simply identify the strange things that uncannily occupy fam iliar spaces, but the uncanniness o f space itself.

When reading Heidegger in “The Ends o f Man,” Derrida describes the “simultaneously fa ith fu l and vio len t” double play o f deconstruction, what he elsewhere calls its “vio lent fide lity,”24 as an oscillation between two gestures toward the house, one that remains inside it and another that goes outside:

a. To attempt an exit and a deconstruction without changing terrain, by repeating what is im plicit in the founding concepts and the original problematic, by using against the edifice the instruments or stones available in the house . . .b. To decide to change terrain, in a continuous and irruptive fashion, by brutally placing oneself outside, and by affirm ing an absolute break and difference.25

E ither gesture alone fails to disturb metaphysics. In the end, both are form s o f “ inhabiting” the house, the la tter doing so “more naively and more stricdy than ever.”26 To resist such inhabitation, “a new w riting must weave and interlace these two m otifs o f deconstruction” in a Nietzschean “dance, outside the house” which is not the “outside” defined by philosophy since, as we have seen, whatever philosophy places outside is still inside precisely because it is “placed,” enclosed by the house in the very

The Deconstructive Dance159____________________

gesture o f being excluded from it. Deconstructive discourse seeks an uninhabitable outside on the inside. As Derrida puts it in “Dissemination,” “ the absolute outside is not outside and cannot be inhabited as such.”27 The dance that resists the logic o f in habitation is a fo rm o f “a ffirm ation” inasmuch it occupies the house, running the risk o f consolidating its force, but w ithout nostalgia fo r it and its associated “myths” (family, homeland, prim al language, proxim ity, and so on) as “D ifferance” argues: “we must affirm, this, in the sense in which Nietzsche puts a ffirm ation in to play in a certain laughter and a certain step o f the dance.”28 The dance displaces the house in its own terms. When “Choreographies” addresses the insidious but pervasive logic o f the oikos, o r “house arrest” [assignation a residence] w ith which metaphysics institutes itse lf by defin ing the “place” fo r woman as a place o f confinem ent, it is the dance, w ith its “m ultip lic ities o f rhythm and steps” that subverts this vio lent logic o f placement: ‘The most innocent o f dances would thwart the assignation a residence, escape those residences under surveillance.”29 The dance disrupts the spatial regime by locating something aspatial w ith in i t

A sim ilar argument can be found embedded w ith in “Aphorism Countertim e.” Again, it is a question o f “rhythm ,” and the ongoing but always unsuccessful attem pt o f the law to “arrest” its movements by de fin ing space w ith social conventions like “place- names,” “property registers,” and “ topographical marks,” which are “cast like nets over tim e and space.”30 These institutional codes constitute a “marked spacing,” a visible space whose spatial logic attempts to resist the spacing o f rhythm by effacing it. But in constituting itse lf to repress that unmarked spacing (which is actually the spacing o f the mark itself) the space is, in the end, shaped by the very th ing that it is designed to conceal. The spatial regime depends on the very “disjunction, dislocation, separation o f places, deployment o r spacing o f a story”31 that it blocks. Spacing is involved in the institu tion o f the spaces that conceal it. Spatial order (and order can only be spatial) is made possible by a certain ongoing disorder. House arrest, the visible use o f space as a mechanism o f subordination (which is perhaps the only visible use o f space, the way in which space makes

160Doing the Twist

objects visible, even producing the effect o f objects as such) is made possible by forces it cannot arrest, resdess subterranean movements that occasionally erupt sideways across its surface, perforating any spatial division. In this sense, deconstructive discourse is concerned w ith that which cannot be pinned down, that w ithout a fixed place or home, which is not quite yet to say the homeless. I t is not a question o f that which is w ithout a house, but that evasion o f presence w ith in the very structure o f the house that makes the house possible.

In these terms, the deconstructive dance is not a particular k ind o f movement through an already constituted space, but is itse lf a spacing that at once subverts and produces a space, one that cannot simply be subjected to the logic o f the house that depends upon it. Deconstructive discourse occupies an already constituted space in ways that raise the question o f the space’s constitution. I t is in this sense that the discourse is always concerned w ith institutions. I t does not take them apart o r critique them, but endlessly rehearses the event o f institu tion to reveal its structural enigmas. The k ind o f Nietzschean dance D errida calls fo r does not simply defeat house arrest. Rather, it affirm s its logic but in the very terms that logic appears to resist. I t is therefore no t just a question o f producing a new theory o f space, a new way o f representing space as an alternative to the trad itional policing o f space. A space is never independent o f the systems o f representation that appear to m onitor it. House arrest is not the policing o f the space o f the house but the house itse lf as police action or, more precisely, police action as housing. To arrest, after all, is to domesticate by restricting movement, defining its lim its, drawing a line. The dance does more than twist such lines. I t shows that they are already twisted and that this twisting cannot be regulated. No line can never be straightened o u t Loopholes are the law.

The paradoxes o f this affirm ative dance can be found w ith in D errida’s early reading o f A rtaud ’s critique o f trad itional theater. Artaud theorized the necessity o f what he called a “dance” in order to subvert the classical space o f theater, which he saw as subservient to the theological and metaphysical authority o f the voice. In “The Theater o f Cruelty and the Closure o f Repre-

161The Deconstructive Dance

sentation,” Derrida argues that A rtaud’s sense o f dance “inhabits o r rather produces a nontheological space”32 through a new regime o f movements whose spacing eludes the classical space: “an experience which produces its own space. Spacing [espacement]y that is to say, the production o f a space that no speech could condense or comprehend (since speech prim arily presupposes this spacing).”33 This transform ation, which Artaud calls “a new notion o f space,” does not simply abandon the o ld space but exploits its “undersides.” The new space, “opened by transgression” o f the old, constitutes an “irrup tive force Assuring the space o f the stage.”34 And no t only is the v io len t force o f this dance exerted w ithin and against the trad itional space, but it also participates in the overt violence o f that space. The violence o f the dance is already w ritten in to the trad ition and can only be traced through the very force that suppresses it and yet unw ittingly depends on it. I t is only by enforcing the law ever more vigilandy than the trad ition that claims to uphold it that the space it produces can be displaced.

This enigma, which is central to any th ink ing o f deconstruction, was explored in D errida’s even earlier essay “La Parole Soufflee,” which argues that A rtaud’s “raising o f the repressed” sense o f spacing is paradoxically achieved w ith an obsessive comm itm ent to institu tiona l violence, the “tota litarian codification and rhetoric o f forces” o f a “cruelty” that establishes a space by suppressing spacing: “this new theatrical arrangement sutures all the gaps, a ll the openings, all the differences. T he ir orig in and active movement—diffe ring , deferral— are enclosed,” thereby establishing “ the law o f the house, the in itia l organization o f a dwelling space.”35 Artaud reconstructs the house o f the trad ition even more vigilantly than the trad ition itse lf and it is precisely in so doing that he disturbs it. C iting Nietzsche on the need “to dance w ith the pen,”36 D errida argues that, in the end, A rtaud’s “dance o f cruelty”37 admits in to this domestic space what it at firs t appears to exclude: the parasitic alien, the illegitim ate stranger that is always the agent o f ru in . Echoing Heidegger, Derrida argues that Artaud’s simultaneous com m itm ent to both metaphysics and its subversion marks “a necessary dependency o f a ll destructive discourses: they m ust inhab it the structures they demolish, and


w ith in them they must shelter an indestructible desire fo r fu ll presence.”38 I t is not a question o f simply occupying the house as some kind o f irrita n t that w ill always in the end be domesticated but o f reproducing the space, endlessly retracing its supposed lim its to identify the strange logic that produces the effect o f lim its in the firs t place, making the very sense o f enclosure uncanny. The deconstructive dance reconstitutes the domestic space it subverts, subverting it only by fa ith fu lly constituting it, and in so doing, registering the irreducib le uncanniness o f space.

To dance here, when talking o f deconstruction and architecture, would be to look fo r what is buried in the space o f the house that allows space to bury in the firs t place. The rhythm o f this dance must be somehow b u ilt in to the structure o f the house that locks things up merely by placing them either inside or outside, by placing them, that is, “in ” space. This apparently simple sense that things can be put “in ” space, which is to say the sense that space is itse lf a k ind o f in terior, is no more than the sense o f the house. The idea o f the house is not so much that o f an in te rio r space but that o f space as in terior, space as that which can be inhabited. The rhythm o f the dance calls in to question the house by inhabiting space in a way that frustrates inhabitation.

H aunted Houses

The particular sense o f this frustration can be elaborated in terms o f the way in which D errida’s essay “Desistence” at one po in t reads Lacoue-Labarthe’s sense o f “rhythm ” as the spacing that “haunts” the space o f the trad ition. This haunting is understood as domestic, an uncanny in terna l displacement o f the “law o f the oikos.”39 Derrida appreciates the way in which Lacoue- Labarthe does not simply look at the trad ition ’s attempt to enforce this law by policing the in te rio r o f the space and violently excluding the other, but pays attention to the “domesticity” o f the other, the way in which the trad ition is “regularly visited, haunted, inhabited by”40 what i t thinks it has excluded. Inasmuch as the institu tiona l spaces that are haunted by strange rhythms

Haunted Houses163___________

are always domestic, Derrida seems to be tacitly describing institutions as haunted houses.

W hile the question o f haunting often comes up in his texts, Derrida never talks about haunted houses. Indeed his most exp lic it description o f ghosts involves transferring the alogic o f haunting from its classical site in the house to the contem porary technologies o f representation:

Contrary to what we might believe, the experience o f ghosts is not tied to a bygone historical period, like the landscape of Scottish manors, etc., but on the contrary, is accentuated, accelerated by modern technologies like film , television, the telephone. These technologies inhabit, as it were, a phantom structure. . . . When the very firs t perception of an image is linked to a structure of reproduction, then we are dealing with the realm of phantoms.41

But this transference also works in the other direction. The house is itself, firs t and foremost, a system o f representation. Indeed, the trad itiona l sense o f the haunting o f a house is precisely the sense tha t the house is no t simply an object that may be represented, bu t is itse lf a mechanism o f representation. Likewise, it can be argued that contem porary systems o f representation can only be understood as haunted inasmuch as, like the house, they are understood to be mechanisms that define space. By defin ition , only space can be haunted, and space is understood as tha t which houses. A fte r all, the word “haunting” is etymologically bound to that o f “house.” H aunting is always the haunting o f a house. And it is not ju s t that some houses are haunted. A house is only a house inasmuch as it is haunted.

The sense o f haunting that can be traced in so many o f Derrida ’s texts, from the very firs t one on, cannot be separated from the sense o f architecture they sustain, the architecture o f the edifice as a tomb, and, specifically the house as tomb. I t is the sense o f haunting that links the idea o f edifice to that o f tomb. Indeed, it can be argued that this subterranean argum ent about haunted houses, like the haunting it describes, structures the spaces o f a ll the texts o f Derrida w ith in which its traces can be found.

When Derrida’s firs t book, published in 1962, identifies the way in which, fo r Husserl’s O rig in o f Geometry, the apparently


subordinate spatial marks o f w riting and drawing turn out to be the very possibility o f the ideal objectivity they supposedly merely supplement and register, it does so in terms o f the way in which a text can be “haunted,” “the entombment o f lost intentions and guarded secrets” and the “transcendental sense o f death” in scribed in those spatial marks.42 T ru th is “no longer simply exiled” in this spatiality, but finds its “prim ordia l habitat” there. The question o f architecture is already raised in this firs t text when it follows Husserl in asking whether what is true o f w riting is also “ the same fo r the ideality o f the plastic arts, o f architecture?”43 And, more significandy, the text goes on to examine the com plications o f Husserl’s dom inant architectonic metaphor o f level or stratum : “ the image o f the concealed presence that an activity o f excavation can always re-produce above ground as the foundation, that is itse lf grounded, o f higher stratifications. I t brings a ll this together in the structural and in terna l un ity o f a system, o f a “region” in which all deposits, interrelated but distinct, are o rig inally prescribed by an archi-tectonics This architectural image is crucial inasmuch as its rereading would form the basis o f Heidegger’s sense o f “Destruktion” and, therefore, in tu rn , Derrida ’s sense o f “deconstruction.” In his firs t text’s sustained reworking o f this image, a ll the main arguments o f his later work have already been put in place.

This passage from the question o f haunting to that o f architecture is not coincidental, ju s t as it is not when D errida’s detailed discussion o f the way Paul De Man’s account o f allegory uses the architectural metaphor fo r deconstruction is im m ediately followed by a description o f the rhetorical categories that surround allegory as “ghostly figures” that produce a “ghost- effect” inasmuch as they:

speak like phantoms in the text, certainly, but above all they phanto- mize the text itself. It remains to be seen what the phantom means or—this can have still other meanings—what the word “phantom,” the “word' phantom means. In a phantom-text, these distinctions, these quotation marks, references, or citations become irremediably precarious; they leave only traces, and we shall never define the trace or the phantom without, ironically or allegorically, appealing from one to the other.45


I f the phantom allegory that haunts D errida’s own text is architecture, it does so precisely as haunted architecture. More precisely, what haunts a ll o f his work is the sense o f a haunted house that never simply appears as such, but whose phantom like traces can be found throughout the space o f his texts.

These traces are even marked in Cinders, the book in which Derrida rereads a ll his previous texts in order to trace the theme o f ashes, to trace the trace o f the trace, that has repeatedly marked them w ithout ever becoming the ir ostensible subject. For Derrida, this theme is a ghost that haunts his texts: MFor nearly ten years, this spector’s comings and goings, unforeseen visits o f the ghost.”46 But m ore than this, the specter that haunts his texts is itse lf a “ghost story,” a story marked by architecture. A lthough it does not appear to be about architecture, a particular sense o f architecture is pu t in place by a chain o f associations m obilized by i t The ghost story is that o f a “fem inine phantom ” hidden w ith in a “sheltered” place, a strange k ind o f shelter produced by the mechanisms o f incorporation that resist m ourning by keeping the other in the inaccessible reserve o f a crypt, a convoluted anarchitecture produced as “the monum ent o f an impossible tom b,” a crypt tha t prevents the k ind o f m ourning that shelters by constructing a visible monument, blocking “the slow decomposition that shelters, locates, lodges” by establishing the “tomb o f a tomb,”47 the tom b, that is, o f architecture. This ghost, “tremb ling deep w ith in the word,” seems to prevent any trad itional build ing, any “erection that stands— or falls.”48 D errida’s text moves relentlessly, seemingly inevitably, toward the image, taken from a story by V irg in ia W oolf, o f empowered women neither rebuild ing the patriarchal university on an old plan nor constructing an entirely d iffe ren t one but setting fire to the traditional architecture and dancing around it as it burns. The cinders that haunt D errida’s texts tu rn out to be those o f a build ing. More precisely, it is a house: “There are cinders only insofar as there is the hearth, the fireplace, some fire o r place. C inder as the house o f being.”49 The force o f D errida’s text comes from suggesting that the cinders are no t simply produced by the burning down o f a structure. The cinders are the possib ility o f the house. I t is the fire that builds.50 The visible struc-


ture, like the structure o f D errida’s own work, is made possible by that which resists it, that which is only evident as an oblique trace w ith in it, the trace o f its own disruption, i f not consumption, the elusive phantom “camouflaged” w ith in i t The dance that deconstructs architecture, interrogating the sense o f bu ild ing and enclosure, making them trem ble in order to see what is already trem bling w ith in them, w ith in and as the ir very structure, is at least doubly bound to the sense o f the haunted house.

This sense is only ever obliquely inscribed in to D errida’s texts, and it is precisely in this obliqueness that it attains its greatest, i f not brutal, force. I t underwrites his essay “Ulysses Gramophone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce,” fo r example, in the form o f a gradual slippage that can be traced from the in itia l question o f institu tion, to that o f foundation, to family, to domestication, to domestic in terio rity, to place, to guests, to strangers, to parasites. And each term in this chain is mediated by the image o f an institu tion haunted by spacing such that, i f we violendy extract the terms from the ir context and crudely piece them together here: the “domestic in te rio rity ” o f the “structure” o f the university institution is “haunted—joyously ventriloquized by a completely d iffe rent music” o f “telephonic spacing,” which “acts like a parasite” that in terrupts “the cycle o f reappropriation and dom estication” w ith a “laughter” that “always betrays some kind o f m ourning.”51

This ghostly laughter is the same Nietzschean laughter that Bataille argues is the only th ing that resists being “domesticated” by Hegel’s philosophical system, “ inserted in to a sphere, like children in a house,”52 as he puts it. I t resists precisely by being a form o f a ffirm ation o f that house rather than an overt form o f subversion. In his “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism w ithout Reserve,” Derrida argues, as he d id o f Artaud, that Bataille displaces Hegel’s work by a ffirm ing it, repeating i t in a way that disturbs its structure even while rebuild ing it, gradually and almost im perceptibly forcing open, w ith each repetition, all o f its jo in ts but never quite collapsing what they assemble.53 The “laughter” that “bursts ou t” when the jo in ts are shaken open from w ith in makes Hegelian discourse “dislocate itse lf ”54 rather than be broken by some external force. By inhabiting the discourse, it is possible to exp lo it “a certain strategic twist” that “w ith

Haunted Houses167__________

a vio lent and sliding, furtive movement must in flec t the o ld corpus,”55 in te rfe ring w ith its capacity to “assimilate” its other. This twist resists the generic law o f the house by disrupting the repressive economy o f consumption. I t is a dance step that exposes the specter o f a certain indigestion in the structure, the haunting o f the house by that which it always fails to consume and which threatens to disorder, i f no t collapse, i t

Since the haunted house is, fo r Freud, “the most striking o f a ll” “examples” o f the uncanny,56 it is unsurprising that the tacit sense o f the haunted house produced by the anarchitecture o f the crypt that can be found in D errida ’s work is repeatedly linked to the sense o f the uncanny. In “L iving On: Border Lines” fo r example, Derrida describes the cryptic logic o f incorporation as the production o f an “exceedingly strange space”57 that enables something to be “liv ing on” [survivre] as a “ghost.” In reading Blanchot’s text, he is concerned w ith “the entire enigma o f this supplementary logic. Survival and revenance [haunting], liv ing on and returning from the dead,”58 reading not only what that text says about ghosts bu t also the sense in which its own structure is that o f haunting, that there are “only relationships o f cryptic haunting from m ark to m ark.”59 Yet again, this sense o f the strange topology by which visible space is haunted is bound to the sense that the “law o f the oikos (house, room, tomb, cryp t)” is that o f “H eim lichkeit/ Unheim lichkeit” 60

This bond between ghosts, incorporation, and the uncanny is even clearer in “Cartouches,” which again concerns a quasi- architectural scene and describes the role o f haunting as structural, as the possibility o f visible structure rather than something that happens to it. In reading the design and construction o f a m iniature coffin and a series o f drawings that appear to be based on it by the artist Gerard Titus-Camel, Derrida describes the “paradigm,” or architectural model, “b u ilt like a crypt, so as jea lously to keep its secret at the moment o f greatest exh ib ition ,”61 as itse lf a “ghost” : “Necessarily the dead takes his revenge. And the paradigm returns, it gets its own back. The ‘m odel’ is always the dreamed-of ghost [le revenant reve1. H aunting does no t befall it, but takes the firs t step.”62 The text im m ediately goes on to refer to the ghost story in Freud’s Das UnheimUche essay, o f which


he says “it would all need to be quoted,” but symptomatically, given the always strange role that essay plays in D errida’s work, he does not do. The text then explores all the complications o f such ghostly returns, passing again through the question o f fire , specifically, the fire o f the house— the hearth, the hearth o f the family, the crematorium as the hearth o f such hearths—whose unheim lich condition can only be marked by the ashes in a fam ily tomb, before declaring at the end that “above all haunting lays down the law.”63 As always, the law o f the house is made possible by that which always occupies the house but cannot be domesticated by it.

The same gestures can be seen in D errida’s re th inking o f the house in ‘T o Speculate— on Freud,” which describes the “law o f the oikos, o f the proper as the domestico-familiar and even, by the same token, as we w ill verify, as the domestico-funerary.”64 Exploring in detail the endless “re tu rn to the house, to the home” o f the dead in Freud’s th inking, the text argues that “whatever becomes too fam ilia r can always be suspected o f jealously keeping a secret, o f standing guard over the unexpected.”65 A t two key moments, Freud’s essay on the uncanny is quickly invoked, but not read “again,” as i f it has been done so in depth elsewhere: “Here, I cannot take up again what was set in place elsewhere.”66 Instead, yet another o f his passing, i f not cryptic, references to the essay (in “The Double Session”) is pointed to. Likewise, D errida’s ‘Telepathy” makes a passing reference to the “essential” argument o f Freud’s Das Unheimliche essay in another discussion o f ghosts and incorporation revolving around a patient o f Freud who is “haunted by her dream ‘as by a ghost’ ” and the ghosts incorporated in psychoanalysis itse lf as it attempts to read such dreams.67 The essential argument is once again invoked at a key moment but not pursued, although the question o f the uncanny clearly underwrites the whole text.

D errida’s repeated hesitation around the uncanny parallels his hesitation around architecture, which is likewise invoked at strategic points and not pursued although its effects can be everywhere traced in his texts. Indeed, the two gestures are related. The uncanny is, in the end, no more than the sense that a house is a house only inasmuch as it is haunted. I f architecture is


withdrawn from the most exp lic it surface o f D errida ’s texts in order to return in a highly displaced form as a key subtext that organizes the very texts from which it has been withdrawn, it returns, precisely, in the equally displaced theme o f haunting. The architecture o f deconstruction is no t only haunted. I t is also that which haunts deconstruction, organizing its space w ithout simply appearing w ith in i t I f haunting is what produces space rather than simply occurs to it or w ith in it, the sense o f haunted architecture, o f architecture as that which is haunted, that itse lf haunts deconstructive discourse actually produces the space o f that discourse.

In laying down the law it appears to disturb, the uncanniness o f haunting is the very possibility o f space and its politics.68 Consequently, the sense o f the haunted house is bound to that o f violence. It is always a violence that haunts. The architecture o f deconstruction is violent. When “Force o f Law,” in follow ing Benjamin’s “C ritique o f V iolence,” speaks o f the founding violence repressed by an institu tion, it is a “phantom violence.” Buried alive, it becomes a “ghost” in the space that appears to exclude i t The space is haunted by the “ghost o f undecidability,” the illegal aspatial violence that institutes i t The law o f the house is the “law o f the phantom ” whereby “the undecidable remains caught, lodged, at least as a ghost—but an essential ghost—in every decision, in every event o f decision. Its ghostliness deconstructs from w ith in any assurance o f presence.”69 The house, as the very figure o f presence, is disrupted from w ith in by that which it incorporates, tha t whose “survival” is made possible by the complex folds o f the crypt.70

It is not that the violence o f spacing simply haunts space like a bruta l stranger. The haunting is itse lf the product o f a double, uncanny violence. The buria l o f the violence that founds any institu tion, which is no t an isolated event but an ongoing action that conserves the institu tion , is itse lf necessarily violent. The o ffic ia l violence tha t sustains the institu tion can never detach itse lf from what i t buries. I t is “as i f one violence haunted the other”71 such that “what today bears witness in an even more “spectral” (gespenstiche) way in m ixing the two form s o f violence (conserving and found ing), is the m odern institu tion o f the


police.”72 The police—and there is no institu tion w ithout police— acts as a hinge between the two form s o f violence that constitute any space. Even while m arking the overt violence o f a space, police force also marks the covert violence that haunts it. Deconstructive discourse does no t simply oppose the force o f the police, but attempts to insert itse lf between these violences, tracing the elaborate folds that knot them together and in so doing rethinks space in a way that displaces the house.

In tracing the “absence o f a fron tie r” between the form s o f violence, such a discourse calls in to question the general effect o f frontier, which is to say, the effect o f space sustained by the architecture o f the institu tion. I t “ru ins” the fron tie r by identifying a “disgusting ambiguity,” an indigestible undecidability that forever distorts the line. Again, this ru in ing o f institutions, which itse lf involves a sustained violence, is affirm ative rather than destructive: “One cannot love a monument, a work o f architecture, an institu tion as such except in an experience itse lf precarious in its frag ility ” o f the structure’s “frag ility.”73 Just as a structure can only be radically threatened by being affirm ed, it can only be appreciated inasmuch as it is weakened. But what exactly is love here?74 Exactly what kind o f relationship does deconstructive discourse want w ith architecture?

The force o f deconstruction comes from its claim that an institu tional structure’s vulnerability, its Achilles’ heel, is the possib ility o f its very strength, that insecurity is the possibility o f stability, that institu tional violence is form idable precisely because it is unsecured. If, as Derrida argues, the violence enacted in the name o f reason is never reasonable, it w ill not be disturbed by any dem onstration that this is the case. I f the very possibility o f the institu tion is a sustained violation o f its own law, then no simple appeal to the law could dislodge it. Legal recourse must be replaced by a quasi-ethical in junction, a call to some sense o f responsibility. Such a call is repeatedly marked in D errida’s texts but usually neglected by his readers.

I t needs to be remembered that the sense o f ethics w ritten in to D errida’s argument that deconstructive discourse violates that which is already vio lent is indebted to the writings o f Emmanuel Levinas. As his early reading o f Levinas in “Violence and Meta-

Haunted Houses171____________

physics” puts i f “acknowledging and practicing the violence w ith in it. Violence against violence. Economy o f violence. . . . one must combat lig h t w ith a certain other ligh t, in order to avoid the worst violence, the violence o f the n ight which precedes or represses discourse. This vigilance is a violence chosen as the least violence.”75 The necessity o f this doubling o f violence is related to the inevitable haunting o f space. This can be seen by looking at the tacit argument about the haunted house in D errida’s later reading o f Levinas in “A t This Very Moment in Whose Work I Am ,” which opposes inhabiting to haunting by looking at the way Levinas’s interventions vio lently “tear” fam ilia r language in a way that locates another language, the language o f the other, w ith in it that “doesn’t in hab it it, bu t haunts it.”76 The fam ilia r “is there, but dislodged so as to leave room fo r (though no t to establish residence in )”77 the other, which produces the sense that “as i f from now on we d id n ’t dwell there any longer, and to te ll the tru th , as i f we had never been at home.”78 W hen its walls are forced to reveal what they hide, even, i f no t especially, i f what they hide is a certa in emptiness, the capacity o f the space to house is frustrated and, furtherm ore, revealed to always be frustrated. A house never simply houses.

Again, this d isrup tion o f the house’s image o f itse lf as secure involves indigestion. Through Levinas’s vio lent forcing o f the fam ilia r text, the house o f language “disassimilates”79 the other, throw ing it up in to the space, making visible in the space that which the space always attempts to conceal, the indigestible that is norm ally thrown up in to an in te rna l pocket in the lin ing o f the walls. The haunting o f the space o f the house that can be exposed by a v io len t and yet vig ilant reading is sustained by the encrypting movements o f incorporation.

The indigestible other that haunts the space is not simply at odds w ith the law that governs that space. On the contrary, it is its very possibility. There is no o ffic ia l text or institu tiona l practice that is not m arked by the fa in t traces o f the convoluted folds that encrypt the indigestible. Equally, such traces can be found w ith in those practices that appear to underm ine institu tional authority, no m atter how sophisticated o r effective they are. Derrida goes on, fo r example, to read Levinas’s own texts ‘V iolently”


to show what they themselves encrypt even while they break open a num ber o f vaults. Specifically, he argues that they encrypt fem inine mastery w ith in the house by making sexual alterity secondary and thereby reproducing the fam iliar domestic regime, the closed economy that is the law o f the house.

Because the relationship between the law and its subversion is no t a simple opposition bu t an entangled structural complication, what is indigested by the space is, in the end, never simply a subversive other. The law must itse lf be encrypted. The mastery o f the fem inine, fo r example, must be situated in the house, as its law, but in such a way that it is not subjected to that law: “ The aneconomical, that must not have been economized, situated in the house, w ith in o r as the law o f the oikos” is nevertheless incorporated, encrypted w ith in it “retained, as other, w ith in the econom ic zone o f the same. Included in the same, it is by the same stroke excluded: enclosed w ith in, foreclosed w ith in, foreclosed w ith in the immanence o f a crypt, incorporated.”80 In the always strange logic o f the house, that which is domesticated as “other,” o ffic ia lly labeled as such, is thereby adm itted in to the space while that which is no t other, the “same,” cannot be subjected to the law, the force o f the space. Only the other can be adm itted in order to be controlled. In the end, it is the law o f the house itse lf that is neither inside nor outside the space o f the house. What is really indigestible is the law itself. W hich is to say that spacing, in the end, is the law. The spatial logic o f the house is not in itse lf spatial. No inside is ever simply severed from an outside. Space is but an elaborate effect o f the spacing that appears to haunt it.

This possibility had already been raised in passing by D errida’s earlier reading o f Levinas, when it parenthetically asks whether the inside/outside pair that organizes a ll the operations o f metaphysics is itse lf spatial: “ the spatial pair inside-outside (but is this, in a ll its aspects, a spatia l pair?).”81 The trad itiona l opposition that organizes a ll other conceptual oppositions in the trad ition o f philosophy is able to produce the effect o f space, the effect o f in terio r, only by repressing spacing. And inasmuch as space is made possible by spacing, spacing must somehow be involved in its own repression. The indigestible is no t an object that is hid-

Haunted Houses173__________

den at a certain m om ent Rather it is an ongoing double movem ent o f hiding. W hat is hidden is precisely that which cannot be transformed in to an object, the elusive phantom.

Such a sense o f the haunting o f space by spacing can also be found in D errida’s ‘T he Deaths o f Roland Barthes,” an essay devoted to the question o f m ourning. I t speaks o f the central ro le that Barthes assigns to a certain supplement to the photograph, the “punctum ” tha t violates the space o f the image ( “studium ”), the singular po in t that “rends space” by puncturing it w ithout ever becoming visible w ith in it: “I t belongs to it w ithout belonging to it and is unlocatable in it; it never inscribes itse lf in the homogenous objectivity o f the fram ed space but instead inhabits, o r rather haunts it . ”82 And yet again, it is “rhythm ,” which is to say, the tw isting dance o f spacing, that haunts: the “supplement parasiting the haunted space o f the studium , the punctum gives rhythm to the studium .”83 The space o f the photograph is organized by that which enigmatically violates it. The external violence o f the photographic frame that defines the space in isolating the image depends on this in terna l violence. Like the crypt, the punctum occupies the space but cannot be placed w ith in it. I t is a point, that which takes up no space, that which has no space, an unlocatable nonplace that exceeds the frame it occupies.

This constitutional haunting o f space by spacing is not ju s t understood as a property o f photographs o r the ir analysis by particular “conceptual oppositions” that define certain logics o f reading. Rather, “it traces a relationship o f haunting which perhaps is constitutive o f a ll logics.”84 I t is the haunting o f a space that organizes the conceptual structure o f the institu tiona l codes o f reading (and institu tions are never more than codes fo r reading, culturally enfranchised systems o f representation) that are applied to that space bu t cannot recognize its phantoms. If, as Derrida argues elsewhere, a ll the b inary oppositions that structure the Western trad ition are organized by the spatial opposition between inside and outside, or, rather, the opposition ostensibly concerned w ith space, they are, in the end, organized by the haunting tha t produces this effect o f space in the firs t place. Inasmuch as deconstructive discourse is always a “reading”


o f institu tiona l space, it must disturb the institutions o f reading sustained by, and in the end, indistinguishable from , that space.

To raise the question o f deconstruction and architecture is therefore not only a m atter o f identifying a certain reading o f space as a key subtext w ith in Derrida’s readings, it is also a question o f the spatiality o f reading. In particular, it is a question o f the po in t at which the two are conflated, the po in t at which D errida’s reading o f space addresses the space o f reading.

The Subject o f Vomit

Such an intersection can be found in Glas, which is everywhere concerned w ith the intersection between the house and m ourning, hence its ongoing subtext o f houses and burial, the oikos as tomb, the domestic economy as an economy o f death governed by haunting. Follow ing the psychoanalytic account o f m ourning as eating, it reads the question o f digestion in Hegel and Genet in a convoluted and elaborately spaced-out text that passes through “the work o f m ourning, anthropophagy, cannibalism, a ll the processes o f incorporation and in tro jection ”85 in the ir work to focus on “the strange word (and mode) disgust [ecoeurement]”86 and the elusive crypt that configures it. D errida’s concern is w ith the space, or, rather, spacing, o f indigestion. As he points out in the interview “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” Glas asks o f m ultip le institu tiona l structures the question: “out o f what exclusion is it constructed? W hat does it desire to vomit? . . . The neither- swallowed-nor-rejected, that which remains stuck in the throat as other.”87 W hich is to say that the text is concerned w ith the enigmatic spacing o f the crypt. But the crypt is not simply the subject o f that text, it is also its effect, or, at least, desired effect:

When I say that Glas is also working on the “reading effect,” what I mean in particular is that it has as one of its principal themes reception (assimilation, digestion, absorption, introjection, incorporation) or nonreception (exclusion, foreclosure, rejection and once again, but this time as internal expulsion, incorporation), thus the theme of internal or external vomiting, of mourning-work and everything that gets around to or comes down to throwing up. But Glas does not only treat these themes; in a certain way, it offers itself up to all these operations.88

The Subject o f Vomit175______________

The text opens itse lf to the convoluted operations o f the crypt by opening its space to the effects o f spacing. I t engages w ith the cryptic logic, or, rather, subversion o f logic, through its own spacing, reproducing the operations it describes. Derrida refers to the “reading effect” o f his w riting in spatial terms, identifying it w ith the spacing o f rhythm: “one would have to add or rather identify the question o f the ‘rhythm ,’ the rhythm ed delays, etc.”89 I t is only through the m ultip le and heterogeneous interactions between this spacing o f the text and its concern w ith spacing that the question o f the cryp t can be raised.

A reference to these interactions can be found early on in Glas where a small and, at firs t glance, surprisingly autobiographical fragment on the outer edge o f one page describes the text as “the interm inable analysis o f vom it, o f a nausea [ecoeurement] rather, by which I am affected and which causes me to w rite.”90 Derrida is not sim ply contrasting the ins titu tion ’s need to encrypt what it desires to vom it and his own desire to resist the institu tion by throw ing it up. The po in t here is precisely that his desire, which is to say his nausea o r disgust, is no d iffe ren t from that o f the institutions that constitute themselves by veiling that desire and its object. Furtherm ore, he is no t simply speaking o f his “own” desire here, that which supposedly belongs only to him as an individual subject, but rather the desire that structures the subject as such. I t is no t a question o f his choice to w rite about the spacing that the institu tion represses, but the sense in which the institu tion is tha t which represses w riting understood as a certain spacing. Spacing is the possibility o f both the institu tion and the subject; the subject being, in the end, which is really to say, from the beginning, an institu tion .91

The indigestion institu tions experience in the face o f spacing is not something they can choose to address o r repress. Indigestion is the ir structural condition. The subject, fo r example, does not simply experience indigestion. I t is never anything more than indigestion, as can be seen in the interview “ ‘Eating W ell,’ o r the Calculation o f the Subject,” which speaks o f digestive movements (assimilation, ingestion, incorporation, in tro jection, eating as an in teriorization that effects an identifica tion, and so on) as conditions that produce the subject, rather than being its actions.92 In D errida’s use o f Abraham and Torok’s arguments, incorpora-


tion becomes the possibility o f the subject rather than one o f its contingent pathologies. The subject is constructed as such by the spacing o f the crypt. Its therefore no t ju s t that the crypt is the desired effect o f D errida’s texts or even that the crypt is always an effect o f desire. More than the maintenance o f a forb idden desire, the crypt is the very figure o f desire. Desire is by defin ition cryptic. I t is never straightforward. I t ’s a ll in the detour.

The question o f deconstruction and architecture must therefore involve a reth inking o f the subject The subject is no t ju s t housed w ith in space o r detached from it as a kind o f reader o f the space, but is produced by that which violates space and is concealed to produce the effect o f space in the firs t place. The subject is neither vio lently contro lled by space no r exercises contro l over it. I t is the concealment o f spacing in the name o f space, which is to say the image o f space, that makes the idea o f a subject detached from space possible. The logic o f the subject is bound to a certain representation that cannot be separated from architecture and is sustained by an array o f disciplinary structures that need to be interrogated.

Inasmuch as the trad itiona l idea that the subject takes place is the idea that it can take a place, the possibility o f the subject is the possibility o f place. To re th ink the subject must be to in te rrogate the idea o f place. In “Eating W ell,” fo r example, Derrida argues that the cryptic indigestion o f incorporation defines the “place” o f the subject as a “non-place”: “In the text or in w riting, such as I have tried to analyze them at least, there is, I wouldn’t say a place (and this is a whole question, this topology o f a certain locatable non-place, at once necessary and undiscoverable) but an instance.”93 Likewise, “Ja, ou le faux-bond” speaks o f a “non-place” when it addresses the question “Where does a “reading effect” take place, i f it takes place?”94 In both cases, the twisting o f space by spacing unravels place. This unraveling is not lim ited to the specific question o f the subject. Inasmuch as Derrida ’s work is, from the beginning, as is being argued here, a disruption o f the architecture o f the house, it is everywhere concerned w ith the question o f place, exploring the critica l slippage between having a place, making a place, taking a place and taking place. In the end, the elusive architecture o f deconstruction is produced in its engagement w ith place.

7

D islocating Space

The irrepressible haunting o f space, the spectral economy o f the haunted house tha t underpins D errida’s work w ithout ever being its apparent subject, is firs t and foremost the enigmatic movements o f displacement o r dislocation. Derrida explicitly identifies the trad ition o f metaphysics that sustains itse lf by sustaining a certain image o f space w ith the constitution o f place. When speaking o f the deconstructive dance that disrupts the house by subverting the logic o f house arrest that domesticates by transform ing movements in to objects and assigning them places, “Choreographies” asserts: “the dance changes place and above a ll changes places. In its wake they can no longer be recognized.”1 The dance’s twisting o f space is at once a subversion o f both particular places and the institu tiona l logic o f place, which is to say, the logic o f the institutions that orchestrate them. A dance step is only a step “on the condition that it challenge a certain idea o f the locus [lie u ] and the place [place] (the entire history o f the West and o f its metaphysics).”2 Furtherm ore, inasmuch as the dance traces an exterior hidden inside the house, something foreign to the space, fore ign to space itse lf and yet uncannily part o f its very constitution, the dance does not simply take place. To dance is to displace the house and the whole regime o f placement based upon it. Dance is that which displaces place.

Derrida’s essays are everywhere concerned w ith this question o f place, or, rather, as he once put it, “the question o f the enigma o f place.”3 There is no essay that doesn’t at some po in t raise it,


tion becomes the possibility o f the subject rather than one o f its contingent pathologies. The subject is constructed as such by the spacing o f the crypt. Its therefore no t ju s t that the crypt is the desired effect o f D errida’s texts or even that the crypt is always an effect o f desire. More than the maintenance o f a forb idden desire, the crypt is the very figure o f desire. Desire is by defin ition cryptic. I t is never straightforward. I t ’s a ll in the detour.

The question o f deconstruction and architecture must therefore involve a reth inking o f the subject The subject is no t ju s t housed w ith in space o r detached from it as a kind o f reader o f the space, but is produced by that which violates space and is concealed to produce the effect o f space in the firs t place. The subject is neither vio lently contro lled by space no r exercises contro l over it. I t is the concealment o f spacing in the name o f space, which is to say the image o f space, that makes the idea o f a subject detached from space possible. The logic o f the subject is bound to a certain representation that cannot be separated from architecture and is sustained by an array o f disciplinary structures that need to be interrogated.

Inasmuch as the trad itiona l idea that the subject takes place is the idea that it can take a place, the possibility o f the subject is the possibility o f place. To re th ink the subject must be to in te rrogate the idea o f place. In “Eating W ell,” fo r example, Derrida argues that the cryptic indigestion o f incorporation defines the “place” o f the subject as a “non-place”: “In the text or in w riting, such as I have tried to analyze them at least, there is, I wouldn’t say a place (and this is a whole question, this topology o f a certain locatable non-place, at once necessary and undiscoverable) but an instance.”93 Likewise, “Ja, ou le faux-bond” speaks o f a “non-place” when it addresses the question “Where does a “reading effect” take place, i f it takes place?”94 In both cases, the twisting o f space by spacing unravels place. This unraveling is not lim ited to the specific question o f the subject. Inasmuch as Derrida ’s work is, from the beginning, as is being argued here, a disruption o f the architecture o f the house, it is everywhere concerned w ith the question o f place, exploring the critica l slippage between having a place, making a place, taking a place and taking place. In the end, the elusive architecture o f deconstruction is produced in its engagement w ith place.

7

D islocating Space

The irrepressible haunting o f space, the spectral economy o f the haunted house tha t underpins D errida’s work w ithout ever being its apparent subject, is firs t and foremost the enigmatic movements o f displacement o r dislocation. Derrida explicitly identifies the trad ition o f metaphysics that sustains itse lf by sustaining a certain image o f space w ith the constitution o f place. When speaking o f the deconstructive dance that disrupts the house by subverting the logic o f house arrest that domesticates by transform ing movements in to objects and assigning them places, “Choreographies” asserts: “the dance changes place and above a ll changes places. In its wake they can no longer be recognized.”1 The dance’s twisting o f space is at once a subversion o f both particular places and the institu tiona l logic o f place, which is to say, the logic o f the institutions that orchestrate them. A dance step is only a step “on the condition that it challenge a certain idea o f the locus [lie u ] and the place [place] (the entire history o f the West and o f its metaphysics).”2 Furtherm ore, inasmuch as the dance traces an exterior hidden inside the house, something foreign to the space, fore ign to space itse lf and yet uncannily part o f its very constitution, the dance does not simply take place. To dance is to displace the house and the whole regime o f placement based upon it. Dance is that which displaces place.

Derrida’s essays are everywhere concerned w ith this question o f place, or, rather, as he once put it, “the question o f the enigma o f place.”3 There is no essay that doesn’t at some po in t raise it,

Dislocating Space178____________

almost always lite ra lly as a question. In fact, it is usually two questions. O f each o f his texts’ ostensible subjects, Derrida asks: “where does it take place?” and “does it take place?” In a sense, deconstructive discourse can be understood as a protracted yet always incom plete response to these in terrela ted questions.4 Yet this almost never becomes the exp lic it focus o f Derrida’s w riting and has received almost no commentary. The question o f place is always worked through ind irectly even if, in every case, the in te rm itten t responses to it usually act as signals that critica lly redirect each text’s line o f argument. I t is arguably this insistent indirectness that both gives the question such force in D errida’s work and also marks the po in t o f its greatest vulnerability. His re th inking o f place has to be followed in some detail here, especially because it involves a re th inking o f architecture, even i f it is no t explicitly presented in architectural terms or, rather, especially i f it is not; one o f the firs t im plications we have to draw from D errida’s argument about the crypt is that it is like ly to be a certain withdrawal o f architecture from the exp lic it surface o f his own work that marks the po in t o f its greatest dependence on a th ink ing o f architecture, a dependence that only manifests itse lf as such in oblique and seemingly isolated moments in his discourse.

H ousehold Pests

I f the most forceful architecture is that which cannot be seen but returns to haunt the visible space in which it is buried, it actually leaves most traces in D errida’s sporadic references to haunting. I t is no t so much that his work is simply haunted by an architecture as it is that his sense o f haunting involves, and is, perhaps, no more than a displacement o f architecture. This displacement does no t manifest itse lf so much in his repeated and exp lic it questioning o f the trad itional logic o f spatial “position” (which, fo llow ing Heidegger, is always understood as a discursive construction sustained by the m illenn ia l trad ition o f metaphysics5), as it does in his more elusive th inking around the question o f place. I t is marked there by the in te rm itten t “figure” o f haunting, a slippery figure that involves a reth inking o f the house. The

Household Pests179__________

reth inking o f place, like that o f space, presupposes a reth inking o f house.

The invisible anarchitecture o f the crypt is always bound to a visible architecture. As Derrida puts it, there is “no crypt w ithout edification,”6 no secret w ithout the defensive erection o f a dissim ulating “edifice” that veils its convoluted folds to produce the image o f a unified structure, no invisible other w ithout a build ing that renders space visible and defines place. Furtherm ore, there is no architecture w ithout crypt. Every apparently stable build ing presupposes such a concealed and unstable spacing that is itse lf a mechanism o f concealment, a strange mechanism that sustains a haunting that complicates space by disrupting place. The crypt is a “pocket” folded in to space, a “no-place o r non-place w ith in space, a place as no-place”7 that enables a “ghost” to “haunt [the subject] w ith a ll kinds o f ventriloquism ,”8 com plicating the visible architecture o f the space by staging a “haunting re tu rn o r unheimlich homecoming.”9 The re th inking o f the house marked by the subtext o f the uncanny that punctuates so much o f D errida’s w riting is bound in to the theme o f crypt and turns on the sense o f place, which is to say that his extended questioning o f place harbors w ith in it a questioning o f architecture.

One o f the points in D errida’s w riting where the question o f architecture begins to emerge in the discussion o f place, only to be symptomatically w ithdrawn, can be found in the essay “lim ited Inc. a b c .. .” Repeatedly addressing the cryptic operations o f incorporation and, having described undecidability as “calling in to question the entire trad itional philosophy o f the oikos”10 (understood as the dom esticity o f a legal system that acts as an ethico-political regime sustained by d iffe ren t kinds o f institu tionalized violence), the text identifies the simultaneously constructive and subversive ro le o f parasites in the house. The logic o f incorporation turns ou t to be that o f the parasite, the foreigner occupying the domestic in te rio r and unable to be expelled from it, by being thrown up and out, w ithout ru in in g the space. This hidden logic o f the domestic is again tacidy understood as a haunting o f the house. The uncanniness o f the parasite is that it “is never simply alien to and separable from the body to which it has been transplanted o r which it already haunts [ha n te \."u The


space is haunted by that which exceeds it: the para-site, that which is supplementary (para) to the site. The house, as the paradigm o f place, is haunted by that which disrupts place but cannot be expelled from it. The parasite’s uncanny quasi occupation o f the house is seen to displace its law by disturbing the logic o f place:

I t should also be remembered that the parasite is by de fin ition never simply external, never simply something that can be excluded from or kept outside o f the body “proper,” shut ou t from the “fam ilia l” table or house. Parasitism takes place when the parasite (called thus by the owner, jealously defending his own, his oikos) comes to live o ff the life o f the body in w hich it resides— and when, reciprocally, the host incorporates the parasite to an extent, w illy n illy o ffe ring it hospitality: providing it w ith a place. The parasite then “takes place.” And, at bottom , whatever violendy “takes place” o r occupies a site is always something o f a parasite. Never quite taking place is thus part o f its perform ance, o f its success as an event, o f its taking place.12

This sense o f the structural haunting o f the house by the parasite, which at once installs and subverts the logic o f place, is not ju s t one analysis in D errida’s work alongside so many others. He goes on to argue that his work is “everywhere” concerned w ith it: ‘The parasitic structure is what I have tried to analyze everywhere, under the names o f w riting, mark, step [marche], margin, differance, graft, undecidable, supplement, pharmakon, hymen, parergon, etc.”13 To which we could add: the fetish, khairein, signature, title , poem, purlo ined letter, date, castration, shoe, circumcision, metaphor, translation, preface, and so on. W hile Derrida m ultip lies his terms to avoid tu rn ing any one o f them in to the basis o f a new law, destabilizing them to avoid the illusory coherence o f a conceptual system, he nevertheless reads them all in terms o f the parasite, understood as a specific form o f quasi occupation o f the house. O f each he asks: “where does it take place?” and “does it takes place?”14 And in each case, the respective reading at some po in t notes, and arguably turns on this point, that the undecidable in question has no legitim ate place w ith in the system it occupies. Each is understood as an illegal alien transgressing a house. To place is to house, whether inside or in the outside that is always, in the end, an inside. The

Household Pests181___________

parasite is that which is neither inside nor outside a house, that which is beyond, and yet essential to, the space. Every house has its parasites. Like an expert on household pests, each o f Derrida ’s essays identifies the particular species embedded w ith in a heterogeneous range o f houses and demonstrates that each would collapse if its uninvited guests were exterm inated, which, o f course, they cannot be since they never simply occupy the space but elusively haunt it.

Each o f the supplements Derrida interrogates tu rn out to have no proper place.15 A nd yet a place is always forcib ly assigned to them by specific institu tiona l practices that attem pt to contain them. Derrida tracks the way in which supplements elude the spatial regimes tha t attem pt to domesticate them, even, i f no t especially, i f that attem pt involves assigning them the place o f that which is w ithout place. In “Le facteur de la verite,” fo r example, he shows how the missing le tter in Poe’s story eludes Lacan’s sustained attem pt to re tu rn it to “a proper place . . . a determ inable place that is always the same and that is its own,”16 even when that place is identified as the place where something is missing, a gap around which a psychic economy is organized. “By determ ining the place o f the lack, the topos o f that which is lacking from its place, and in constituting it as a fixed center,” before organizing the psychoanalytic “ topology” around that place, Lacan is seen to be re tu rn ing the letter, along w ith a ll the other seemingly placeless fetishistic substitutes, “back in to the ir oikos, the ir fam iliar dwelling, the ir proper place.”17 In so doing, he locates the spatial order m aintained by psychoanalytic theory, the tru th o f the psyche sought by that theory, w ith in the fictiona l space o f Poe’s story, a tru th seen to inhab it that space “as the master o f the house, as the law o f the house.”18 The homeless le tter becomes the law o f the home. But, in being monumentalized in this way, it is given a home. Lacan’s psychoanalysis consolidates rather than displaces the house. In the very gesture o f analyzing that which has no place and moves uncontrollably through “a ll the places,” Lacan domesticates it and restores the trad itional sense o f space, covering over the “ Unheimlichheit”19 o f Poe’s story to produce a stable conceptual system w ith in which, symptomatically fo r Derrida, “the problem atic o f [Freud’s] Das

D islocating Space182____________

Unheimliche does not intervene.”20 A ll o f the uncanny movements that produce anxiety fo r the theorist by d isrupting the space are repressed.21 Nevertheless, they re turn to in te rru p t the very theory that is instituted to repress them.

The labor o f deconstructive discourse is to trace the way in which the unspeakable parasite eludes the institutionalized attempts to contro l it, re tu rn ing to uncannily haunt the domestic space that appears to repress it. But it must be emphasized that this re turn, and the way it is traced by deconstructive discourse, does not produce a crisis fo r the house. The uncanny is only threatening to the institu tion, in fact it is only uncanny, inasmuch as it cannot be treated as a crisis, the sense o f crisis being precisely, as D errida’s “Economies de la crise” argues, never more than an institu tional resistance to a more radical threat to the in tegrity o f the domestic space:

The concept o f crisis would be the signature o f a last symptom, the convulsive e ffo rt to save a “w orld” that we no longer inhabit: no more oikos, economy, ecology, livable site in which we are “at hom e”. . . .“The “representation” o f crisis and the rhetoric it organizes always have at least this purpose: to determ ine, in order to lim it it, a more serious and more form less threat, one which is in fact faceless and normless. A monstrous threat but that holds some desire in suspense: a threat to desire. By determ ining it as crisis, one tames it, domesticates it, neutralizes it—in short, one economizes it. One appropriates the Thing, the unthinkable becomes the unknown to be known, one begins to give it fo rm , to in fo rm , master, calculate, program .22

That which is threatening is that which cannot be localized, that which cannot be placed either inside or outside an enclosure. The sense o f crisis is manufactured to cover over this deeper threat to the sense o f place. Derrida argues elsewhere that even the concept o f crisis now finds itse lf in crisis inasmuch as its symptoms cannot be localized: “Sparing no region, this ill-being and threat do indeed affect the destination o f humanity, and, more than ever in the last fifty years, we are unable to localize them, assign them a proper place so as to contain them. I t would be a matter, rather, o f an illness o f the place.”23 The “sickness o f the home” described by O f Grammatology is equally the “illness o f the place.” The sense o f place is always as infected as that o f the

Taking Place183_______

house. But it is no t lost w ith the disruptive re turn o f what is buried w ithin i t O n the contrary, it is produced by that very return. Place is a side effect o f the specter that disrupts i t

Taking Place

In each o f Derrida’s readings, such a re tu rn o f the repressed that uncannily resists the law o f the house, the form o f resistance that is actually the possibility o f that law, the law that is only a law inasmuch as it places, calls in to question whether anything “takes place” in a particular space and even whether the space itse lf takes place. When D errida speaks o f the uncanniness o f undecidability in ‘The Double Session,” fo r example, he is speaking o f the way the hymen doesn’t take place inasmuch as its spacing subverts space: “ between the inside and the outside . . . the hymen only takes place when it doesn’t take place . . . located between present acts that don ’t take place. W hat takes place is only the entre, the place, the spacing, which is noth ing.”24 In each essay, it is a question o f such a nonplace that complicates the structure o f the events that supposedly take place. A poem, fo r example, which “blurs” philosophy’s lim it, com plicating its sense o f space, “no longer has any place. This no-place . . . is the poem’s taking place.”25 Any parasitic supplement, as O f Grammatology puts it, always “adds only to replace. I t intervenes o r insinuates itse lf in-the-place-of. . . takes-(the)-place’’26 such that, in the end, as the book later argues, i t has not taken place.27 The critica l question asked at some po in t by each o f D errida ’s essays— “Does it take place?”—is always effectively answered “no and yes.” Taking place, like place, becomes an institu tiona l effect, a representation sustained by systemic repression. In unpicking the mechanisms o f that repression, deconstructive discourse exposes the frag ility o f this effect.

Derrida contests every apparent event. H is work is like, as he once pu t it, “a war over taking place.”28 I t always looks fo r what “Living On: Border Lines” calls the “placeless place,”29 that which “takes place w ithout taking place,”30 o r “ takes place, placelessly.”31 In all these enigmatic points, and examples could endlessly be m ultip lied here, place is understood as an institu tion, space is


always constructed. As “Shibboleth,” puts it, “a border is never natural.” Furtherm ore, this “line— o f the place, o f the country, o f the community, o f what takes place in a language,”32 which is constantly patrolled, m onitored by some kind o f police force, and scrutinized fo r intruders, is always constructed by an uncontrollable oscillation across it called fo r by the very institu tion that patrols it. The effects o f place and taking place depend upon the parasitic ruses o f the crypt, by which that which is o ffic ia lly expelled over the line is secretly appropriated in order to hold the line:

[The crypt] can only take on meaning in relation to a place. By place, I mean just as much the relation to a border, country, house, or threshold, as any site, any situation in general from within which, practically, pragmatically, alliances are formed, contracts, codes and conventions established which give meaning to the insignificant, institute passwords, bend language to what exceeds it, make of it a moment of gesture and of step, secondarize or “reject” it in order to find it again.33

Derrida everywhere looks fo r a certain “elsewhere,” a “non-site,” “non-place,” o r “atopos.” There is no essay o f his that does not raise the question o f place and o f taking place in this way. A lthough it never emerges as the ostensibly central theme o f any particular deconstructive reading, one o f his interviews does identify it as the “central” focus o f those readings. Yet again, it is presented as a question: “ the ultim ate site (lieu ) o f my questioning discourse . . . would be a non-site . . . My central question is: from what site or non-site (non-lieu) can philosophy as such appear to itse lf as other than itself?”34 To disturb the trad itional construction o f space, deconstructive discourse looks fo r another k ind o f spatiality to use as a lever to force open the trad ition :

It is simply that our belonging to, and inherence in, the language of metaphysics is something that can only be rigorously and adequately thought about from another topos or space where our problematic rapport with the boundary of metaphysics can be seen in a more radical light. Hence my attempts to discover the non-place or non-lieu which would be the “other” of philosophy. This is the task of deconstruction.35

Sim ilar appeals to the need to fin d another k ind o f space occur throughout D errida’s w riting, but in each case the sense o f the

Taking Place185________

word “space” is fundam entally displaced. Rather than simply crossing the boundary o f the particular space produced by the discourse o f metaphysics in order to fin d another, it is a m atter o f in terfering w ith the very sense o f boundary produced by that discourse, the sense o f space that is the dom inant effect o f the tradition. And this sense o f boundary can only be threatened precisely by being affirm ed rather than stepped across. The logic o f boundary cannot be stepped over, or even broken, w ithout reconstituting it. To be outside the law is to remain in its space. When Derrida’s “Tympan” asks “can one, strictly speaking, determ ine a nonphilosophical place, a place o f exteriority o r alterity from which one m ight s till treat o f philosophy? . . . From philosophy—to separate oneself, in order to describe and decry its law, in the direction o f the absolute exteriority o f another place,” the answer is “no” inasmuch as “exteriority and alterity are concepts which by themselves have never surprised philosophical discourse.”36 Indeed, they are the very basis o f the construction o f space. Rather than stepping outside, breaking the law by breaking the line, it is a question o f “opening” a space w ith in the o ld one, where opening is no t understood as a new space that can be occupied but as an opening in the very idea o f space, a loophole that is precisely no t a hole w ith its own borders, but a kind o f pocket secreted w ith in the old sense o f border.

Derrida repeatedly refers to this sense o f “opening,” arguing that “deconstruction, i f such a th ing exists, should open up.”37 This clearly follows Heidegger’s equally repeated call fo r an “opening” o f the philosophical trad ition , the necessity o f “disclosure” understood as the “opening o f space,”38 and his account o f the fundamental condition o f being as “openess.”39 For Heidegger, this opening o f space is no t just an opening “in ” a space, but is the “pre-spatial” opening up that “provides the space in which space as we usually know it can unfo ld .”40 The opening o f space is the opening that makes space possible. H is destruction o f the philosophical trad ition does not simply break or rearrange the fam iliar “closed” “physically-technologically projected space”41 that the trad ition produces by m aintaining a certain image o f architecture, but attempts to expose that space to the openess that exceeds it and makes it possible. Derrida, who


describes him self as working w ith in and transform ing the specific “opening o f Heidegger’s questions,” understands deconstruction as the “opening o f a space through a princip le o f dislocation,”42 which is itse lf “inscribed in a space” no longer that o f philosophy.43 As w ith Heidegger, ostensibly nonphilosophical sites like “literature and the arts,” the “spatial arts” which, while “never tota lly free from the marks o f philosophical language,” establish some kind o f in terna l “distance” from those marks that “provides the necessary free space from which to interrogate philosophy anew,”44 a subversive space from which to investigate the space protected by philosophy and demonstrate that despite this protection it is already inhabited by the ir disruptive spacing, that the protection takes the form o f institu tiona l denial o r disavowal. Inasmuch as this interrogation is affirm ative, it always returns to the trad ition and “opens up the space fo r a remarking.”45

Such an in terna l d isruption and reinscription o f space is, by defin ition , always the disruption o f an institu tion. Deconstructive “theory,” fo r instance, which is, in the end, neither strictly ph ilo sophical nor artistic, is described as “ the opening o f a space” in the university. Having developed in the “space” o f lite ra ry studies, it moves on to a new kind o f in terdiscip linary work that previously m et “nowhere.”46 Nowhere becomes the site o f action. This seemingly contingent detour through the designated space o f a “spatial a rt” toward some nonsite w ith in a classical space is symptomatic. W hat Derrida locates in the unmappable te rrito ry that binds philosophy and the spatial arts in convoluted and surprising ways, the atopic spatiality in which one cannot “make a diagram . . . draw a sort o f chart, o r cartography o f the ir positions,” is “w riting.”47

Throughout his work, w riting acts the figure o f this other spatiality, the spacing that opens a trad itiona l space and displaces the institutionalized logic o f place. This can clearly be seen in “Freud and the Scene o f W riting,” which looks at the way Freud employs the “metaphor” o f w riting that “haunts” trad itiona l discourse as his own m etaphor fo r the haunting that is repression. Derrida argues that w riting, fo r Freud, is a “breaching” in the sense o f the “opening up o f its own space”48 through the “vio lent inscription o f a fo rm .” In describing repression as a form o f w riting, Freud must dislodge the trad itiona l understanding o f


w riting that attempts to repress its effects, the enforced placem ent o f w riting in space which conceals its spacings. He must open a new space and does so by identifying w riting itse lf as the opening o f a space: “a d iffe ren t w riting space must be found, a space which w riting has always claimed fo r itse lf.”49 W riting is invoked as the figure fo r opening.

This is, o f course, also a description o f D errida’s own practice. Everywhere, his work appeals to “w riting ” as both a new space and as the opening up o f such a space, the new space being no more than the opening o f the old. In these terms, the space o f w riting is spacing. W riting, in this transform ed sense, acts as both the persistent theme and quasi m odel o f deconstructive discourse that everywhere attempts to insert itse lf in to the knots that bind this spacing to the very institutionalized sense o f space that represses it. The “distance” that the discourse takes from trad itional space is clearly not itse lf spatial. I t is an in ternal dislocation o f space rather than a detachment from it, as can be seen when D errida’s “Voice I I . . .” describes the dislocating “spacing” o f telephony:

I do not know whether these voices must pass through, across o r in some space that pre-exists them, commands them, borders or supports them. And even if it lets them pass, such a space would still threaten to submit them to its law. . . . we should perhaps not rely too much on names commonly attributed to that “space.” It may not be a space, a locus, even a “region,” but a strange force o f dislocation . . . without reference to a fixed place in an objective topology . . . truly this madness of the voice is without place or, better, it is atopical.54

But even then, th is atopic w riting is no t so much a dislocation o f a stable space as it is an identification o f the extent to which the sense o f space that the trad ition constructs is always dislocated and dislocating. The haunting o f space by the unlocatable turns out to be what produces the sense o f space as such in the firs t place. I t is the opening in the structure that is the very possibility o f the sense o f structure maintained by institutions like philosophy, which is to say tha t the unacknowledged opening is structural. Institu tional space is necessarily b u ilt around its opening to something other. As “Genesis and Structure” proposes, “the structurality o f an opening— such, perhaps, is the unlocatable site in which philosophy takes root. Particularly when it speaks


o f and describes structures.”51 Space is but an effect o f dislocation, as are a ll the values associated w ith it—enclosure, presence, immediacy, tru th , law, stability, security, order, and so on— and the m u ltip lic ity o f institutions that privilege those values.

This argum ent is explicitly Heideggerian. The “Ends o f Man,” when speaking o f Heidegger’s deployment o f the space o f the house as is the dom inant and inescapable “metaphor” o f these values,52 argues that Heidegger disrupts the trad itional spatial logic by re th inking it “according to the opening o f a spacing which belongs neither to tim e nor to space, and which dislocates, while producing it, any presence o f the present.”53 This spacing o f the trad ition , this veiled force o f dislocation that is “buried in its oikonom ia," is buried in the house precisely inasmuch as it is unlocatable. I t attains its force inasmuch as it cannot be placed by the very mechanisms o f place it inhabits. Just as the exp lic it re th inking o f place in D errida’s essays follows that o f Heidegger,54 the sense o f the haunted house that pervades those essays, w ithout ever being described as such, is Heideggerian, even though, i f we follow D errida’s extended readings o f Heidegger’s texts, those texts ultim ately resist it.

D errida’s “Restitutions: The T ru th o f Pointing,” fo r example, begins its reading o f Heidegger’s “The O rig in o f the Work o f A rt” by describing itse lf as a “ghost story.”55 Following Heidegger’s identification o f the architectonic logic o f grounding, founding, standing, erection, monument, and so on, w ith that o f the institu tion , it focuses on the question o f place and institu tion, institu tion as that which places. I t reads Heidegger’s attem pt to place two shoes, themselves understood as “an institute, a monum ent,”56 in a painting by Van Gogh and thereby re turn them to an owner from whom they are apparently detached. In the end, the shoes cannot be placed. Like all supplementary ornaments, they tu rn out to be neither attached to nor detached from any o f the structures that could be used to p in them down, whether it be a peasant’s feet, the space o f the painting, the space o f the exhib ition, the institu tional spaces o f a rt history and philosophy, Heidegger’s own argument, and so on. D errida’s “spectral analysis” exposes the po in t at which Heidegger’s argument, which itse lf complicates the relationship between structure and ornament, resists his own assertion that Being is fundam entally un-


canny. It does so by lin k in g the idea o f haunting to the uncanny.57 The ghost is always an uncanny guest Inasmuch as the “fam iliar (heimlich) ” shoes are haunted, they are “unheim lich.” But so too is whatever they are supposedly detached from .58 The shoes are both “haunted” and “haunting,” as is Heidegger’s discourse in its engagement w ith them. Haunting is never singular. I f it involves the return o f a “ghost,” it is always a re tu rn to a ghost [ ” revenant au revenant” ].59 In the end, a space is not simply haunted. Rather, the space is itself haunting. Derrida follows this “accumulation o f haunting” that disrupts the always institu tiona l logic o f structure/ornam ent and the fam ilia r conceptions o f space and place it sustains. The structure is as much haunted by the ornam ent as the ornament is by the structure, and this convoluted “relation o f haunting” exceeds the institu tiona l space produced by the system o f philosophical oppositions, calling in to question the always, at the least, po litica l logic o f place and identity. In showing that the institu tiona l logic o f space, the all-pervasive logic o f the house, is made possible by the haunting that exceeds it, Derrida turns Heidegger’s arguments upon themselves, tacidy extracting from them a diabolic scene o f haunted space, the domesticity o f space as that which is, and cannot be w ithout it, haunted.

The spectral scene everywhere inscribed in D errida’s texts, albeit in oblique and dispersed traces, can never be isolated from this refolding o f Heidegger’s arguments. D errida’s ambivalent struggle w ith Heidegger continues in those texts that do not appear to address Heidegger, particularly where they, as is so often the case, raise the question o f place.

The elusive sense o f the house haunted by the spacing buried w ith in it can be seen, fo r example, in “The Deaths o f Roland Barthes,” which argues that the massively overdeterm ined po in t Barthes calls the punctum “haunts” the space o f the photograph by virtue o f being unlocatable w ith in it: “We are prey to the ghosdy power o f the supplement; it is this unlocatable site which gives rise to the specter.”60 The punctum punctures space and, inasmuch as it is unlocatable, it is no t ju s t a particular space that it punctures, but the very sense o f space itself. I t is heterogeneous to space and yet, a t the same time, is not simply opposed to space. I t leaves the de fin ition o f place behind, but it is only in being


le ft behind, only in the wound that marks the puncture, that there is a sense o f place: “a wound no doubt comes in (the) place o f the po in t signed by singularity, in (the) place o f its very instant (stigme), o f its point. But in (the) place of this event, the place is le ft ”61 W hat is le ft behind, the trace o f the trace, is place. Place is an effect o f the double withdrawal that encrypts spacing.

This argum ent draws on D errida’s early reading o f Heidegger in “ Ousia and Gramme,” which notes that when Being and Time reads Hegel, the po in t is seen to mark the firs t o f the successive stages (followed by the line then the surface) by which space constitutes itse lf by withdrawing its own conditions o f possibility. As Derrida puts it: “The po in t is the space that does not take up space, the place that does not take place; it suppresses and replaces the place, it takes the place o f the space that it negates and conserves. I t spatially negates space.”62 W hat Heidegger often calls the “spatiality o f space,”63 is concealed by the point, the m inim al marker in space, the spatial marker, as it is by a ll the visible manifestations o f space that succeed the point. The apparent articulation o f space actually marks the effacement o f its basic condition: “Pure spatiality is determ ined by negating properly the indeterm ination that constitutes it, that is, by negating its e lf. . . Space, therefore, has become concrete in having retained the negative w ith in itself. I t has become space by losing itself.” 64 The way in which Derrida describes spacing’s im plication in its own repression echoes the concept o f “w ithdrawal” that organizes so much o f Heidegger’s w riting. Indeed, the whole argum ent about space embedded w ith in D errida’s w riting that has been followed at length here remains deeply indebted to Heidegger even after exercising its sustained and rigorous c riticism o f Heidegger’s use o f it.

D isplacing Discourse

I t is crucial to remember that D errida’s extended reworking o f Heidegger’s argument about space is no t simply a discourse “about” space and its dislocations. One o f its firs t effects is to dismantle the simple opposition between discourse and space. A discourse is itse lf a space and spaces are produced by discourse.

Displacing Discourse191_______________

A t one point in the essay “Geschlecht, Sexual Difference, Ontological D ifference,” D errida pays attention to Heidegger’s argument that the spacing that is repressed w ith in our fam iliar sense o f space surfaces in language, the spatial rhetoric o f language being the very m ark o f its o rig in rather than a contingent accident. The sense o f being-there (Dasein) in the world “hides, shelters in itself” 65 the possibility o f spatial “dispersion,” a spacing that is “structural” rather than a d isruption o f an already established space, a spacing that is always “before” space, before, that is, the sense o f space constructed by the philosophical trad ition. Heidegger employs a num ber o f terms fo r this dispersion, each o f which “names a spacing . . .‘before’ the determ ination o f space.”66 This spacing is not a dispersal “in ” space, but is the dispersal that produces space as such. I t is the possibility o f anything taking place o r time, establishing “the orig inary spatiality o f Dasein, its Rdum lichkeit. The spatial or spacing dispersion is manifested in language fo r instance. Every language is firs t o f a ll determ ined by spatial significations (Raumbedeutungen). ”67 Spacing always inscribes itself, a lbeit obliquely, w ith in the very space from which it withdraws. Any discourse necessarily carries w ith in itse lf traces o f a w ithdrawn spacing and can never detach itse lf from the particular effect o f space produced by that withdrawal. Furthermore, that effect, the very construction o f space as such, is always discursive. Space is only ever a discursive effect

In these terms, D errida is already engaging w ith spaces and w ith the question o f space in ways that are themselves necessarily spatial inasmuch as he engages w ith the institu tiona l structure o f discourses, which he always does, whether he exp lic itly addresses space o r not. O ften his texts do address it, weaving backward and forw ard between what a discourse directly o r ind irectly says, or, as is often the case, w ill no t say, about space and its own constitu tion o f a space, articu la ting the convoluted but structural forms o f transference between them. In the end, the question o f deconstruction and architecture that we have been pursuing here turns on this transference.

The way in which architecture is w ritten in to D errida’s relentless binding o f discourse and space can be seen in “Plato’s Pharmacy,” in which the dislocation o f space is yet again understood


as the dislocation o f the domestic. The text rehearses the argum ent we have been follow ing by looking at the role o f the pharm akoi (wizards, magicians, poisoners) in Plato’s Phaedrus who, through the ir subversive play w ith spacing, are seen as sources o f evil that should be “cut o ff from the space o f the city”68 by being expelled across its borders and yet are invited back in and domesticated: “the representative o f the outside is nonetheless constituted, regularly granted its place by the community, chosen, kept, fed, etc., in the very heart o f the inside. These parasites were as a m atter o f course domesticated by the living organism that housed them at its expense.”69 That which is supposedly excluded from the domestic space nevertheless takes its place w ith in it, kept inside in order to be symbolically excluded whenever there was a crisis, excluded in a way that determines the contours o f “the boundary lin e ” that marks the space. That which has no place is “granted its place” in order to define the place as such. Place, yet again, is an effect o f the placeless.

D errida uses this apparendy lite ra l example o f dislocation employed by classical discourse to analyze the structure o f that very discourse. The story is itse lf one o f the myths [kha ire iri\ that Plato has supposedly banned from the space o f his dialogue, a discursive space that, fo llow ing the classical trad ition , explicidy understands itse lf as a topology, a system o f topoi o r places that structures an argument: ‘The topoi o f the dialogue are never ind iffe ren t. The themes, the topics, the (common-) places, in a rhetorical sense, are strictly inscribed, comprehended each tim e w ith in a significant site. They are dramatically staged, and in this theatrical geography, unity o f place corresponds to an in fa llib le calculation o r necessity.”70 And yet, having been banned from the topological regime o f this spatial system, the myth returns in to the space, vio lating its precisely calibrated and policed order. Furtherm ore, it returns precisely to te ll the story o f the inevitable re tu rn o f the excluded. In both cases, the story and the pharmakon it describes, that which has no place in the space reenters it, takes an illegitim ate place, but does so at the invita tion o f the police o f the space, the representatives o f its law. The illegal alien is recalled by the law, re tu rn ing to cover over some kind o f

Displacing Discourse193_____________

embarassing deficiency in the space, to shore it up and articulate the very borders it violates.

The myth, like the pharmakon it speaks about, not only takes a place in Plato’s argument, it “takes place” in the name o f tru th . I t returns to establish the tru th o f philosophy, which is to say, the space maintained by philosophical discourse. Each is a “house- breaker”71 that establishes the structure o f the “household o f logos,”72 constructing the very domestic law it breaks. Philosophy, that which determines the place o f things, is itse lf determ ined by that which exceeds its law, that which disrupts domesticity inasmuch as it cannot be securely placed. The space o f philosophy, the “house” o f metaphysics that monumentalizes the distinction between inside and outside, which is to say the house that preserves the very idea o f the house, is secretly inhabited and made possible by the spacings that are excluded from it and yet re tu rn to haunt it as a “ghost” :

I f one got to th ink ing tha t it can only be out o f som ething like w riting—or the pharmakon—that the strange difference between inside and outside can spring; if, consequendy, one got to th ink ing that w riting as a pharmakon cannot be assigned a site w ith in what it situates, cannot be subsumed under concepts whose contours it draws, leaves only its ghost to a logic that can only seek to govern it insofar as logic arises from it—one would then have to bend [plier] in to strange contortions what could no longer even simply be called logic o r discourse.73

In identifying the contortions o f the always haunted house, deconstructive discourse disturbs the space o f discourse before it disturbs the discourse about space. This raises the question o f philosophy’s own place, the place o f the discourse which places and polices, the question that D errida most explicidy addresses in the essay “Languages and the Institu tions o f Philosophy.” When looking at the “topological structure” o f the university, its division o f places understood to be, like all determ inations o f space, a political division, a “politology,” the essay asks where is philosophy itself placed: “i f it takes place, i f it has a place, and i f the philosopher h im self takes place.”74 In the orig ina l th inking o f the university, the philosopher has “two places: a circum scribed place and a non-place.”75 On the one hand, there is a


departm ent o f philosophy located w ith in the structure and, on the other hand, there is no part o f the institu tion that is not philosophical. Philosophy is actually “at once everywhere and nowhere”76 and the philosopher is figured as the “undiscoverable subject and as a non-place o f the constructed institu tion or o f the topology.”77 And inasmuch as the philosophical th ink ing that organizes the university has no place, it “never takes place anywhere” and, furtherm ore, even “the university itse lf doesn’t take place.”78 The logic o f place that governs the institu tional topology is itse lf w ithout place. In the end, the order o f place is actually displacement, there is no location w ithout dislocation. Each site is fragile, which is no t to say vulnerable. On the contrary, each space, and the o ffic ia l discourse used to legitim ate it, gains its force, one that is always politica l, from the way it exceeds, or even contradicts that very discourse.

This reading, like a ll readings o f place, is bound to the architectural logic o f the house, as can be seen when another o f D errida’s essays returns to Kant’s description o f the “unlo- calizable place” o f philosophy in order to engage in the ongoing debate about the contem porary status o f philosophy in the French university and argue against its “enclosure” or “house arrest” in any particular place.79 The discipline trad itionally devoted to the law o f the house must not itse lf be subjected to that law by being “confined” to a “little cell” w ith in the university. The “proper home" o f philosophy, as he puts it in yet another essay from the same debate, must be pu t in to question.80 But, at the same time, the trad itiona l space should not simply be abandoned by the contem porary th inking that has fo r “ the last twenty years” underm ined this domestic law and redefined the role o f philosophy. Rather, there is an ongoing and irresolvable tension between the need fo r the “architecture o f the discipline” to be gathered in a trad itiona l site w ith a “localizable identity” and its need to be always “opening itse lf up to new objects in a way that knows no lim it o f princip le . . . that exceeds all bounds,” a contradiction that, among many others, produces an “incredible topology [ topologie incroyable] . ”81 This is to say that the enigmas o f Kant’s institu tiona l architecture remain the enigmas o f contem porary th ink ing in and about the institu tion.


In this way, the in terre la ted structural complications o f both the place o f the trad ition o f philosophy and the concept o f place articulated w ith in it also organizes those discourses that displace that trad ition. The slippages between the theme o f place and the discourse about place are m ultip lied, fo r example, in D errida’s “A t This Very M om ent in Whose Work I Am ” when it addresses the crypt that Levinas locates w ith in the fam ilia r space o f classical discourse by continuously dislocating that space, rup tu ring it in a way that produces a “fa u lt” or “tear” that exposes what the space buries. Derrida argues that this “dislocation” does not collapse the space but, on the contrary, inaugurates it and continues to covertly structure i t Levinas is deconstructive inasmuch as he “opens” the space to something other by explo iting the opening that makes the space possible, the folds that endlessly complicate the lines that appear to define the space. As Derrida puts it, this dislocation o f space “w ill have taken place—another place, in the place o f the other— only on the condition o f another topic.”82 The space o f a discourse can only take place, constituting itse lf as a place, through such slippery atopic movements o f dislocation. Its capacity to place things depends on this displacement I t can only take place by m aking a place, o r rather, a certain nonplace, in its in te rio r fo r that which o ffic ia lly has no place there.83

Derrida asks the same kind o f questions o f Levinas’s own disruptive discourse, questions about its place, the very questions that Levinas asks o f trad itiona l discourse and appears to answer in a way that leaves the reader “no longer fam ilia r w ith the places” where trad itiona l questions “linger.”84 N oting that the questions m ight themselves already be “out o f place,” Derrida asks o f Levinas’s w riting , “What would have taken place? . . . W hat would be the proper-place o f this text, o f this faulty body? W ill it have properly taken place? . . . Does the body o f a faulty text take place? . . . How does he manage to give a place there to what remains absolutely fore ign to that medium?”85 I f Levinas locates the elusive cryp t secreted w ith in the home, where is his own discourse located? I t clearly has no place outside the space it subverts, and tha t subversion takes the fo rm o f an ongoing displacement, a defam iliarization o f the space that shows that it


is haunted by the other, the elusive phantom that dislodges it from w ith in , exposing the sense o f place as but the fragile effect o f systemic repression. I t is only ever, and always, dislocation that takes place.

This, in tu rn , must lead to the question o f the place and the taking place o f D errida’s own work. He repeatedly warns against the “domestication” o f deconstructive discourse, the risk o f which becomes greater the more it carries out its work in any one site.86 A t one point, he portrays it as a restless “nomadic” discourse w ithout a “home,”87 while at another he argues that i f it was to be “at home” anywhere, it would be in the k ind o f places (includ ing architecture departments) that he elsewhere describes as “far from the places fam iliar to me,”88 rather than those usually allocated to it:

If, hypothetically, it had a proper place, which is precisely what cannot be the case, such a deconstructive “questioning” or meta-questioning would be more at home in law schools, perhaps also—this sometimes happens—in theology or architecture departments, than in philosophy departments and much more than in the literature departments where it has often been thought to belong.89

On another occasion, he asks whether there is a “proper place” fo r deconstruction, given that it can no longer be contained by the “classic architecture” o f the academic disciplines it has transform ed, and explores the possibility that “America would be the proper name o f deconstruction in progress, its fam ily name, its toponymy, its language and its place, its principa l residence,” since it has been “the most sensitive, receptive, o r responsive space o f a ll to the themes and effects o f deconstruction,”90 only to argue that the discourse cannot simply occupy such a space, as it is always a question o f translation between languages, that is, between spaces.91 In the end, it is only concerned w ith forms o f “ transference” and so has no place.

A t the same tim e, deconstructive discourse always addresses the place it finds itse lf in . I t is a strategy necessarily, as Derrida puts it elsewhere, “dictated by places . . . I w rite from the place— several places—in which I fin d myself.”92 Each o f his essays exp lic itly engages w ith its own space, its spatio-institutional context,


in terrogating the various mechanisms that frame it and identifying the way their ruses and complications are actually folded in to the ostensible subject o f the text which usually appears to be detached from them. Each essay explores the ways its arguments are affected by the space in which it is placed, which is not to say that it simply occupies that space. In terms o f the phenomenon o f “deconstruction in America,” fo r example, the symptomatic way in which deconstruction both seems to have found a place there, that it can take place there, seemingly able to occupy American institutions more successfully than anywhere else and at the same time be more violently resisted by them than anywhere else, is part o f what produces the sense o f that place: “the place itse lf is defined in this context on the basis o f the symptom which is produced there.”93 Deconstruction is no t simply im ported in to America from some “fore ign” place.94 Far from being simply “French,”95 it is b u ilt in to the very construction o f America’s identity as a place. W hile it has no place, it can never be detached from the spaces in which it can be found. The overt and violent resistance to deconstructive discourse is not a resistance to an outsider that could simply be expelled, but is a resistance to something internal, a resistance that was ongoing before the “arrival” o f the discourse that articulates that in terna l discomfort, and was no less vio lent fo r being covert. On the contrary.

And follow ing its own relentless logic, deconstruction, inasmuch as it doesn’t have a place, doesn’t take place. I t “simply doesn’t take place, doesn’t have an exclusive place which could be attributed to it . ” 96 I f it is anything, it is an “event.”97 Rather than taking place, it is the enigmatic movements o f taking place, o f becoming space. And i f deconstruction is spacing in this sense, what about deconstructive discourse? I f there is no discourse that is not a space and no space w ithout spacing, what would be the space o f a discourse about spacing? Is it even possible to have such a discourse? A fte r all, spacing is precisely that which w ithdraws from discourse and opens it to something other. This opening can therefore never simply be the object o f a discourse. As Derrida puts it in “The Time o f a Thesis” :


How is it that philosophy finds itself inscribed, rather than itself inscribing itself, within a space which it seeks but is unable to control, a space which opens onto another which is no longer even its other . . . How is one to name the structure o f this space? I do not know; nor do I know whether there can even be what may be called knowledge o f such a space.98

Deconstructive discourse cannot simply involve writers looking fo r nonsites w ith in particular spaces, as the nonsite is precisely that which cannot simply be seen, that which cannot be located w ith in space, the elusive dislocation that at once disrupts and produces the effect o f the w riter (as a subject detached from the objects o f its discourse) in producing the effect o f space. As Derrida argues, when speaking in an interview o f the tremors o f deconstructive movements, “I don ’t know where such tremors can be located. They situate us. These events don’t have a place, they are looking fo r the ir place. Inside and out, the ir space is already foreign, in any case, to what is called the history o f philosophy.”99 Deconstructive discourse is itse lf “situated,” placed by the dislocations it attempts to ind irectly articulate. A lthough the movements o f deconstruction have no proper place, the deconstructive discourse that identifies this inevitably finds itse lf placed by those movements inasmuch as it is a discourse.

This enigma is explored fu rthe r in “Some Statements and Truisms,” which addresses the unstable “place” o f deconstruction in the university, its “institu tiona l place” in the system that both allocates places and protects the very logic o f place: “But that which thus allows them to take place has no stable o r theorizable place. I t is in this non-place that the appearance o f deconstruction can be situated, and I w ill later distinguish this process from a state, from a ‘deconstructionist’ theory, or an unlike ly set o f ‘deconstructionist’ theorems.”100 A lthough deconstructive discourse is nomadic, it is always given a space, institutionalized even, by the very dislocations it reads.

One o f the consequences o f this enigma is that the restless movements o f deconstruction are arrested, domesticated, given place, located in space, as much by its ostensible supporters as by its critics: “I would say that even on the side where one in general tries to situate ‘deconstruction,’ . . . even there, ‘decon-

Listening to the Silence about Space199_____________________________

structionists’ and ‘ deconstructionism ’ represent an e ffo rt to re- appropriate, tame, norm alize this w riting in order to reconstitute a new ‘theory.’” 101 A lthough deconstructive discourse inevitably finds itse lf “situated” by what it reads in ways that are always surprising, any attem pt it m ight make to actively situate deconstruction is already to domesticate it, to consume it in a way that resists its operations. Even then, it must also be noted that, as Derrida argues elsewhere, such a consumption could never be straightforward:

Deconstruction in the singular cannot be simply “appropriated” by anyone or by anything. Deconstructions are the movements o f what I have called “exappropriation.” Anyone who believes that they have appropriated or seen appropriated something like deconstruction in the singular is a priori mistaken, and something else is going on. But since deconstruction is always “something else,” the error is never total or pure.102

Deconstruction can only be consumed inasmuch as it is an object, which it is not. Rather, it is the very movements o f the spacing whose repression produces the effect o f an object in producing the effect o f a space. An object, like a subject, can only appear as such in space. The simple belie f that deconstruction is something that can be either supported or criticized already marks the always frustrated attem pt to domesticate its play. The question o f space is therefore w ritten in to the whole debate around deconstruction, even though it is rarely raised as such. In the ir shared attem pt to place deconstruction, the ostensibly warring factions in the debate attem pt to efface its force by effacing spacing. The sustained collective silence around the question o f space, which is actually the maintenance o f the trad itiona l account o f space, and the particular sense o f the politica l that this account maintains, is the firs t sign o f this resistance.

lis te n in g to the Silence about Space

The strategic role o f this effacement can be seen, fo r instance, in the infamous exchange between D errida and John Searle. In “Lim ited Inc. a b c . . .” Derrida addresses the “domestication”103


o f his work effected by what he sees as the systematic violence done to his essay “Signature, Event, Context” by Searle’s published response to it. In documenting and in terpre ting this violence, Derrida, as always, argues in the terms that we have been exploring here. His counter-response begins by noting the “strange, uncanny fam ilia rity” o f Searle’s reading and raising the usual questions o f place and taking place: “What is the nature o f the debate that seems to begin here? Where, here? Here? Is it a debate? Does it Take Place? Has it begun already? When? . . . I f it takes place, what is its place?”104 The text goes on to identify the m ultip le senses in which the debate between his essay and Searle’s is “not quite taking place” and ends w ith the question W ill it have taken place, this time? Q uite.”105 D errida’s argument is that it is actually the way in which a debate about deconstruction can never quite take place that disrupts the “ topology” o f trad itiona l academic discourse, upsetting the “ logic o f its places”106 and threatening its empowered guardians, its academic police. It is the im possibility o f placing deconstruction that is its greatest threat.

I t is not coincidental that the particular text that Searle has so violently “domesticated,” by “assimilating” it in a way which produces a “com fortable” because reductive “digest,” is one that explic itly raises the questions o f space and place in a way that Searle ignores. I t also begins w ith the question o f what “takes place” (in this case, what takes place in com munication) and explicitly addresses w riting as an “opening” o f the “space” o f com munication, a “spacing” which, like a ll “parasites,” disrupts the trad itiona l sense o f being “at home.”107 In attem pting to restore this very sense o f domestic security by digesting deconstruction, Searle attempts to domesticate arguments about the spacing o f w riting but w ithout addressing spacing as such, abruptly restoring and reasserting the trad itional concept o f w riting being called in to question. I t is arguably this effacement o f space and spacing that effects the domestication. A lthough Derrida does not po in t to this effacement, his reply restores the argum ent about space by describing the undecidability “calling in to question the entire trad itional philosophy o f the oikos”m in

Listening to the Silence about Space201______________________________

terms o f the parasitic incorporation o f the crypt b u ilt in to the structure o f any house:

The structure of the area in which we are operating here calls for a strategy that is complex and tortuous, involuted and fu ll o f artifice: for example, exploiting the target [the “classical concept” o f writing] against itself by discovering it at times to be the “basis” o f an operation directed against it; or even discovering “in it ” the cryptic reserve of something utterly different.109

The space being in terrogated is haunted and its parasitic phantom is uncanny inasmuch as it “is never simply alien to and separable from the body to which it has been transplanted or which it already haunts.” 110 A fter all, i f the crypt is b u ilt in to the structure o f the house, it is b u ilt in as the very structure o f the space.

And, yet again, this argum ent about the haunting o f space directly concerns the politica l. Derrida attempts to show how a supposedly neutral philosophical discourse reproduces “the founding categories o f till ethical-political statements”111 that are the possibility o f the production o f “law.”112 Searle’s violence, sustained or, rather, produced, by the guise o f scholarly neutrality, is the violence o f the law, the violence that maintains the academic space, the house whose structure Derrida undermines. In D errida’s later re flection on the exchange, he argues that it “concerned above a ll our experience o f violence and o f our relation to the law— everywhere, to be sure, but most directly in the way we discuss ‘among ourselves,’ in the academic w orld,” particularly in the university.113 This violence, which can never simply be eradicated, needs to be taken account o f and its analysis, the analysis o f the violence o f analysis, the violence o f even, i f no t especially, the simplest form o f question, constitutes a form o f po litica l action, indeed is one o f the actions that “contribute most to transform ing the legal-ethical-political rules: in the un iversity and outside the university.”114 Furtherm ore, this interrogation turns out to concern the very effect o f inside and outside, the establishment o f a sense o f space that is an effect o f the systemic violence involved in the fam ilia r assumption prom oted by Searle that there is a po litica lly neutral “space o f theory”


detached from “real life .”115 There is no space w ithout police force. I t is no t that any sense o f space is, by defin ition , po litica lly suspect, bu t that it is always, but no t only, po litica l from the beginning:

There is a police that is brutally and rather “physically” repressive (but the police is never purely physical) and there are more sophisticated police that are more “cultural” or “spiritual,” more noble. But every institution destined to enforce the law is a police. An academy is a police. . . . if the police as such is not politically suspect a priori, it is never neutral either, never apolitical.116

Furtherm ore, it would fo llow from D errida’s argum ent that a ll police are academic inasmuch as they are all, in the end, the guardians o f theory. Theoretical assumptions are always at stake in every institu tion—assumptions that cannot be asserted, le t alone m aintained, w ithout violence, the violence o f a space. Searle is no t simply incrim inated because he promotes a particula r sense o f space and attempts to enforce its law, but because o f the particu lar contradictions involved in that enforcement. Derrida draws an “indispensable” d istinction between the im p lic it force o f the police and the “unjust b ru ta lity o f a force that most often violates the very law to which it appeals.”117 I f there is a responsibility in the realm o f theory to which Searle appeals, it is to identify the structural nature o f this k ind o f “abuse” o f the rules when it establishes those rules and thereby defines a space. In the end, although he does not say as much, Derrida is calling fo r a certain responsibility in the construction o f space.

This ind irect but insistent call is typically responded to w ith a strategic silence, a regulated series o f absences in the discourse o f both “supporters” and “critics” o f deconstruction, a shared silence that establishes the most solid defense to the workings o f deconstruction. In these terms, the extensive debate around the question o f deconstruction needs to be re-read in detail to track the critica l but rarely acknowledged role o f space in it and to demonstrate that what is always everywhere at stake fo r everyone is the construction o f space, a construction bound in to a certain image o f architecture. Such a reading becomes even more urgent now that the question o f architecture has begun to be raised by the discourse in recent years but raised defensively in a way that

Listening to the Silence about Space203_____________________________

actually maintains rather than breaks the silence around space, a silence whose very loudness marks how high the stakes in space are.

Before making such a reading, it is im portant to note that the tension between the violence o f the law that constitutes a space and the violence o f the deconstructive arguments that underm ine that space is never simply between supporters and critics, conservatives and revolutionaries, o ld and new, and so on. I t is b u ilt in to those arguments, from the beginning, in the same way that deconstructive movements are b u ilt in to the trad itiona l discourse that attempts to resist them. A tension about space is endemic to discourse as such. Inasmuch as a discourse is a space, it can never fu lly take account o f space, le t alone spacing. The question o f space necessarily exceeds discourse. Part o f the silence about space can never be filled . The argum ent about space b u ilt in to Derrida’s w ork at so many d iffe ren t levels is not simply resisted by other discourses. H is own discourse is also punctuated by certain silences about space. Some o f them constrain his arguments and can be broken to open up the discourse, but others are systemic and cannot be broken w ithout threatening it.

I f space can only ever be uncanny and a ll discourses are marked and organized by its uncanniness, there can never be a discourse, in the trad itiona l sense, about that uncanniness. I t must be remembered that a discourse is only deconstructive inasmuch as its v io la tion o f the institutionalized codes o f reading organizing a space does not simply break the law but exploits the break already inscribed in to the law, constituting it as such. W hich is probably to say that, in the end, there can be no such th ing as a “deconstructive discourse” as such or, rather, that all discourses are already deconstructive, but in a way they cannot simply articulate.

I t must also be remembered that the two form s o f violence that constitute space (tha t o f spacing and the institu tiona l v io lence that represses it) are always entangled. This interdependence is underlined in D errida ’s reading o f B lanchot in “The Law o f Genre,” which argues that subversion “needs the law in order to take place”118 because, to abruptly short-circuit the text’s


elaborate itinera ry here, there is “lodged w ith in the heart o f the law itself, a law o f im purity or a princip le o f contam ination”119 a “counter-law” or “parasitical economy” in which an “unsituable” “fo ld ” disrupts the sense o f “objective space,” “norm ed space,” “visible space,” o r “enclosure,” by configuring “an in terna l pocket larger than the whole”120 whose “excess” violates the very “boundaries” it installs. And this crucial argument about space, one that has been tracked through so many texts here, is itse lf seen to arise from “an act o f unjustifiable violence” on D errida’s part: “A bru ta l and mercilessly depleting selectivity w ill obtrude upon me, upon us, in the name o f a law that La fo lie de jo u r has, in its tu rn already reviewed, and w ith the foresight that a certain k ind o f police bru ta lity is perhaps an inevitable accomplice to our concern fo r professional competence.”121 The apparent space o f deconstructive discourse (which is precisely deconstructive only inasmuch as it is not a delim ited discourse but a certain spatial excess, an exceeding o f spatial lim its) can only be produced by some kind o f affirm ative com plicity w ith the very bruta lity it appears to displace.

To break the silence about space that establishes the (always domestic) law w ill therefore no t simply involve breaking the law by speaking loudly in the institutionalized void about architecture. Rather, it w ill involve actively engaging w ith the silence, tu rn ing the law against itself, explo iting its force to interrogate the very silence it preserves. To deconstruct architecture is no t to deconstruct a certain strategic effect o f institu tiona l discourse by simply constructing d iffe ren t kinds o f argument about architecture. Before this, it involves articulating the ways in which architecture is routine ly constructed by certain silences that constitute rather than in te rru p t discourse, silences whose ongoing violence can, by de fin ition , only be addressed obliquely. The challenge for, and to, deconstructive discourse is to re th ink architecture by locating such an oblique address.

In-C onclusion

In place o f a conclusion (deconstruction being, o f course, anyth ing but conclusive), the specific b ru ta lity o f the reading o f D errida’s texts being made here has to be acknowledged and its effects taken in to account. The question o f architecture (edifice, space, house, oikos, spacing, in ferio rity, structure, ornament, uncanny, parasite, place, and so on) has been obsessively and violently extracted from Derrida’s w riting, crudely isolated and reassembled in a way that forces the sense o f a single, albeit convoluted, argum ent runn ing through a ll his work. The overt trajectory o f each text has largely been ignored and the specific effects o f the oblique question o f architecture have not been followed through in a ll the sites in which it does not register as such. And, i f this was no t enough, those texts that m ight at firs t seem to be the most relevant—D errida’s later writings about architecture—have been abrupdy bracketed out, along w ith all the other texts in the debate they have occasioned. Furtherm ore, there is even a form idable violence involved in simply nom inating architecture as a question, a systematic bru ta lity in relentlessly interrogating D errida ’s texts, repeatedly asking o f them the simple question o f “architecture,” forcing an answer, i f not a confession, and tacitly incrim inating any silence. The simplest o f questions, as Derrida has repeatedly argued, is vio lent,1 even i f the question is, as it has always been here, about violence, the violence o f architecture and the architecture o f violence.

In-Conclusion206_________

O ff the Threshold

The bru ta lity o f this narrow reading cannot be conveniently legitim ized by the protocol o f vio lent fide lity that D errida insists on. I t has been argued here, from the beginning, that an architectural reading o f deconstructive discourse must be an abusive one. Much o f the violence o f the reading made here is therefore necessary—necessary precisely in order to raise the question o f architecture, a question on whose quiet buria l the trad ition depends—but at a certain po in t the violence is simply the consequence o f an incompleteness o f the reading, a reading that may even, i f pursued more rigorously, tu rn out to be insufficiently vio lent in other senses.

N ot only w ill the precise location o f this po in t always remain unclear, bu t it can never be removed. D errida’s texts cannot simply be called on to arbitrate between good and bad violence. On the contrary, they everywhere argue that noth ing can be legalized o r authorized w ithout some illegal violence. They attain the ir force only inasmuch as they call in to question such mechanisms o f authority, including, especially, the ir own. To invoke certain aspects o f D errida’s texts in order to authorize certain readings o f the rest o f those texts is therefore already to do considerable violence to them and to begin to resist the ir more oblique, and, therefore, ultim ately more te lling, force. The architectural reading o f D errida’s work cannot simply be subjected to some generic and higher code o f reading that could discrim inate between vio len t and fa ith fu l readings.

Furtherm ore, there can be no such code that is not already dependant on a certain construction o f architecture. What is at stake in architecture is the status o f reading itself. I t has been repeatedly argued here that architecture is precisely no t an obje c t awaiting a reading, o r a theme w ith in certain readings waiting to be addressed. Rather, a certain image o f architecture (the image o f the build ing as a material object that simply stands and encloses) acts as the basis o f the trad itional construction o f the subject as a reader. The generic idea that architecture stands before a subject that m ight choose to read it veils architecture’s role in the construction o f that subject, which is also to say,

O ff the Threshold207_____________

architecture’s ro le in the veiling o f its constitutional role, the ongoing withdrawal o f its enigmas in favor o f an unambiguous demarcation o f space from which a reading subject is seen to be detached. To explore these repressed enigmas is necessarily to disturb the trad itional concept o f reading that is bound to that o f architecture. D errida ’s displacement o f reading, which is provocative fo r architectural discourse inasmuch as it presupposes a displacement o f architecture and starts to uncover some o f the enigmas o f architecture, must itse lf be displaced to explore them further. The surfaces o f Derrida’s essays, like those o f architecture, have to be disfigured, scratched rather than simply scrutinized, to see what they repress w ith in (as distinct from behind o r beneath) the ir very surface.

Having said this, detailed attention has to be paid to the particular ways in which the partia l nature o f this reading o f D errida’s essays and the excessiveness o f its violence have contributed to its construction o f architecture. Such attention would transform or, at least, m u ltip ly the trajectories o f the text. I t is in the interest o f a more nuanced understanding o r m obilization o f architecture (rather than a simple, and highly problematic, notion o f fide lity to D errida ’s texts) that the narrowness o f this reading must be interrogated and dislodged.

A t the same tim e, I would insist—and perhaps this is the only claim being made here— that what has been so bru ta lly extracted from Derrida’s w ork here is not one subtext among others. Its role is not like the others in the chain o f arguments in which it may be placed. Indeed, it configures that chain and is to do w ith precisely what it is to be placed. To say the least, it concerns the spacing between the links in the chain, the conceptual trajectory marked by the ongoing production o f such gaps, the strategic role o f spatial form s like that o f a chain, and so on. D errida’s dissemination o f lines o f overlapping and yet heterogeneous arguments is itself, firs t and foremost, a spacing.

There are, o f course, many dangers in m onum entalizing spacing, tu rn ing it in to some kind o f solid bu ild ing and thereby effacing its strange movements, arresting and domesticating them by gathering them together and placing them at some mythical center o f the space o f an equally mythical “discourse”


(deconstruction) produced by an equally mythical “author” (D errida). As we have seen, violence is always the agent o f construction. Part o f the violence w ith which the question o f architecture has been isolated here has to be understood as a form o f resistance to the subversive rhythms o f deconstructive discourse. I t reconstitutes the identity o f architecture in the face o f those dimensions o f the discourse that have tacitly begun to call that identity in to question and therefore must itse lf be im m ediately placed in to question. But it is equally the case that it is only possible to identify the other dimensions o f deconstructive discourse that already tacitly consolidate the trad itional image o f architecture by forcing the question o f architecture upon the discourse, insisting on the centrality o f architecture in precisely the ways that it would want to resist, o r rather, always resists in order to constitute itself.

In such a confrontation, both deconstructive discourse and the sense o f what architecture is are dislodged. The crude question o f architecture (one whose very crudity is precisely determ ined by a m illenn ia l trad ition that constructs a certain image o f architecture, the image o f architecture as the crudest object, the most basic spatial form defined by its brute materiality, the m inim um articula tion o f order) splinters in the face o f deconstructive discourse and, equally, that discourse is itse lf dislodged. But, unlike architecture, it is not dislodged by simply being splintered because it so often represents itse lf as a form o f splintering that fractures the trad itional image o f architecture. On the contrary, it is dislodged by identifying the secure architecture that its splintering movements actually consolidate. The splinter is, after all, not simply the result o f a fracture. I t is equally the means o f the effacement o f fracturing. As a splint, it is that which holds a fractured body together, that which props it up, m aintaining an architecture. From the beginning, the question o f deconstruction and architecture forces a confrontation between splintered architecture and the architecture o f splinters.

This text, which only begins to stage such a confrontation, to rehearse, imagine, o r image it, is inevitably as divided as the discourse it appears to read, only “appears” to inasmuch as the confrontation is actually an in terna l one. The apparent division

O ff the Threshold209_____________

between this text and the deconstructive discourse it frames as an object in order to be read is in te rna l to each. This is no t only unavoidable but has been a central theme here. I t is precisely through such congenitally m ultip le in te rna l divisions, and the particular institu tional practices that mask them, that architecture is at once produced and assumes its strategic ro le in dominant Western discourse as the figure o f that which is not itse lf divided inasmuch as it is the very figure o f division, which is to say that architecture is represented as that which has no architecture. The trad ition depends fo r its strength on this veiling o f the extent to which architecture is, in the end, a certain effect o f the pervasive, ongoing, and irresolvable in terna l conflic t that coverdy entangles a ll the lines it appears to so unproblem atically draw. Architecture is no more than the strategic effect o f the suppression o f in te rna l contradiction. I t is not simply a mechanism that represses certain things. Rather, it is the very mark o f repression.

The reading o f the relationship between architecture and deconstruction (the “between” actually in terna l to each, which binds them together so repeatedly and tighdy that neither can be considered w ithout the other) obviously cannot end here, o r even begin. I t must be as restless as the movements it articulates. Shaking the question o f architecture ou t o f D errida ’s w riting is but one o f many necessary bu t insuffic ient gestures. In the end, what is offered here is, at most, an in troduction to D errida’s w riting, a narrow reading o f his texts that offers a certain form o f leverage into the ongoing exchange between deconstructive discourse and the discourse o f architecture, a way o f engaging w ith the different arguments being deployed, includ ing those o f Derrida.

This text has read D errida up to, around, and beyond the threshold o f his overt entry in to the space o f architecture w ithout ever simply crossing that threshold. The reading is an extended hesitation at the threshold, or, rather, an attem pt to th ink about the nature o f the threshold, to ask what would be the threshold o f architecture. W ould it be itse lf architectural? I f a threshold is always, by defin ition , both inside and outside a space, the threshold to architecture must be both architectural and nonarchitec-


tural. But this s till presupposes that the threshold to architecture has the trad itional architecture o f the threshold. Because the space o f architecture cannot simply be architectural, its threshold must be other or, and this is to say the same thing, the space itse lf is other inasmuch as it doesn’t have a threshold. A t the same time, the space o f architecture is precisely that which sustains the idea o f the threshold. Each o f the m ultip le institutional practices that constitute that space contributes to the sense o f threshold, the sense o f a mechanism that allows a line to be crossed, a mechanism that tem porarily breaks, suppresses, o r neutralizes an otherwise secure line. In everywhere com plicating the apparently clear line, deconstructive discourse necessarily displaces the sense o f the threshold that trad itionally negotiates passage across such lines. Far from abandoning the threshold, the discourse generalizes its condition. There are only ever always thresholds. I f the lines that appear to define space are but the effect o f the institutionalized suppression o f the ir fundamental complications, the threshold is the mechanism o f that suppression, which is to say that the sense o f the line is actually produced by the threshold that appears to cross it.

I f deconstructive discourse begins by problem atizing the architecture o f the threshold, to simply cross the overt threshold to architecture in D errida’s work would already be to suppress the complicated role o f architecture in that work. The most obvious opening to the question o f architecture is, by virtue o f its very obviousness, actually some kind o f closure (remembering that what is at stake here is precisely the buried discursive mechanisms that make available the always architectural sense o f closure and openness). Rather, it is a m atter o f scanning the other texts, in terrogating the ir surfaces fo r the traces o f other openings, openings that do not simply o ffe r some kind o f access to architecture, but mark the degree to which D errida’s texts are routinely perforated by architecture and depend on this very perforation fo r the ir force. O f course, the recent texts o f Derrida “about” architecture, which have been forcib ly kept at a distance here in order to th ink about the covert architectural economy in his work, must be read but read in a way that maintains a certain resistance to the ir overt economy, an economy that is, fo r

The Institution of Space211__________________

architectural discourse at least, all too fam ilia r and that threatens to overwhelm that th ink ing by reconstituting the very institutions designed to mask it (the author-architect, the philosopher-theorist, the project, the program, the site, the plan, the fetish o f material, architecture as a high art, and so on). When these texts are removed from the quarantine imposed here, the issue w ill be to what extent the operations o f deconstructive discourse are disturbed o r reinforced by the ir overt nam ing o f architecture as a question, their apparent transform ation o f architecture from a given to a question, a transform ation whose potentia l impact on trad itional discourse cannot be underestimated.

As w ith any discourse, the relationship between the tacit roles o f architecture in D errida’s work and what it may say about architecture w ill always be complex, enigmatic, and structural. These relationships need to be read in detail by carefully unpicking his texts on architecture. The same structural enigmas can also be traced in the work o f other deconstructive writers who have started to address architecture and those architects who are now addressing deconstruction. The evolving discourse needs to be patiently rethought, and this re th inking w ill necessarily extend to discourses w ith in which neither architecture nor deconstruction appear to surface. The reading o f the discourse’s preconditions offered here attempts to establish at least one trajectory w ith which to open such an analysis.

The In stitu tion o f Space

A t the same time, such an architectural reading o f deconstructive discourse could only open that discourse i f it occurs in parallel to, and entangled w ith , a deconstructive reading o f the sociopolitical institution o f “architecture.” A ll o f the com plications that have been followed here are at least doubled in the case o f architectural discourse. I f institutions are always spaces and space is always institutional, what about architectural discourse, ostensibly the institution o f space, that is, the institu tiona l form ation “responsible” for the particular space that is used as the paradigm o f space by other discourses? W hat about the space o f space? I f institutions are, by de fin ition , architectural, the institu-


tion o f architecture, and its deconstructive reading, must be something other. To re th ink this institu tion would be more than simply a rigorous response to the specificity o f architectural discourse, one response among so many others. Rather, it would, at the very least, reconfigure all the operations o f deconstructive discourse by displacing the particular th inking o f the institu tion that organizes them.

The institu tion o f architecture is clearly more than buildings and the practices by which they are produced. Architecture is not simply a specific kind o f object that is produced by a number o f material practices and can be represented before, during, and after its construction and in itse lf exceeds, in its physical presence, any such representation. The bu ild ing “itse lf” is no more than a specific mechanism o f representation. In fact, there is no such th ing as a build ing outside o f a large num ber o f overlapping mechanisms o f representation: schools o f architecture, professional codes o f ethics, critica l practices, historiographical methodologies, academic protocols, pedagogical techniques, curricu lum structures, the strategic role o f the author’s signature and project credits, legalization o f the word “architect,” designated safety factors in structural calculations, standardized drawing techniques and conventions, bu ild ing codes, aesthetic codes, zoning codes, clo th ing codes, school admission standards, faculty classifications, fee structures, h iring and firin g practices, rhetorical conventions, examination structures, model-making techniques, various forms o f etiquette, legal contracts, copyright law, the structure o f the slide lecture, strategic control and dissemination o f ideas through conferences and publications, ritualized master worship, theoretical and graphic commonplaces, copyediting protocols, interview and presentation formats, photographic techniques, the institu tion o f the architectural ju ry , portfo lio construction and circulation rituals, com petition fo rmats, o ffic ia l and unoffic ia l club membership control, m ultip le advertising strategies, the standardized fram ing o f images, the specific techniques o f publication, editoria l control, funding patterns, the structure o f the architectural monograph, the biography and so on, to name only some o f the most obvious ones. A ll o f them are mechanical systems o f reproduction whose ritualistic,

The Institution of Space213__________________

i f not fetishistic, repetition constantly affirm s the presence o f architecture rather than analyzes it. Indeed, the very intensity o f the ir repetition seems to mark a nagging but suppressed doubt about that presence. They are the real mechanics o f architecture. The build ing is lite ra lly constructed by these mechanisms o f representation. Its very solidity, the sense that it has an irreducib le materiality tha t precedes representation, is but a product o f the ir complex interactions. A lthough the bu ild ing is constructed by such systems o f representation, they precisely construct it as something that precedes them.

Each o f these d iscip linary technologies needs to be carefully analyzed in its specificity and interrelationships w ith other such mechanisms (both those o f other disciplines and those that orchestrate specific transactions in everyday cu ltura l life ) to determ ine its strategic ro le in the construction o f architecture. Each has to be read deconstructively to determ ine what its operations attem pt to p roh ib it and the ways in which this prohib ited other returns to covertly orchestrate the very discourse that appears to exclude it. Equally, they have to be read in a way that produces a more nuanced, i f no t displaced, account o f this strange architecture o f p roh ib itio n /re tu rn , which has been articulated at length by deconstructive discourse. In a k ind o f in te rna l struggle, the deconstruction o f architecture must reconfigure the architecture o f deconstruction, and so on, and on.

This struggle would im m ediately raise a series o f specific questions that must be asked o f the institutions o f architecture, questions about their strategic role in the organization o f diverse cultural transactions like the distinction between high and low culture, the construction o f gender and sexual orientation, the m icro structures o f disciplinary control, the elusive form o f the global economy, the twisted space o f psychoanalytic theory, the interwoven spaces o f the emerging technologies o f communication, the ongoing perform ance o f identity, d ig ita l imagery, the waging o f war, the re-constitution o f public space, the perverse geometry o f power flows, and so on. Such questions have become increasingly urgent. W hile some o f them may look like new questions or questions about apparently new phenomena, they are actually trad itional questions that need to be re-asked in a


d ifferent way. In feet, they are only urgent inasmuch as they are trad itional. I t is precisely the trad itional questions that must be repeated yet again, but repeated in a way that takes account o f the institu tiona l role o f that repetition. In the end, the question is always, in what way is architecture repeating itself? W hat is being repeated? W hat is the repetition we call architecture? And what does it at once m obilize and conceal?

M ultip le trajectories o f inqu iry need to be opened up and obsessively pursued by patiently fo llow ing a ll the d iffe ren t fau ltlines that are already inscribed, however faintly, in to the surface o f architectural discourse in some kind o f dense web, an intricate pattern o f scars that m ark that which is buried w ith in the very surface, tha t which the discourse is unable to speak about but actually makes it possible. Such inquiries look fo r slippages in the trad ition by questioning all its routine categories and strategies but no t to simply overthrow them. On the contrary, they intensify them, ruthlessly respecting the ir specific rigo r in order to see exactly what it is that the ir slippages organize. I t is only possible to explore the senses in which architecture is always operating otherwise by forcing the discourse designed to conceal them to face its own operations. Each such operation has to be pushed to its lim it. Under this k ind o f sustained pressure, a ll the trad itiona l subjects o f architectural discourse (architects, bu ild ings, movements, details, typologies, ornam entation, structural analyses, architectural histories and the ir own history, regional form ations, perceptual analysis o f spaces, and so on) w ill be at once reinforced, supplemented, and displaced. Only by respecting the discourse, a ffirm ing it, even, i f no t especially, in its stunningly impoverished moments, treating each o f its seemingly incidental, i f not trivia l, habits as a highly systematic construction that maintains certain unstated assumptions that have specific po litica l consequences, can it be opened up to other possibilities.

To some extent, this heterogeneous and uncoordinated in terrogation o f architecture has already begun in the work o f a small num ber o f writers and designers, sometimes in the name o f deconstruction but often w ithout it, i f no t against it. Only a small part o f the very public discourse about “deconstruction and architecture” participates in this re th inking and most o f that

Exhuming Architecture215_________________

discourse in the end resists it. Indeed, in such a deconstruction o f the institution o f architecture the word “deconstruction” is clearly superfluous.

Furthermore, this re th inking does no t simply open architecture up to “new” possibilities. Rather, it identifies the m ultip le openings that already structure architecture and on whose veiling so many cu ltura l transactions depend, includ ing, especially (since the question o f tim e can never be detached from that o f space), the very sense o f the “new.” I f noth ing can be new w ithout the sense o f the o ld that is bound to architecture, the apparently simple idea o f a “new architecture” is, at the very least, extraordinarily com plicated; which is only to repeat that to deconstruct the trad ition o f architecture is firs t and foremost to try and comprehend its ro le in the constitution o f the very sense o f trad ition, the way it constructs the sense o f fam ilia rity and the extent to which that sense depends on its routine, but routine ly masked, violation.

To say that this obsessive repetition o f o ld questions does no t simply authorize o r project something “new” is not to say everyth ing remains unchanged, the dom inant structures remain dom inant, and so on. Rather, it is to displace the sense o f what constitutes a transform ation by suggesting that any simple avant- gardist sense o f a new practice (whether it be a k ind o f essay or bu ild ing) necessarily and im m ediately reconsolidates the traditional institution o f architecture it claims to dislodge o r critique. I t veils the extent to which the trad ition constitutes itse lf as such by repressing that which always dislodges it from w ith in and thereby maintains that repression, constructing the trad ition as stable in the very gesture o f destabilizing it. Deconstructive discourse is d iffe rent bu t no t simply new. Its difference is actually in terna l to the trad itions it appears to displace.

Exhum ing A rchitecture

The impact o f such readings o f the m ultip le institu tiona l practices that constitute architectural discourse would necessarily exceed that discourse inasmuch as those practices defend a certain account o f architecture against investigation in order that it may


circulate between, and coverdy orchestrate, a heterogeneous range o f cu ltura l discourses that do no t seem architectural. That which architectural discourse labors so hard to protect never simply becomes visible w ith in it. I t is protected by being concealed. Since only what is recognized w ith in the discourse is o ffic ia lly designated as “architecture,” the fundamental concern o f architectural discourse, that which it is designed to protect, that which must be buried by it, cannot simply be architectural. Likewise, the institu tional mechanisms that determ ine what is architectural and bury this other sense cannot themselves be architectural, which is to say again that neither the space o f architecture, nor what is hidden w ith in it, can be architectural. To forcib ly interrogate the institutions o f architecture to release what they hide w ill be, by de fin ition , to locate things that seem to belong outside the discipline.

A t the same time, the anarchitecture buried w ith in the discourse, buried w ith in the o ffic ia l account o f architecture in order that it can circulate outside that discourse, can never be separated from the discourse that buries i t A lthough the space o f architecture can never be architectural, the various institu tional practices that m aintain it bear a curious and strategic relationship to this anarchitectural sense they bury in order that it may haunt so many other discourses. I t is the o ffic ia l account o f architecture that enables it to haunt. This account visibly circulates outside o f architectural discourse and can be easily located in diverse discourses. In each location, it carries w ith in it an unspeakable sense o f architecture. The mechanism by which this sense is concealed w ith in architectural discourse is reproduced outside it.

I t is no t that this mechanism is constructed w ith in architectura l discourse and then disseminated to circulate outside. In deed, architectural discourse as such is an extremely recent phenomenon given the m illenn ia l trad ition in which a particular image o f architecture has organized th inking, a trad ition stretching at least back to Plato and everywhere operative in , i f no t as, contem porary life . The discipline o f architecture poses a unique threat to that ancient trad ition inasmuch as it ostensibly investigates the condition o f architecture and could uncover and

Exhuming Architecture217_________________

thereby underm ine its operations. The whole discursive economy hangs on the maintenance o f the mechanism that represses the slipperiness o f architecture behind a benign image o f disciplined space. Architectural discourse was only recently allowed to constitute itse lf as such by offering, as it were, a guarantee, a carefully worded promise that the wildness o f space can be domesticated and, once tamed, protected as some kind o f endangered prim eval species in a h igh ly legislated and inaccessible reserve. The provision o f this guarantee remains its central cu ltura l role. The institu tion o f architecture is not concerned w ith the construction o f buildings but w ith the maintenance o f the idea o f build ing, the maintenance o f an ancient and slippery construction that is completely dependant on certain unspoken contracts that protect politica l structures apparently unrelated to it. The discipline o f architecture is more than the d iscip lin ing o f space. Before that, it is the d iscip lin ing o f a certain th ink ing “about” space, or, more precisely, it is a set o f institu tiona l practices that m aintain the idea that th ink ing can only ever be “about” space inasmuch as it is always detached from the spaces it addresses. Separating th inking from architecture in the very m oment it appears to direct th inking toward architecture, the discourse suppresses the anarchitecture that makes th inking possible and, in so doing, blinds itse lf to the enigmas o f the spaces it addresses.

To try and speak about the heavily guarded anarchitectural sense that allows discourses to speak is obviously no t to simply speak o f buildings, le t alone houses, as they are commonly understood. But equally, i t is not to leave buildings behind. On the contrary, it is to say that buildings can never be le ft behind, that the seemingly fam ilia r sense o f a bu ild ing is actually an enormously complicated sense that is the product o f a massive trad ition, or system o f overlapping traditions, which is being constantly and vio lently enforced in the name o f laws supposedly founded on that very sense. This ancient trad ition projects building outside itself, isolating buildings from discourse, constructing build ing as that which comes before discourse, a privileged po in t o f contact w ith prehistorical, transculttira l order. To raise the question o f deconstruction and architecture is therefore not to simply address space, the edifice, the house, and so on, but to


th ink about the domestication o f space itself, the housing o f the house, the domestication o f the house, the domestication o f the mechanisms o f domestication, the housing o f that which makes the house possible, the elusive architecture o f architecture itself.

I f houses are a ll, from the beginning, haunted, what exacdy is it that the institu tion o f architecture, the house that supposedly houses the question o f the house, haunted by? In the end, this is not a question o f haunted houses, but the extent to which we are always haunted by houses— haunted, that is, by the institutional mechanisms that construct space. The uncanniness o f space is no t only the sense that any space is always occupied by what it ostensibly excludes, but equally the sense in which space itse lf cannot be excluded. Discourse is haunted by architecture, haunted by its strangeness in the very moment that this strangeness has apparently been bracketed out by the ritualized gestures employed by most discourses that repeatedly exclude the lite ra l sense o f a bu ild ing only to immediately invite it in as a metaphor, supposedly the least mysterious outsider, the most fam iliar and reliable guest o f all, a touchstone whose presence is reassuring and stabilizing. Traditional discourse splits architecture across the division between lite ra l and metaphorical, find ing the lite ra l bu ild ing threatening and the m etaphorical bu ild ing reassuring. It maintains its space by m aintaining this line. But inasmuch as the d istinction between lite ra l and metaphorical is based on the very image o f architecture it appears to include, the line is actually radically convoluted and the threatening conditions o f architecture cannot be excluded. They re turn to haunt the space whose institu tional practices can no longer resist them by holding the line. And what returns is precisely the sense that architecture itse lf does not hold the line, that a build ing doesn’t simply figure the security o f spatial divisions, but is rather the product o f the institu tionally enforced repression o f the ir convolution.

A deconstructive reading o f architecture is therefore not only concerned w ith showing that architecture has its parasites, but also w ith showing that it is itse lf a parasite, but a very particular form o f parasite. If, as Derrida argues, the parasite is the unru ly and unwelcome houseguest whose very disruption o f the space

Exhum ing A rchitecture219_________________

actually provides its law, the figure o f architecture is the all-too- welcome houseguest, the well-mannered visitor whose very guarantee o f the space would somehow disorder it i f its terms were to be examined in any detail. I t is the outsider that “stands fo r” the constitution o f space rather than its vio lation, but it always harbors w ith in itse lf the rhythms o f spacing, the subversive movements that at once constitute and violate the sense o f space.

The question that has been so insistendy asked here must fina lly become tha t o f the spacing o f architecture itself. On the one hand, it is the spacing that makes architecture possible even while, or, rather, only by, vio lating its apparent order. On the other hand, it is architecture’s spacing o f other discourses, the violation o f diverse institu tions by a certain architectural th inking o f space that makes the ir own spaces possible; the way in which architecture haunts other discourses; the extent to which they cannot th ink o f themselves as discourses w ithout being haunted by a particular logic o f space sustained by architectural images. And i f architectural discourse guarantees the spatial laws that other institutions enforce, this a ll too fam iliar logic o f enforceable space, space as enforcement, harbors w ith in itse lf an unspeakable architecture, a prohib ited bu t irresistib le spacing. The image o f the house that necessarily haunts institutions inasmuch as they are institutions, the image which is always the ir self image, the very image o f institu tion , is itse lf haunted. W hile the architectural discourse that protects that image is the designated in stitutional space o f space itself, it is precisely no t the designated space o f spacing. On the contrary, what it protects is the efface- m ent o f spacing by space. No space, by defin ition , has space fo r spacing. And yet it is the m ajor achievement o f D errida ’s extraordinary work, one whose consequences cannot be overestimated, to show that there is no space w ithout it, that architecture is always haunted.

A t the same tim e, it must be remembered that this complication also necessarily affects the space o f deconstructive discourse, and D errida’s work in particular. Those texts that appear to rigorously pursue the question o f spacing, whether they address architecture or no t, are invariably haunted by stable constructions o f space that punctuate the ir arguments w ithout being


called in to question by them. Architecture remains the Achilles’ heel o f deconstructive discourse. The strength o f that discourse depends on the veiling o f its systemic weakness fo r architecture, a trad itiona l weakness that structures the discourse as such and needs to be interrogated, especially when the question o f deconstruction and architecture is being explicidy raised. N o t only has such an in terrogation hardly even begun here, but this text must im m ediately be subjected to it.

Notes

Preface

1. M ark W igley, “Heidegger’s House: The V iolence o f the Dom estic,” D: Columbia Documents in Architecture and Theory, no. 1, 1992, 91-121.

The Translation o f A rchitecture

1. Jacques D errida, “Des Tours de Babel,” trans. Joseph F. Graham, in Joseph F. Graham, ed., Difference in Translation (Ithaca: C orne ll U niversity Press, 1985).

2. “ [A ]n d fo r the no tion o f transla tion , we w ould have to substitute a no tion o f transformation: a regulated transfo rm ation o f one language by another, o f one text by another. We never w ill have, and in fa c t never have had, to do w ith some “ transport” o f pure signifieds from one language to another, o r w ith in one and the same language, tha t the sign ifying instrum ent w ould leave v irg in and untouched.” Jacques D errida , “Semiology and Grammatology,” trans. A lan Bass, in Positions (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 20.

3. W alter Benjam in, “T he Task o f the T ranslator,” trans. H a rry Zohn, in H annah A rendt, ed., Illum inations (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 69-82, 80.

4. Ib id ., 72.

5. Ib id ., 75.

6. “A text lives only i f it lives on [sur-vit], and it lives on on ly i f i t is at once translatable and untranslatable . . . T o ta lly translatable, it disappears as a text, as w ritin g , as a body o f language [langue]. Tota lly untranslatable, even w ith in w hat is believed to be one language, it dies im m ediately. Thus trium p h a n t transla tion is ne ithe r the life n o r the death o f the text, on ly o r already its liv in g on, its life a fte r life , its life a fte r death.” Jacques D errida, “L iv ing O n: Border Lines,” trans. James H u lb e rt, in Deconstruction and Criticism (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), 75-176, 102.

Note to Pages 5-10222______________

7. See Jacques D errida, “Me— Psychoanalysis: An In tro d u c tio n to The Shell and the Kernel by N icolas Abraham ,” trans. R ichard K le in , Diacritics, vol. 9, no. 1, S pring 1979, 4-12.

8. “For i f the d ifficu ltie s o f transla tion can be anticipated . . . one should n o t begin by naively be lieving tha t the w ord ‘deconstruction ' corresponds in French to some clear and univocal s ign ifica tion . There is already in ‘m y’ language a serious (sombre) problem o f transla tion between what here o r there can be envisaged fo r the w ord, and the usage itse lf, the reserves o f the w ord.” Jacques D errida , “L e tte r to a Japanese F riend,” trans. David W ood and R obert Bernasconi, in David Wood and R obert Bernasconi, eds., Derrida and Differance (C oventry: Parousia Press, 1985), 1-5, 1.

9. M artin Heidegger, “B u ild ing , D w elling, T h in k in g ,” trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter, in Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: H arper C olophon, 1971), 143-161.

10. Im m anuel Kant, Critique o f Pure Reason, trans. N orm an Kemp Sm ith (London: M acM illan and Co., 1929), 47.

11. Ib id ., 608.

12. Ib id ., 14.

13. M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, trans. Reginald L illy (B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1991), 127. “ [T ]h a t upon w hich som ething rests, nam ely what lies present before us, supportive . . . the basis, the foo ting , tha t is, the g round .” Ib id ., 104. “In m easuring its e lf up to tha t about w hich it th inks, true th in k in g seeks in the being its e lf th a t on w hich it supports and grounds itse lf. A ll true th in k in g finds grounds and has d e fin ite possib ilities o f g round ing .” M artin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations o f Logic, trans. M ichael H eim (B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1984), 20.

14. M a rtin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph M anheim (New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1959), 2.

15. “ [T ]h e foundation upon w hich trad itio n a l metaphysics is b u ilt is shaken and fo r th is reason the p ro p e r ed ifice o f Metapkysica Specialis begins to to tte r.” M artin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem o f Metaphysics, trans. R ichard T a ft (B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1990), 85.

16. Im m anuel Kant, Critique o f Pure Reason, 60.

17. “To th is end, the general m eaning o f the term “laying the g round” [ Grundlegung] m ust firs t be c la rifie d . The expression’s m eaning is best illu stra ted i f we consider the b u ild in g trade. I t is tru e th a t metaphysics is n o t a b u ild in g o r structure [Gebdude] th a t is a t hand, b u t is rea lly in a ll hum an beings ‘as a na tura l construction o r arrangem ent.’ As a consequence, laying the ground fo r metaphysics can mean to lay a founda tion [Fundament] under th is na tura l metaphysics, o r ra the r to replace one w hich has already been la id w ith a new one th rough a process o f substituting. However, it is precisely th is representation w hich we m ust keep o u t o f the idea o f a ground-laying, namely, th a t it is a m atter o f the byproduct from the founda tion [Grundlagen] o f an already-constructed b u ild in g . G round-laying is ra the r the p ro jecting o f the b u ild in g p lan its e lf so tha t it agrees w ith the d irec tio n concern ing on w hat and how the b u ild in g w ill be grounded. Laying the ground fo r metaphysics as the p ro jecting [Entwerfen] o f the b u ild in g p lan , however, is again no em pty producing o f a system and its subdivisions. I t is ra ther the arch itecton ic c ircum scrip tion and de lineation o f the in n e r possib ility o f metaphysics, th a t is, the

Note to Pages 10-24223_______________

concrete determ ination o f its essence. A ll de term ina tion o f essence, however, is firs t achieved in the setting-free o f the essential ground.

Laying the ground as the p ro jec tion o f the in n e r possib ility o f metaphysics is thus necessarily a m atter o f le ttin g the supporting power o f the already-laid ground become operative. W hether and how th is takes place is the c rite rio n o f the o rig in a lity and scope o f a ground-laying.” M a rtin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem o f Metaphysics, 1.

18. Jacques D errida, “S tructu re , Sign and Play in the Discourse o f the Hum an Sciences,” in W riting and Difference, trans. A lan Bass (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 278-294, 278.

19. “ In architecture the c h ie f p o in t is a certa in use o f the artisdc ob ject to w hich, as the cond ition , the aesthetic ideas are lim ite d . . . adaption o f the p roduct to a pa rticu la r use is the essential elem ent in a work o f architecture.” Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f Judgement, trans. James Creed M ered ith (London: O xfo rd U niversity Press, 1952), 186.

20. Ib id ., 188.

21. “M uch m ight be added to a b u ild in g tha t w ould im m ediately please the eye, were it n o t intended fo r a chu rch .” Ib id ., 73.

22. Jacques D errida, “Force and S ign ifica tion ,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference (C hicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 3-30, 17. The essay goes on to argue that m etaphor “is the essential w eight w hich anchors discourse in metaphysics.”

23. Ib id ., 16.

24. Ib id ., 5.

25. Ib id ., 15.

26. Jacques D errida, “W hite M ythology: M etaphor in the Text o f Philosophy,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, M argins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 207-271, 224.

27. Some o f the m u ltip le com plications th is un ique status produces can be seen when D errida invokes the a rch ite c tu ra l “m etaphor” to describe his sustained attem pt to underm ine the d istinction between the conceptual system o f philosophy and its m etaphors: “ I try to deconstruct the opposition between concept and m etaphor and to rebu ild , to restructure th is fie ld .” Jacques D errida , ‘Jacques D errida on R hetoric and Com position: A Conversation,” in terview w ith Gary A. O lson, Journal o f Advanced Composition, 10, 1990, 1-21. 16. Deconstruction redeploys and underm ines the image o f arch itecture that, among so many other th ings, subordinates tha t very image o f arch itecture.

28. Jacques D errida, “L e tte r to a Japanese F riend ,” 1.

29. ‘W ith th is problem o f transla tion we w ill thus be dealing w ith n o th ing less than the problem o f the very passage in to philosophy.” Jacques D errida . “P lato’s Pharmacy,” trans. Barbara Johnson, in Jacques D e rrida , Dissemination (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 61-172, 72.

30. “Had th e ir enterprise succeeded, the universal tongue w ould have been a pa rticu la r language imposed by vio lence, by force, by v io le n t hegem ony over the rest o f the w orld.

Note to Pages 24-38224_______________

I t w ould n o t have been a universal language— fo r exam ple in the Le ibn izian sense— a transparent language to w hich everyone w ould have had access.” Jacques D errida, “Roundtable on T ransla tion ,” trans. Peggy Kam uf, in C hristie V. M cD onald, ed., The Ear o f the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation (New York: Schocken Books, 1985), 91-162, 101. O n the v io le n t im position o f language, see also Jacques D errida , “Languages and the In s titu tion s o f Philosophy,” trans. Sylvia Soderlind e t al., Recherche et Semiotique/Semiotic Inquiry, vo l. 4, no. 2, 1984, 91-154.

31. Jacques D errida , “R oundtable on T ransla tion ,” 102.

32. Tacques D errida , “A rch itecture W here the Desire May Live,” Domus, vo l. 671, 1986, 17-25, 25.

33. Jacques D errida . “ ‘Genesis and Structure* and Phenom enology,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 154-168, 155.

34. Jacques D errida , “Des Tours de Babel,” 184.

35. Ib id ., 182.

36. Jacques D errida , “D econstruction in Am erica: A n In te rview w ith Jacques D errida ,” in te rview w ith lames Creech, Peggy Kam uf, and lane Todd, C ritical Exchange, no. 17, W in te r 1985, 1-33, 13.

37. “ [I]n spite o f appearances, deconstruction is n e ith e r an analysis no r a critique and its transla tion w ould have to take tha t in to consideration. I t is n o t an analysis in pa rticu la r because the d ism antling o f a structure is n o t a regression toward a simple element, toward an indissoluble origin. These values, like tha t o f analysis, are themselves philosophem es subject to deconstruction .” Jacques D errida, “Le tte r to a Japanese F riend ,” 3.

38. Jacques D errida , “Des Tours de Babel,” 165.

39. Jacques D errida , “O n Colleges and Philosophy,” in terview w ith G eoff Bennington, ICA Documents 4: Postmodernism, 1986, 66-71, 70.

U nbuild ing A rchitecture

1. Jacques D errida , “D ifference,” trans. A lan Bass in Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 1-27, 21.

2. Jacques D errida , “L im ited Inc., a b c . . . ,” trans. Samuel Weber, in Jacques D errida, Lim ited Inc. (Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1988), 34.

3. Jacques D errida , “A rch itecture W here the Desire May L ive ,” 18.

4. M a rtin Heidegger, What Is a Thing? trans. W. B. B arton and Vera Deutsch (Chicago: H enry Regnery Company, 1967), 118-121.

5. Ib id ., 123.

6. M artin Heidegger, The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology, trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter (B loom ing ton : Ind iana U niversity Press, 1982), 22.

Note to Pages 38-40225_______________

7. Ib id .

8. “Philosophy can be characterized only from and in h isto rica l reco llection . But th is reco llection is only w hat it is, is on ly liv in g , in the m om ent o f self-understanding, and tha t means in one’s own free, productive grasp o f the task harbored in philosophy. The ways o f h isto rica l reco llection and o f re fle c tio n on the present are n o t two ways, b u t are both essential elements o f every way toward the idea o f philosophy. This idea is to be defined no t by our devising, say, a so-called m odern n o tion o f philosophy, so that we may then consult the h isto ry o f ph ilosophy in retrospect to fin d o u t w hat has already been thought and in tim ated o f o u r idea and what has not. N or is it an appropria te procedure fo r us to pick out a ph ilosophy from history, be it the philosophy o f Plato o r A ris to tle , o r o f Leibniz or Kant, and sim ply insta ll ourselves in it as in the presum ptive tru th , in o rde r then to ta ilo r and supplem ent it, as it were, fo r m odern needs. There is no t a h isto rica l de fin ition o f ph ilosophy and next to it a so-called systematic d e fin itio n , n o r conversely. . . . the d is tin c tio n is spurious and m ust be e lim ina ted .” M artin Heidegger, The Metaphysical Foundations o f Logic, 8.

9. “B ut th is destruction is ju s t as fa r from having the negative sense o f shaking o ff the on to log ica l trad ition . We m ust, on the contrary, stake o u t the positive possibilities o f th a t tra d itio n , and this always means keeping it w ith in its lim its . . .” M artin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John M acquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: H arper and Row, 1962), 44.

10. M artin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 93. “We speak o f an abyss where the ground fa lls away and a g round is lacking to us, where we seek the ground and set ou t to arrive at a ground, to get to the bottom o f som ething.” M artin Heidegger, “Language,” trans. A lb e rt Hofstadter, in M a rtin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), 187-210, 191.

11. “W hat the p rinc ip le o f reason states in its o rd in a ry fo rm u la tio n has in some fashion always resounded in W estern thought. Yet measured h istoriographica lly, two thousand three hundred years were needed u n til the p rin c ip le o f reason came to lig h t and le t its e lf be set up as a fundam ental p rin c ip le .” M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, 53.

12. Ib id ., 13.

13. Ib id .

14. Ib id ., 100.

15. Ib id ., 9.

16. Ib id ., 13.

17. This degenerate transla tion is based on a degeneration th a t already occurred w ith in the o rig ina l Greek, re q u irin g a re tu rn to a m ore p rim o rd ia l o rig in : “B ut w ith this La tin translation the o rig ina l m eaning o f the Greek w ord physis is th ru s t aside, the actual ph ilosophica l force o f the G reek w ord is destroyed. T h is is true n o t only o f the La tin translation o f this word b u t o f a ll o ther Roman translations o f the Greek philosophica l language. W hat happened in th is transla tion from the Greek in to the La tin is n o t accidental and harmless; it m arks the firs t stage in the process by w hich we cut ourselves o ff and alienated ourselves from the o rig in a l essence o f Greek philosophy. . . . B u t it should be said in passing th a t even w ith in Greek philosophy a narrow ing o f the w ord set in fo rth w ith , although the o rig in a l m eaning d id n o t vanish from the experience, know l-

Note to Pages 41-43226_______________

edge, and o rien ta tio n o f Greek philosophy.” M artin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 13.

18. “ The pe rfection o f technology is on ly the echo o f the demand fo r perfectio, w hich means, the completeness o f a foundation . . . . M odern technology pushes toward the greatest possible perfection . P erfection is based on the thoroughgoing ca lcu lab ility o f objects. The ca lcu lab ility o f objects presupposes the unqua lified va lid ity o f the principium rationis. I t is in th is way tha t the au tho rity characteristic o f the p rinc ip le o f ground determ ines the essence o f the m odern, technological age.” M artin Heidegger, “ The P rincip le o f Reason,” the 1956 address published in The Principle o f Reason, 117-129, 121.

19. “O nly w hat presents its e lf to o u r cogn ition , on ly what we en-counter such tha t it is posed and posited in its reasons, counts as som ething w ith secure standing, tha t means, as an object. O n ly what stands in th is m anner is som ething o f w hich we can, w ith certainty, say “it is.” O nly what is b rought to a stand in a founded representation counts as a being.” M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, 27.

20. Ib id ., 49.

21. Ib id ., 51.

22. O f the w ord “deconstruction,” D errida argues tha t “Am ong o ther things I wished to translate and adapt to my own ends the Heideggerian word Destruktion o r Abbau.n Jacques D errida, “Le tte r to a Japanese F riend ,” 1.

23. Jacques D errida , “Roundtable on Autobiography,” trans. Peggy Ramuf, in C hristie V. M cDonald, ed., The Ear o f the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation (New York: Schocken Books, 1985), 39-90, 86.

24. Jacques D errida . “Le tter to a Japanese F riend ,” 1.

25. “O n the w ord ‘deconstruction ,’ w hich in my m ind was intended to translate a word such as Abbau in Heidegger— Destruktion in H eidegger is no t a negative w ord e ithe r— it ’s a m atter o f ga in ing access to the m ode in which a system o r structure, o r ensemble, is constructed o r constituted, h is to rica lly speaking. N ot to destroy it, o r dem olish it, no r to p u rify it, bu t in o rder to accede to its possibilities and its m eaning; to its construction and its h isto ry.” ‘Jacques D errida in C onversation,” in te rview w ith Raul M ortley in Raul M ortley, ed., French Philosophers in Conversation: Derrida, Irigary, Levinas, LeDoeuff, Schneider, Serres (London: Routledge, 1990), 92-108, 97.

26. Jacques D errida , “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism w ithou t Reserve,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 251-277, 260.

27. “B ut we m ust no t equate such a shaking o f the foundations [o f a ll o f m an’s th in k in g ] w ith revo lu tion and collapse. The shaking o f th a t w hich exists may be the way by which an e q u ilib riu m arises, a position o f rest such as have never been— because tha t rest, tha t peace, is already present at the heart o f the shock.” M artin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking trans. J. G lenn Gray (New York: H arper and Row, 1968), 65.

28. Jacques D errida , O f Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltim ore: Johns H opkins U niversity Press, 1976), 163.

Note to Pages 43-47227_______________

29. Jacques Derrida, “Fors: The Anguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok,” foreward to Nicolas Abraham and M aria Torok, The W olf M an's Magic Word, trans. N icolas Rand (M inneapolis: U n iversity o f M innesota Press, 1986), x i-x lv iii, x x iii.

30. Jacques D errida, Glas, trans. John P. Leavy, Jr. and R ichard Rand (L inco ln : U niversity o f Nebraska Press, 1986), 200.

31. Ib id ., 110.

32. Jacques D errida, “Force and S ign ifica tion ,” 6.

33. Jacques Derrida, “ T he A rt o f M em oires trans. Jonathan C uller, in Jacques D errida, Memoires fo r Paul De M an. (New York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1986), 45-88, 72.

34. Ib id ., 73.

35. Ib id ., 73.

36. “ The ‘de-’ o f ̂ co n s tru c tio n signifies no t the dem o lition o f what is constructing itse lf, b u t ra the r what rem ains to be thought beyond the constructivist o r destruction ist scheme.” Jacques D errida , “A fte rw ord : Towards an E th ic o f D iscussion,” trans. Samuel Weber, in Jacques D errida , Lim ited Inc. (Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1988), 111-160, 147.

37. “As a cornerstone, it supports it, however ricke ty it may be, and brings together a t a single p o in t a ll its forces and tensions. I t does n o t do th is from a centra l com m anding p o in t, like a keystone; b u t it also does it, laterally, in its corner."Jacques D errida, “ The A rt o f Memoires,” 74.

38. Jacques D errida, “A rch ite c tu re W here the Desire May Live,” 18.

39. Jacques D errida, “Force and S ign ifica tion ,” 6.

40. “I f deconstruction were to fin d its e lf faced w ith some objects, o r an object (I leave aside fo r the m om ent the question about th is w ord and th is concept, because I am n o t sure tha t deconstruction is concerned w ith som ething like an object o r ob jects), it would n o t be sim ply a constructum o r a structure tha t w ould have to be undone in order to uncover its archeological g round , its o rig ina l founda tion (o r as someone recently p u t it, w ith a barely disguised and trium p h a n t ingenuity, a radical beg inn ing ). On the contrary, it has been clear from the beg inning th a t deconstructive question ing takes aim at and against such a fundam ental m ytho-radicology. A t the same tim e, the question bears upon the philosophical p ro jec t inso fa r as it requires a founda tion , an architectonics and a systematics . . . [ “Si la deconstruction se trouva it devant des objets, ou un object (je laisse pou r l ’instant la question de ce m ot et de ce concept, n ’etant pas sur que la deconstructio n a it a ffa ire a quelque chose comme un ou des objets), ce ne sera it pas seulem ent un constructum ou une struc tu re q u ’il fau d ra it defaire po u r degager en fin son sol archeolo- gique, son fondem ent o rig in a ire ou, comme on l*a e c rit recem m ent avec une ingenuite triom phante e t a peine fe in te , un comm encement radical. II a ete c la ir des le depart, au con tra ire , que la mise en question deconstructrice porte avec insistance sur e t contre une te lle m ytho-radicologie fondam entale. Du meme coup, la question porte sur le p ro je t ph ilosophique en tant q u ’i l exige le fondem ent e t l ’a rch itecton ique, le syst6mique . . . ] ” Jacques D errida, “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” Digraphe, 11, M arch 1977, 83-121, 118.

41. “Une pratique deconstructice q u i ne p o rte ra it pas sur ‘des appareils institu tionne ls e t des processus historiques’ . . . qu i se con ten te ra it de trava ille r sur des philosophem es

Note to Pages 48-52228_______________

ou des signifies conceptuels, des discours, etc., ne serait pas deconstructrice; e lle repro- d u ira it, quelle que so it son o rig in a lite , le m ouvem ent au tocritique de la ph ilosoph ic dans sa tra d itio n in te rn e .” Ib id ., 117.

42. Jacques D errida , “Parergon,” trans. G eoff B ennington and Ian M cLeod, in Jacques D errida , The Truth In Painting (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 15-147, 19.

43. Jacques D errida , “ The P rincip le o f Reason: The U niversity in the Eyes o f its Pupils,” trans. C atherine P orter and Edward P. M orris, Diacritics, vo l. 13, no. 3, 1983, 3-20, 3.

44. Ib id ., 16.

45. Jacques D errida , “Languages and Institu tions o f Philosophy,” 135.

46. Ib id ., 135.

47. “I f those o f us here are aware o f ourselves as belonging to the university, then we move on the basis upon w hich the university its e lf rests. T ha t is the p rin c ip le o f reason. However, w hat rem ains astounding is tha t we who are here have s till never encountered the p rin c ip le o f reason . . . I f the university is n o t b u ilt upon a p rinc ip le , then perhaps it is b u ilt upon th a t about which the p rin c ip le speaks?” M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, 28.

48. “U n evenem ent de fondation ne peut etre sim plem ent com pris dans la logique de ce qu ’i l fonde .” Jacques D errida , “M ochlos ou le c o n flit des facultes,” Philosophie, 2, A p ril 1984, 21-53, 50.

49. “Mais la responsabilite m in im ale au jourd ’hu i, et en tous cas la plus interessante, la plus nouvelle, la plus fo rte , pour quiconque appartien t a une in s titu tio n de recherche ou d ’enseignem ent, c’est peut-etre de rendre aussi claires et aussi them atiques que possible une te lle im p lica tion p o litiq u e , son systeme ou ses apories.” Ib id ., 41.

50. “Le lisan t au jou rd ’h u i, je pergois son assurance et sa necessite comme on peut adm irer la rig ue u r d ’un p lan ou d ’une structure a travers les breches d ’un ed ifice inhab itab le e t d o n t on ne saurait decider s’i l est en ruines ou s’i l n ’a sim plem ent jam ais existe, n ’ayant jam ais pu qu ’a b rite r le discours de son inachevem ent.” Ib id ., 30.

51. “ Toute l ’a rch itecton ique.” Ib id ., 33.

52. See, pa rticu la rly, M artin Heidegger, The Essence o f Reasons, trans. Terrence M alick (Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1969), 105-111.

53. “U n concept in s titu tio n n e l est en je u .” Jacques D errida , “M ochlos ou le c o n flit des facultes,” 41.

54. ‘XHertaines ins titu tions a rtific ie lles , d it-il alors, o n t p ou r fondem ent une idee de la raison.” Ib id ., 23.

55. “L ’in s titu tio n , ce ne sont pas seulem ent des m urs e t des m urs e t des structures exterieures q u i en tourent, protegent, garantissent ou contra ignent la libe rte de notre trava il, c’est aussi e t deja la structure de no tre in te rp re ta tio n . Des lors, si e lle pretend a quelque consequence, ce qu ’on appelle tres v ite la deconstruction n ’est jam ais un ensemble technique de procedures discursives, encore m oins une nouvelle m ethode her- m eneutique trava illan t sur des archives ou des enonces a l ’ab ri d ’une in s titu tio n donnee et stable; c’est aussi, e t au m oins, une prise de position , dans le trave il meme, a l ’egard

Note to Pages 52-54229_______________

de structures p o litico -ins titu tio n n e lle s qu i constituen t et reg len t no tre pratique, nos competences et nos perfom ances. Precisement parce qu ’e lle n ’a jam ais concerne seule- m ent des contenus de sens, la deconstruction devra it ne pas etre separable de cette problem atique p o litico -in s titu tio n n e lle et re q u e rir un questionnem ent nouveau sur la responsabilite, un questionnem ent q u i ne se fie p lus necessairem ent aux codes herites du po litique ou de l ’e th ique. Ce qu i fa it que, tro p p o litiq u e aux yeux des uns, e lle puisse para itre dem obilisante aux yeux de ceux q u i ne reconnaissent le p o litiq u e qu ’a l ’aide des panneaux de signalisation d ’avant la guerre .” Ib id , 41.

56. “B ut the available codes fo r taking such a p o litic a l stance are n o t a t a ll adequate to the rad ica lity o f deconstruction . A nd the absence o f an adequate p o litica l code to translate o r incorporate the rad ica l im p lica tions o f deconstruction has given many the im pression that deconstruction is opposed to p o litics , o r is a t best apo litica l. B ut th is im pression only prevails because a ll o f ou r p o litic a l codes and term inologies s till rem ain fundam entally m etaphysical, regardless o f w hether they o rig ina te from the rig h t o r the le ft.” Jacques D errida, “D econstruction and the O ther,” in R ichard Kearney, ed., Dialogues m th Contemporary Continental Thinkers (M anchester: M anchester U niversity Press, 1984), .105-126, 120. “ The signs by w hich you recognize th a t a discourse is p o litica l: th a t’s an enorm ous question, one th a t has always m attered to me. I th in k th a t my w ork, from tha t p o in t o f view, has always been preoccupied by the question o f the p o litica l, o f what was p o litica l. A t the same tim e one has to avoid le ttin g one ’s discourse be ru led by the signals th a t are the usual c rite ria on th is subject.” Jacques D errida , “ The D erridean View: An Inter-view w ith Jacques D e rrid a ,” in terview w ith Edward M arx, trans. M ary Ann Caws, BM104, vol. 2, no. 1, S ept 1988, 4 -5 , 5.

57. The p o litica l threat posed by deconstructive discourse is produced by its displacem ent o f the cond ition o f a rch itectu re , a displacem ent th a t transform s the p o litica l. W hen describing its analysis o f the h idden assumptions on w hich in s titu tio n a l powers “are b u ilt ” D errida argues that “what is considered th reaten ing is n o t a p o litica lly revo lu tionary position , i f it is expressed in a coded and tra d itio n a l way, rather, i t is som ething w hich sometimes doesn’t lo o k p o litic a l b u t d isturbs the tra d itio n a l ways o f reading, understanding, discussing, w ritin g , using rhe to ric , etc.— because th is underm ines, o r n o t necessarily underm ines, b u t a t least discovers, w hat was hidden in the in s titu tio n .” Jacques D errida , “Some Questions and Responses,” N ige l Fabb et a l., eds., The Linguistics o f W riting: Arguments between Language and Literature (M anchester: M anchester U niversity Press, 1987), 252-264, 256.

58. Jacques D errida, “O n Colleges and Philosophy,” 69.

59. “Hence the necessity fo r deconstruction to deal w ith texts in a d iffe re n t way than as discursive contents, them es o r theses, bu t always as in s titu tio n a l structures, and, as is com m only said, as be ing po litica l-ju rid ica l-soc ioh is to rica l— none o f these last words being re liab le enough to be used easily, hence th e ir re lative rare use in the m ost cautious texts called deconstructive.” Jacques D errida , “Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and O ther Sm all Seismisms,” trans. Anne Tom iche, in David C arro ll, ed., The States o f “ Theory”: History, A rt and C ritica l Discourse (New York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1990), 63-94, 86.

60. Ib id ., 64.

61. Ib id ., 67.

62. Ib id ., 68.

63. Ib id ., 93.

Note to Pages 54-62230_______________

64. Ib id ., 88.

65. This trem b ling movement tha t founds the structure o f the university is n o t confined to tha t structu re . O n the contrary, it marks th a t structu re ’s pa rtic ipa tion in a ll o f those in s titu tio n a l structures its walls appear to isolate itse lf from : “W hat we ca ll deconstruction is . . . How shall I say? Im agine a great earthquake th roughou t C a lifo rn ia . A nd then in a university somebody sees a crack appear. W ell, deconstruction— deconstruction under tha t name, and in the fo rm o f the discourses we’ve been re fe rring to in the last few m inutes— is the W estern, lite rary, ph ilosophica l academic fo rm fo r the essential p a rt o f th is great hum an earthquake w hich is rocking a ll the structures o f hum anity. The log ica l, econom ic, social structures, etc.” Jacques D errida , “D econstruction in Am erica: A n In te rview W ith Jacques D e rrida ,” 18.

66. Jacques D errida . “Du Tout,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 497-521, 508.

67. Ib id ., 519.

68. W hen speaking o f the “ transla tion” o f deconstruction in Am erica, D errida argues that “ I don ’t know i f there is an o rig ina l o f deconstruction,” tha t, i f anything, deconstruction is its e lf already a translation: “ The w ord ‘deconstruction ’ its e lf has a whole genealogy. I t ’s an o ld French word w hich had fa llen ou t o f use, tha t I used fo r the firs t tim e, so to speak, in th is p a rticu la r sense. B u t I d id so w ith the sense th a t I was transla ting and de form ing a w ord o f Freud’s and a word o f H eidegger’s. In Heidegger the w ord is ‘Abbau,’ as w e ll as ‘D estruktion .’ But deconstruction is ne ither H eidegger’s Abbau no r Destruktion, a lthough it is related, naturally. So already the ‘firs t use’ o f the w ord deconstruction was a so rt o f de form ing translation in w hich the schema o f an o rig in a l req u irin g a supplem ent and so fo rth , was made to p o in t back towards Abbau and Destruktion.” Jacques D errida . “D econstruction in Am erica: An In te rview w ith Jacques D errida ,” 22.

The S lippery A rt o f Space

1. M artin Heidegger, “ The P rinc ip le o f Reason” [the 1956 address] The Principle o f Reason, 123.

2. M artin Heidegger, “ The O rig in o f the W ork o f A rt,” in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), 41.

3. Ib id .

4. Ib id , 43.

5. The Greek tem ple is ne ither a representation o f the ground n o r even a presentation, b u t its very p roduction : “ T ru th happens in the tem ple’s standing where it is. T his does no t mean tha t som ething is correctly represented and rendered there, bu t tha t w hat is as a whole is b rough t in to unconcealedness and he ld the re in .” Ib id ., 56.

6. M artin Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. I l l : The W ill to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics, trans. David F a rre ll K re ll (San Francisco: H arper and Row, 1987), 143.

7. M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, 49.

8. “Being ‘is* in essence: ground/reason. Therefore being can never firs t have a ground/reason w hich w ould supposedly ground i t . . . Being ‘is* the abyss in the sense

Note to Pages 63-68231_______________

o f such a rem aining-apart o f reason from being. To the extent th a t be ing as such grounds, it rem ains groundless.*" Ib id , 51. ‘"Being is in trin s ica lly g round like , what gives ground, presences as the ground, has the character o f ground. Precisely because it is g round like , groundgiving, it cannot need a ground. The g round like is groundless, what grounds, what presences as basis does n o t need the ground; tha t is, i t is w ith o u t som ething to w hich i t could go back as som ething outside o f it, there is no longer any back, no behind itse lf, b u t pure presencing itse lf: the prim ordial.** M artin Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence o f Human Freedom, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens: O h io U niversity Press, 1985), 170.

9. M artin Heidegger, “ T he O rig in o f the W ork o f Art,** 20.

10. Ib id ., 41.

11. In these lectures, H eidegger defends his assertion o f the “priority** o f the word fo r the Greeks whereby “poe tiz ing and th in k in g had the highest rank” against the tra d itio n a l view tha t architecture and sculpture were o f a “h ighe r ran k.” He argues tha t th is question o f rank only emerged w ith the aesthetic conception o f a rt th a t “commences precisely (by essential necessity) w ith the incep tion o f metaphysics” in P lato’s texts and is sustained by the everyday “erroneous” view tha t “A rch itectu re and sculpture use as th e ir m atter the relative ly stable m ateria l o f wood, stone, steel. They are independent o f the flee ting breath o f the quickly fad ing and, moreover, am biguous w ord.” M a rtin Heidegger, Parmenides, trans. Andre Schuwer and R ichard Rojcewicz (B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1992), 114-6. A ga inst th is view, he goes on to argue tha t “ Indeed arch itecture and sculpture do no t use the w ord as th e ir m atter. B ut how could there ever be temples o r statues, existing fo r w hat they are, w ith o u t the word? . . . the circum stance that in a tem ple o r a statue o f A p o llo there are no words as m ateria l to be worked upon and “fo rm ed” by no means proves tha t these “works,” in what they are and how they are, do no t s till need the word in an essential way. The essence o f the w ord does n o t at a ll consist in its vocal sound, n o r in loquacity and noise, and n o t in its m erely technical function in the com m unication o f in fo rm a tio n . The statue and the tem ple stand in s ilen t dialogue w ith man in the unconcealed. I f there were n o t the silent word, then the looking god as sight o f the statue and o f the features o f its fig u re cou ld never appear. And a tem ple could never, w ithout standing in the disclosive dom ain o f the w ord, present its e lf as the house o f a god. The fa c t th a t the Greeks d id n o t describe and ta lk about th e ir ‘works o f a rt’ ‘aesthetically’ bears witness to the fact tha t these works stood w ell secured in the c la rity o f the word, w ith o u t w hich a colum n w ould n o t be a co lum n, a tym panum a tym panum , a frieze a frieze . . . These ‘works* exist on ly in the m edium o f the w ord.” Ib id ., 116. B ut inasmuch as H eidegger assumes th a t the w ord is p rio r to arch itecture, th a t there can be word w ith o u t a rch itectu re, he has restored the very sense o f rank, as w ell as the tra d itio n o f metaphysics, he claim s to resist. A t the same tim e, as he does in “ The O rig in o f the Work o f A rt,” he tac itly th inks o f the w ord in a rch itectu ra l term s by g iving it a structu ring role, in the sense that, fo r h im , a rt is “secured” by the w ord. The very idea o f rank as a vertica l structu re , w hich he a t once employs and discredits, is bound to the image o f arch itecture he is attem pting to subordinate. In the end, the “p rio rity ” o f the word over arch itecture is n o t established. Rather, it is rad ica lly com plicated.

12. Jacques D errida, “R estitu tions o f the T ru th in P o in ting [pointure],” trans. G eoff Bennington and Ian M cLeod, in Jacques D errida , The Truth in P ainting (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 255-382, 262.

13. Jacques Derrida, “P arergon,” 22.

14. Jacques D errida, “Im p lica tio n s,” in te rview w ith H e n ri Rose, trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, Positions (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 1-14, 10.

Note to Pages 68-70232_______________

15. Jacques D errida , O f Grammatology, 15.

16. Ib id ., 44.

17. Ib id ., 24.

18. Ib id ., 98.

19. Ib id ., 196.

20. Ib id ., 166.

21. “ The ideal fo rm o f a w ritten sign ifies fo r exam ple, is n o t in the w orld , and the d is tinc tion between the graphem e and the em pirica l body o f the corresponding graphic sign separates an inside from an outside, phenom enological consciousness from the w orld . A nd th is is true fo r every visual o r spatial s ign ifie r. A nd yet every non-phonic s ig n ifie r involves a spatial reference in its very ‘phenom enon,’ in the phenom enological (nonw orld ly) sphere o f experience in which it is given. The sense o f being ‘outside,’ ‘in the w o rld ,’ is an essential com ponent o f its phenom enon. Apparently there is no th ing like th is in the phenom enon o f speech.” Jacques D errida , Speech and Phenomena: Introduction to the Problem o f Signs in HusserVs Phenomenology, trans. David B. A lliso n (Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1973), 76. “ This is why hearing oneself speak [s ’entendre parler] is experienced as an absolutely pure auto-affection, occurring in a se lf-proxim ity tha t w ould in fact be the absolute reduction o f space in general.” Ib id ., 79.


23. Ib id ., 290.

24. Jacques D errida , “P lato’s Pharmacy,” 109.

25. Jacques D errida , Speech and Phenomena: Introduction to the Problem o f Signs in HusserVs

26. Jacques D errida , O f Grammatology, 69. “A voice may detach its e lf from the body, from the very firs t instan t it may cease to belong to i t By w hich it traces, it is a trace, a spacing, a w ritin g .” Jacques D errida, “Voice I I . . .,” trans. Verena A nderm att Conley. Boundary I t vol. 12, no. 2, 1984, 76-93, 79. This sense o f “spacing” is precisely opposed to tha t occasionally em ployed by Heidegger fo r whom “spacing” [Abstand] is on ly the spatial distance between geom etric points. M artin Heidegger, History o f the Concept o f Time: Prolegomena, trans. Theodore K isie l (B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1985), 228.

27. Jacques D errida , O f Grammatology, 232. “W hether i t be linked by its o rig in to the representations o f th ings in space o r w hether i t rem ains caught in a system o f phonic differences o r social classifications apparently released from o rd in a ry space, the properness o f the name does n o t escape spacing.” Therefore it m ust be “situated” Ib id ., 89.

28. Ib id ., 290.

29. “ T h is fissure is no t one among others. I t is the fissure: the necessity o f in te rva l, the harsh law o f spacing.” Ib id ., 200,

30. Ib id ., 203.

31. Ib id ., 200. W ritin g is a “ciphered spacing,” an “essential spacing” such th a t “Spatiali- zation does n o t surprise the tim e o f speech o r the idea lity o f m eaning, i t does n o t happen

Note to Pages 71-74233_______________

to them like an accident. . . . every sym bolic synthesis, even before it fa lls in to a space ‘e x te rio r’ to it, includes w ith in its e lf spacing as d iffe rence .” Jacques D errida , “Freud and the Scene o f W riting ,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 196-231, 219.

32. “An in te rva l must separate the present from what i t is n o t in o rde r fo r the present to be itse lf, bu t th is in te rva l th a t constitutes it as present m ust, by the same token, d ivide the present in and o f itse lf, thereby also d iv id ing , along w ith the present, everything th a t is though t on the basis o f the present, th a t is, in o u r m etaphysical language, every being, and singularity substance o r the subject. In constitu ting itse lf, in d iv id in g its e lf dynamic cally, th is in te rva l is w hat m ig h t be called spacing, . . Jacques D errida , “D ifferance,” 13. T h is spacing is the basis o f D e rrid a ’s quasi concept o f “d iffe rance”: “D ifferer in th is sense is to tem porize . . . th is tem poriza tion is also tem ppra liza tion and spacing, the becoming-tim e o f space and becoming-space o f tim e The o ther sense o f d iffe rer. . . is a question o f d issim ilar otherness o r o f a lle rg ic and polem ical otherness, an in te rva l, a distance, spacing must be produced between the elem ents other, and be produced w ith a certa in perseverance in re p e titio n .. . . Differance as tem poriza tion, differance as spacing.” Ib id ., 8.

33. Jacques D errida, O f Grammatology, 201.

34. Ib id ., 280.

35. Ib id ., 160.

36. Jacques D errida, “Desistance,” trans. C hristopher Fynsk, in tro d u c tio n to C hristopher Fynsk, ed., Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics (C am bridge: H arvard U niversity Press, 1989), 1-42, 32-33.

37. Jacques D errida, “D econstruction and the O ther,” 109.

38. Jacques D errida, “Sem iology and G ram m atology,” 27.

39. Jacques D errida, “P ositions,” in te rview w ith Jean-Louis H oudebine and Guy Scarpetta, trans. A lan Bass, In Jacques D errida , Positions (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 37-96, 106.

40. Ib id ., 81.

41. Ib id ., 94. “Since the trace is the in tim ate re la tio n o f the liv in g present w ith its outside, the openness upon e x te rio rity in general, upon the sphere o f what is n o t ‘one’s own,’ etc. the temporaUzation o f sense is, from the outset, a *spacing. ’ As soon as we adm it spacing bo th as ‘in te rva l’ or d iffe rence and as openness upon the outside, there can no longer be any absolute inside, fo r the ‘outside* has insinuated its e lf in to the m ovem ent by w hich the inside o f the nonspatia l, w h ich is called ‘ tim e,’ appears, is constitu ted, is ‘presented.’ Space is ‘in ’ tim e.” Jacques D errida , Speech and Phenomena: Introduction to the Problem o f Signs in Husserls Phenomenology, 86.

42. “Le to u t sans nouveaute / q u ’un espacement / de la lectu re .” Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), v. The c ita tio n is from M al- la rm e’s preface to Un Coup de des.

43. “ I t is evident that th e concept o f spacing, by itse lf, cannot account fo r anything, any m ore than any other co n ce p t I t cannot account fo r the d ifferences— the d iffe re n t things—between w hich is opened the spacing w hich nevertheless de lim its them . B u t i t w ould be to accord a theo log ica l fu n c tion to th is concept to expect it to be an exp lica ting

Note to Pages 74-76234______________

p rinc ip le o f a ll determ ined spaces, o f a ll d iffe re n t things. Spacing certa in ly operates in a ll fie lds, but precisely as d iffe re n t fie lds. A nd its operation is d iffe re n t each tim e, articu lated otherw ise.” Jacques D errida , “Positions,” 81. “O f course, i f I had on ly endlessly repeated the unique word spacing, you would be com pletely rig h t. B ut I have no less insisted on the other and on several others. Spacing also signifies, precisely, the im possib ility o f reducing the chain to one o f its links o r o f absolutely p riv ileg ing one— o r the other.” Ib id ., 107.


45. “We have now been brought qu ite na tura lly to the problem o f the composition o f the Essay: n o t on ly o f the tim e o f its w ritin g , b u t o f the space o f its structure. Rousseau divided it in to chapters belatedly. W hat scheme guided him? The arch itecture m ust fin d its ju s tifica tio n in the deep in te n tio n o f the Essay I t is fo r tha t reason tha t it interests us. Yet we must no t confound the m eaning o f the architecture w ith the declared in te n tio n o f the w ork.” Ib id ., 195.

46. Ib id ., 216.

47. D errida looks, fo r exam ple, a t the “spacings” o f the preface (“A certa in spacing between concept and being-there, between concept and existence, between though t and tim e, would thus constitute the ra ther unqua lifiab le lodg ing o f the preface.” [Jacques D errida, “O utw ork, Prefacing,” trans. Barbara Johnson, in Jacques D errida , Dissemination (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 1-59, 12 .]), the m argins (w hich produce both “ the inequality o f the in te rn a l spacings” o f the “space” o f philosophy and the apparent “regu larity o f its borders.” [Jacques D errida , “ Tym phan,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), ix-xxix, x x iv ]), and the title (Jacques D errida, “ T itle (To Be S pecified),” trans. Tom Conley, Sub-Stance, 31, 1981, 5-22 .).

48. “Heidegger seems alm ost never to speak about sexuality o r sexual d iffe rence. A nd he seems alm ost never to speak about psychoanalysis, give o r take an occasional negative allusion. This is ne ither negligence n o r om ission. The pauses com ing from his silence on these questions punctuate o r create the spacing o u t o f a pow erfu l discourse.” Jacques D errida, “Choreographies,” trans. C hristie V. M cDonald, Diacritics, vo l. 12, no. 2, 1982, 66-76, 74.

49. Jacques D errida, “M allarm e,” trans. C hristine Roulston, in Derek A ttrid g e , ed., Acts o f Literature (New York: Routledge, 1992), 110-126, 120.

50. Ib id ., 116. “For example, the sign blanc ( ‘w h ite ,’ ‘b lank,’ ‘space’ ), w ith a ll tha t is associated w ith it from one th in g to the next, is a huge reservoir o f m eaning . . . I t permeates M allarm e’s en tire te x t . . . A nd yet, the w hite also marks, th rough the in te rm ediary o f the w hite page, the place o f the w ritin g o f those ‘whites’; and firs t o f a ll the spacing between the d iffe re n t sign ifica tions (tha t o f w hite among others), the spacing o f reading.” Ib id ., 115.

51. Jacques D errida , “Ce que j ’aurais d it . . . ,” in Le complexe de Leonard ou la Societe de creation (Paris: E d itions de Nouvel Observateur, 1984) 77-92, 92.

52. When D e rrida elaborates G enet’s descrip tion o f the newspaper rep o rt o f a tria l ( “on ly ten lines, w idely enough spaced to le t the a ir circu la te between the over-violent words” ), he argues tha t “ In w ritin g ’s spacing, d u ring the tr ia l o f the narrative [recit], the vertica l lines (necktie, ra in , glaive, cane o r um bre lla tip [eperon]) cu t the horizon ta l lines o f the newspaper o r the book, o f the w ings o r the spokes o f the um brella . Language cuts,

Note to Pages 76-84235_______________

decollates, unglues, decapitates. The sentences co il around a d irec tio n like liana along a truncated colum n.” Jacques D errida , Glas, 74.

53. Ib id ., 75.

54. “ Two unequal colum ns, they say distyle [disent-ils], each o f w hich— envelop(e) (s) o rsheath(es), incalculably reverses, tu rns inside out, replaces, rem arks [recoupe] d ie o ther.” Jacques D errida, Ib id ., 1. W hen D errida writes about the transla tion o f Glas in to English, he elaborates th is play th a t b inds te x t to a rch itecture w h ile arguing tha t the status o f the translation can never be secured fo r speakers o f e ith e r language: “N o t fo r th is at once triv ia l and false reason, th a t b o th w ould be im prisoned in the house o f th e ir own tongue, as i f in a house in the fo rm o f a closed cylinder they cou ld n o t go o u t o f in order to go round [fa ire le tour], fro m one tu rn (o f phrase) [d ’un tour] o r tower [d ’une tour] to the other, in o rde r to see w hat is heard from the ne ighboring cylinder. Now th is book presents itse lf as a volum e of c y lin d ric colum ns, writes on p ierced, incrusted, breached, tattooed cy lin d ric colum ns, on them then, b u t also around them , against them , between them th a t are, th rough and th rough , tongue and text. Kulindros always names a round body, a conveyor ro lle r fo r d isp lacing stones, fo r exam ple in the construction o f m onum ents, pyram ids, o r obelisks, o f o th e r colum ns . . . Kulindros is also occasionally a ro lle d m anuscrip t, a parchm ent scro ll. So one is never enclosed in the co lum n o f one single tongue.” Jacques D errida, “Proverb: ‘He th a t w ould pun trans.John P. Leavy,Jr. in John P.Leavy,Jr., Glossary (L inco ln : U n iversity o f Nebraska Press, 1986), 17-21, 17.

55. Jacques D errida, “Im p lica tio n s ,” 14.

56. Jacques D errida, “ T he P it and the Pyram id: In tro d u c tio n to H egel’s Semiology,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D e rrid a , Margins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 69-108, 105.

57. Ib id ., 94.

58. D errida describes each o f the chain o f term s he coins as having the “strange status” o f “an aconceptual concept o r another k in d o f concept, heterogeneous to the ph ilosoph ical concept o f the concept, a “concept” tha t m arks bo th the possib ility and the lim it o f a ll idealization and hence o f a ll conceptualization.” Jacques D errida , “A fte rw ord : Toward an E thic o f Discussion,” 118.

59. Jacques D errida, “ H ow to A void Speaking: D enials,” trans. Ken Frieden; Sandford Budick and W olfgang Iser, eds., Languages o f the Unsayable: The Play o f Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory (New York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1989), 3-70, 27.

60. O n the “space o f the classroom ” and “a u d ito riu m ,” see M ardn Heidegger, What Is a Thing?, 18-19; M artin Heidegger, History o f the Concept o f Time, 157-158; and M artin Heidegger, The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology, 162-164.

61. Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f Judgement, 68.

62. Ib id ., 67.

63. Jacques D errida, “P arergon,” 59.


65. Ib id ., 167.

Note to Pages 85-94236_______________

66. By no coincidence, the supplem ent in O f Grammatobgy is the “keystone . . . destined to reconstitu te N ature’s ed ifice .” Ib id ., 145.

67. See M ark W igley, “A rch itecture a fte r Philosophy: Le Corbusier and the E m peror’s New P ain t,” Journal o f Philosophy and the Visual Arts, no. 2, 1990, 84-95.

68. Jacques D errida , “Parergon,” 49.

69. Ib id ., 59.

70. Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f Judgment, 5.

71. Ib id ., 159.


73. Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f Judgement, Part I I, 33.

74. Ib id ., Part I, 185.

75. Ib id ., 160.

76. Ib id ., Part I I , 67.


78. M artin Heidegger, “B u ild ing , D w elling, T h in k in g ,” 159.

79. The text, w hich at one poin ts examines and discredits the comm on association between the structu re o f scholastic philosophy and tha t o f gothic cathedrals, addresses at length the “a rch itecton ic” idea o f ph ilosophica l “system” { “ the task o f philosophy” ) as a b u ild in g , before conclud ing by describing “construction as know ledge.” In so doing, he locates philosophy in the “uneasy” dom ain between “ the in n e r jo in tu re g iving things th e ir founda tion and support” and “mere external m an ipu la tion .” H e describes the endless slippage between these poles: “ This fact po ints o u t tha t th is in n e r possib ility o f wavering between jo in tu re and m an ipu la tion and fram ew ork always belongs to system, that every genuine system always rem ains threatened by the decline in to what is spurious, tha t every spurious system can always give the appearance o f being genuine.” M artin Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence o f Human Freedom, 26 “ T his s trife between freedom as the beg inning which needs no ground and system as a closed foundationa l context is, understood correcdy, the inm ost m otive and law o f m otion o f ph ilosophy itse lf. N o t on ly the object, bu t the state o f philosophy.” Ib id ., 62.

80. Jacques D errida , “Restitutions o f the T ru th in P o in ting ,” 288.

81. Jb id ., 290.

82. Note how D errida argues th a t the university is “b u ilt” on the ideal o f transla tion (Jacques D errida , “L iv ing O n: Border Lines,” 93-94) in the same way th a t he argues that it is “b u ilt” on the ideal o f ground-as-support (Jacques D errida , “ The P rinc ip le o f Reason: The U niversity in the Eyes o f Reason.” ).

83. “Beneath [emphasis added] the seem ingly lite ra l and thus fa ith fu l transla tion there is concealed, rather, a translation o f Greek experience in to a d iffe re n t way o f th in k in g . . . without a corresponding equally authentic experience o f what they say . . . The rootlessness o f

N ote to Pages 94-102237________________

W estern thought begins w ith th is transla tion .” M artin Heidegger, “ The O rig in o f the W ork o f A rt,” 23. “We are n o t m erely taking refuge in a m ore lite ra l transla tion o f a Greek w ord. We are rem ind ing ourselves o f what, unexperienced and un thought, underlies o u r fa m ilia r and therefore ou tw orn nature o f tru th in the sense o f correctness.” Ib id ., 52 [emphasis added].

84. Jacques D errida, “R estitu tions o f the T ru th in P o in ting ,” 290.

The Dom estication o f the House

1. M artin Heidegger, “L e tte r on Hum anism ,” trans. David F arre ll K re ll, in M artin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: H arper and Row, 1977), 193-242, 193.

2. Jacques D errida, “Ousia and Gramme: Note on a Note from Being and Tim e” trans. A lan Bass, in Margins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 29-68, 48.


4. Jacques D errida, “ T he Retrait o f M etaphor,” trans. by editors, Enclitic, vol. 2, no. 2, 1978, 5-34, 12.

5. Jacques D errida, “P ositions,” 54.

6. Jacques D errida, “ T he Ends o f M an,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 109-136, 130.

7. Ib id ., 135.


9. Jacques D errida, “ T he Retrait o f M etaphor,” 25. “ This hearth is the heart o f a ll m etaphoricity.” Jacques D e rrid a , “P lato’s Pharmacy,” 88.

10. Jacques D errida, “Le facteur de la ve rite ,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, The Postcard: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 411—496, 441.

11. Jacques D errida, Glas, 134.

12. Jacques D errida, “ T he Ends o f M an,” 129.

13. A ppropria tion is “po e tiz in g b u ild in g .” M artin Heidegger. “O vercom ing Metaphysics,” trans. Joan Stambaugh, in M a rtin Heidegger, The End o f Philosophy (New York: H arper and Row, 1973) , 84-110,110. “A pp ro p ria tio n assembles the design o f Saying and unfoldsit in to the structure o f m an ifo ld show ing----- A p p ro p ria tio n grants to m ortals th e ir abodew ith in th e ir nature, so th a t they may be capable o f being those who speak.” Ib id , 128. “In the event o f app rop ria tion vibrates the active nature o f w hat speaks as language, which at one tim e was called the house o f be ing.” M artin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (H arper and Row, New York, 1969), 39.

14. To cite bu t one o f the m u ltip le examples o f th is association: Language “is the keeper o f being present, in th a t its com ing to lig h t rem ains entrusted to the approp ria ting show o f Saying. Language is the house o f Being because language, as Saying, is the m ode o f

Note to Pages 102-107238_________________

A p p ro pria tio n .” M artin Heidegger. “ The Way to Language,” trans. Peter D. H ertz, In M artin Heidegger, On the Way to Language (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), 111-136, 135.

15. Jacques D errida , “ The Retrait o f M etaphor,” 7. D errida everywhere attem pts to “explode” the opposition between the m etaphoric and the proper. See particu larly, “W hite M ythology: M etaphor in the Text o f Philosophy,” 217.

16. Ib id ., 253.

17. M arsilio F ic ino, “Com m entary on the Symposium,” chapter 5, cited in E rin Panofsky, Idea: A Concept in A rt Theory (New York: H arper and Row, 1968), 137.

18. M artin Heidegger, “ The Q uestion C oncerning Technology,” trans. David F arre ll K re ll, M artin Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: H arper and Row, 1977), 283-317, 294.


20. Jacques D errida , “Freud and the Scene o f W ritin g ,” 215.

21. Jacques D errida , “V iolence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the T hough t o f Em m anuel Levinas,” 113.

22. Ib id ., 112.

23. M artin Heidegger, Being and Time, 209. “Both Dasein’s in te rp re ta tion o f its e lf and the whole stock o f s ign ifica tions w hich belong to language in general are dom inated through and th rough by ‘spatial representations’ .” Ib id ., 421. D errida also refers to th is argum ent when he says “language can determ ine things only by spatia lizing them ."Jacques D errida, “Force and S ign ifica tion ,” 16.

24. Jacques D errida , “Geschlecht: Sexual D ifference, O nto log ica l D iffe rence,” Research in Phenomenology, X III, 1983, 65-84, 78.


26. Ib id ., 124.

27. Jacques D errida , “ Tympam,” xv ii.

28. Jacques D errida , “La Parole Soufflee,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 169-195, 192.


30. Jacques D errida , “Entre crochets: en tre tien avec Jacques D errida, prem iere p a rtie ,” Digraphe 8, A p ril 1976, 97-114.

31. “ This ph ilosophica l, d ia lectica l m astery . . . is constantly p u t in to question by a fam ily scene tha t constitutes and underm ines a t once the passage between the pharm acy and the house. “P latonism ” is both the general rehearsal o f th is fam ily scene and the m ost pow erfu l e ffo rt to master it, to prevent anyone’s ever hearing o f it, to conceal it by draw ing the curta ins over the dawning o f the West.” Jacques D errida , “P lato’s Pharmacy,” 167.

Note to Pages 107-109239_________________

32. Ib id .


34. Sigmund Freud, “ T he Uncanny,” The Standard Edition, vol. 17, 217-56, 222.

35. Jacques D errida, “D ouble Session,” trans. Barbara Johnson, in Jacques D errida, Dissemination (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 173-285, 220.

36. This becomes pa rticu la rly s trik in g in D errida ’s “Le facteur de la ve rite ,” which notes th a t Lacan’s work never addresses Freud’s essay on “ The U ncanny” and tha t it systematica lly resists uncanny effects in o rd e r to establish a pa rticu la r conceptual order. D errida ’s essay, w h ile iden tifying the specific uncanny effects effaced by one o f Lacan’s essays and ob lique ly com paring the way in w hich that essay bases a psychoanalytic theory on a reading o f a work o f fic tio n to the way F reud’s essay does the same th ing , never its e lf addresses Freud’s text d irectly. Even D errida ’s on ly c ita tio n o f the text, in “Cartouches,” is b rie f, on ly a c ita tion o f F reud’s c ita tion , and punctuated by a parenthetica l de ferra l ( “it w ould a ll need to be quo ted ”), which poin ts to the necessity o f fu rth e r citations th a t are n o t made: “A t the end o f Das Unheimliche ( it w ould a ll need to be quoted, as w ith the choice o f the caskets), Freud recalls Nestroy’s Der Zerrissene; the m an who takes h im self to be a m urderer lifts up ( aufhebt) the cover o f each trap and sees rise up each tim e the supposed ghost (vermeintliche Gespenst) o f the v ic tim . He is scared: ‘b u t I on ly k ille d one o f them !” ’ Jacques D errida , “Cartouches,” trans. G eoff Bennington and Ian M cLeod, in Jacques D errida, The Truth in Painting (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 183-253, 217.

37. Jacques D errida, “L iv in g O n: Border Lines," 121.

38. Jacques D errida, O f Grammatobgy, 313.

39. M artin Heidegger, Being and Time, 321.

40. “Indeed, what threatens in th is in d e fin ite way is now qu ite near and can be so close th a t it is oppressive. I t can be so near and yet n o t present as th is o r tha t, no t som ething fe a rfu l, som ething to be feared by way o f a d e fin ite reference o f the environ ing w orld in its meaningfulness. Dread can ‘b e fa ll’ us rig h t in the m idst o f the m ost fa m ilia r environm ent. O ftentim es it does n o t even have to involve the phenom enon o f darkness o r o f being alone w hich frequen tly accompanies dread. We then say: one feels uncanny. O ne no longer feels at home in his m ost fa m ilia r environm ent, the one closest to h im ; b u t th is does no t come about in such a way tha t a d e fin ite reg ion in the h ith e rto known and fa m ilia r w orld breaks down in its o rien ta tion , n o r such tha t one is n o t a t home in the surroundings in which one now finds him self, b u t instead in o the r surroundings. O n the contrary, in dread, being-in-the-w orld is to ta lly transform ed in to a ‘n o t a t hom e’ pure ly and sim ply.” M artin Heidegger, History o f the Concept o f Time, 289.

41. “Uncanniness is the basic k in d o f Being-in-the-w orld, even though in an everyday way, it has been covered up .” M a rtin Heidegger, Being and Time, 322.

42. Heidegger’s 1942-43 lectures on Parmenides elaborate his specific use o f the word uncanny in the most de ta il: “B u t where, on the contrary, Being comes in to focus, there the extraord inary announces itse lf, the excessive th a t strays ‘beyond’ the ord inary, th a t w hich is no t to be explained by explanations on the basis o f beings. T h is is the uncanny, lite ra lly understood and n o t in the otherw ise usual sense according to w hich it ra the r means the immense and w hat has never yet been. F or the uncanny, correctly understood.

Note to Pages 109-111240_________________

is n e ithe r im mense nor tiny, since it is no t to be measured at a ll w ith the measure o f a so-called ‘standard.’ The uncanny is also no t what has never yet been present; it is what comes in to presence always already and in advance p rio r to a ll ‘uncanninesses.’ . . . it surrounds, and insofar as it everywhere surrounds, the present o rd ina ry state o f things and presents its e lf in everything o rd inary, though w ith o u t being the ord inary. The uncanny understood in th is way is, w ith regard to what is o rd in a ry o r na tura l, no t the exception b u t the ‘m ost na tu ra l,’ in the sense o f ‘na ture ’ as though t by the Greeks, i.e., in the sense o f The uncanny is th a t o u t o f w hich a ll tha t is o rd in a ry emerges, tha tin w hich a ll th a t is o rd ina ry is suspended w ithou t surm ising it ever in the least, and tha t in to w hich everyth ing o rd in a ry fa lls back. . . . For those who came la te r and fo r us, to who the p rim o rd ia l Greek experience o f Being is denied, the uncanny has to be the exception, in p rin c ip le explainable, to the o rd ina ry ; we p u t the uncanny next to the ord inary, but, to be sure, on ly as the extraord inary. For us it is d iffic u lt to a tta in the fundam ental G reek experience, whereby the o rd ina ry itse lf, and only insofar as it is ord inary, is the uncanny. . . . We are divesting from the w ord any representation o f the gigantic, the overpowering, the exaggerated, the w eird. O f course the uncanny can also, in its excessiveness, h ide behind such figures. B ut it its e lf in its essence is the inconspicuous, the sim ple, the ins ign ifican t, w hich nevertheless shines in a ll beings.” M artin Heidegger, Parmenides, 101.


44. Ib id ., 233-234.

45. M artin Heidegger, What Is Called Thinking?y 154.

46. S ignificantly, H eidegger’s e xp lic it use o f the fig u re o f the house begins w ith his “o ffic ia l” w ithdraw al from the Nazi regim e and even acts as h is figu re fo r tha t w ithdraw al. I t emerges o u t o f the firs t lectures on H o ld e rlin in 1934 and then is reta ined and emphasized in the postwar publica tions, beg inning w ith the “Le tter on Hum anism .” I t arguably became e x p lic it precisely to cover up his personal association w ith the violence o f the regim e. In the late essays, h is argum ent tha t the fa m ilia r sense o f the house is a cover o f a double violence acts as h is own cover. Just as the fig u re m aintains h is allegiance to the tra d itio n o f metaphysics it is supposedly deployed to displace, it also m aintains his allegiance to w hat he s till re fe rred to in the 1935 Introduction to Metaphysics as the “ in n e r tru th ” o f the party, the tru th from w hich the party its e lf is seen to have fa lle n . See M ark W igley, “H eidegger’s House: The V iolence o f the D om estic.”

47. M artin Heidegger, “ The O rig in o f the W ork o f A rt,” 54.

48. O n the sexuality o f Dasein fo r Heidegger, see D e rrida ’s “Geschlecht: Sexual D iffe rence, O nto log ica l D iffe rence.”

49. M artin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysicsy 155.

50. Ib id ., 157.

51. Ib id .

52. In the m idd le o f H eidegger’s lectures a t the U niversity o f M arburg in 1925, he rejected the idea th a t to be “in ” refers to a “spatial conta iner (room , b u ild in g )” and refers to an etym ological study by G rim m (w hich compares the archaic German words m eaning domusy o r “house,” tha t have the same fo rm as the E nglish w ord “in n ” ) to argue tha t “in ” p rim a rily refers to “dw e lling ” ra the r than the occupation o f space: “ ‘In ’ comes from innany w hich means to dw ell, habitare; ‘anh ’ means: I am accustomed, I am fa m ilia r w ith , I take care o f som ething— the L a tin colo in the sense o f hahito and dilzgo. D w elling is also

N ote to Pages 111-115241_________________

taken here as taking care o f som ething in in tim ate fa m ilia rity , being-involved w ith [Seirt- bei]. . . . ‘ in ’ p rim arily does n o t s ign ify anything spatial a t a ll bu t means p rim a rily being fa m ilia r w ith ” M artin Heidegger, History o f the Concept o f Time, 158. He then em ployed th is key argum ent in the same fo rm a t the beg inning o f Being and Time in a way tha t organizes the whole text that follow s. M a rtin Heidegger, Being and Time; 80.

53. M artin Heidegger, A n Introduction to Metaphysics, 163.

54. Ib id ., 161.

55. Ib id .

56. Ib id ., 150.

57. “ The Greeks had no w ord fo r ‘space.’ T his is no accident; fo r they experienced the spatial on the basis not o f extension b u t o f place ( topos); they experienced it as chora, w hich signifies neither p lace n o r space b u t tha t w hich is occupied by what stands there. The place belongs to the th in g itse lf. Each o f the various th ings has its place. T ha t w hich becomes is placed in th is loca l ‘space* and emerges from i t . . . the transform ation o f the barely apprehended essence o f place (topos) and o f chora in to a ‘space’ defined by extension was in itia ted by P la ton ic philosophy, i.e. in the in te rp re ta tio n o f being as idea. M ig h t chora n o t mean: th a t w h ich abstracts its e lf from every particu la r, tha t which w ithdraws, and in such a way precisely adm its and “makes place” fo r som ething else?” Ib id ., 66.

58. M artin Heidegger, Nietzsche Vol. 1: The W ill to Power as A rt, trans. David F arre ll K re ll (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 180.

59. Ib id ., 173.

60. M artin Heidegger, “Language,” 191.

61. M artin Heidegger, “Rem em brance o f the Poet,” trans. Douglas Scott, in Existence and Being (W ashington: Gateway, 1949), 233-269, 267.

62. Ib id ., 259.

63. Heidegger argues tha t poets need to go in to the abyss “ To see th is danger and p o in t it ou t, there m ust be m ortals who reach sooner in to the abyss.” M artin Heidegger, “W hat A re Poets For?,” trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter, in M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), 89-142,117.

64. M artin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 167. “ In the fa m ilia r appearance the poet calls the a lien .” M a rtin Heidegger, “ . . . Poetically M an Dwells . . .,” trans. A lbe rt Hofstadter, in M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought (New York: H arper and Row, 1971), 211-229, 225.

65. M artin Heidegger, “ T he O rig in o f the W ork o f A rt,” 76.

66. M artin Heidegger, A n Introduction to Metaphysics, 169.

67. Ib id .

68. “A ll th is m erely conceals the uncanniness o f language, o f the passions, the powers by w hich man is ordained [gefiigt] as a h is to rica l being, w h ile it seems to him tha t it is he who disposes [verjugt] o f them . T he strangeness, the uncanniness o f these powers resides

N ote to Pages 115-120242_________________

in th e ir seem ing fam ilia rity . D irectly they y ie ld themselves to man on ly in th e ir nonessence [Unwesen], so d riv in g h im and ho ld in g h im ou t o f his essence. In th is way he comes to regard w hat is fundam entally m ore rem ote and overpow ering than sea and earth as closest o f a ll to h im . How fa r m an is from being at home in his essence is revealed by his o p in io n o f h im self as he who invented language and understanding, b u ild in g and poetry.” Ib id ., 156.

69. O f the usual in te rp re ta tion o f the m odern atom ic age as a crisis o f vio lence perpetuated by m odern science tha t alienates m an, Heidegger notes tha t the in te rp re ta tion is its e lf “a liena ting and uncanny.” M artin Heidegger, “ The P rincip le o f Reason,” the 1953 address, 122. I t is “uncanny” because it iden tifie s the vio lence o f atom ic energy as fo re ign to man and a recent h isto rica l event ra the r than a m ark o f the way the “en tire h is to ry o f Western though t” has always been organized around the a rch itecton ic p rin c ip le o f ground. I t is the ve ilin g o f the o rig ina ry violence o f arch itecton ic th in k in g tha t is uncanny.

70. “O nly i f we understand tha t the use o f power in language, in understanding, in fo rm in g and b u ild in g helps to create . . . the v io le n t act [Gewalttat] o f laying ou t paths in to the environ ing power o f the essent, on ly then shall we understand the strangeness, the uncanniness o f a ll vio lence.” An Introduction to Metaphysics, 157.

71. M artin Heidegger, What Is a Thing?, 121.

72. M artin Heidegger, “Le tte r on H um anism ,” 236.

73. Jacques D errida , “ The Retrait o f M etaphor,” 24.

74. “ The fa the r is always fa ther to a speaking/liv ing being. In o ther words, it is precisely logos tha t enables us to perceive and investigate som ething like patern ity. I f there were a sim ple m etaphor in the expression ‘fa ther o f logos,’ the firs t w ord, w hich seemed the m ore fam iliar, w ould nevertheless receive m ore m eaning from the second than it w ould transm it to it. The firs t fa m ilia rity is always involved in a re la tion o f cohabita tion w ith logos. L iving-beings, fa ther and son, are announced to us and related to each o ther w ith in the household o f logos” Jacques D errida , “P lato’s Pharmacy,” 80. In Glas, D e rrida looks a t the way the concept o f fam ily “very rigorously inscribes its e lf in the system” o f H egel’s philosophy (p. 5) and asks, “W ill one rashly say tha t the fin ite fam ily furnishes a metapho ric m odel o r a convenient fig u ra tio n fo r the language o f ph ilosophica l exposition? A pedagogical ease? A good way to speak o f abstract th ings to the student [eleve] w h ile p laying w ith the fa m ilia rity o f fam ily significations? Even then what the absolute fa m ilia rity o f a s ign ifica tion is m ust be know n. I f tha t can be though t and named w ith o u t the fam ily. Then one needs to ascertain th a t the fin ite fam ily in question is n o t in fin ite already, in w hich case w hat the alleged m etaphor w ould come to figu re w ould be already in the m etaphor.” Ib id ., 21. “ In fact it seems necessary here to in ve rt th is o rde r and recognize what I have elsewhere proposed to ca ll the ‘m etaphoric catastrophe’ : fa r from know ing firs t w hat ‘life ’ o r ‘ fam ily ’ mean whenever we use these fa m ilia r values to ta lk about language and transla tion ; it is ra the r starting from the n o tio n o f a language and its ‘su rv iva l’ in transla tion that we cou ld have access to the n o tion o f what life and fam ily m ean.” Jacques D errida, “Des Tours de Babel,” 178. Likew ise, the concept o f economy is n o t used as a m etaphor o f metaphysics b u t is defined by it, produced by the very system o f metaphysics it appears to illu stra te : “a ll the mayor concepts w hich constitute the discourse o f econom ics are ph ilosoph ica l.” Jacques D errida , “D econstruction and the O ther,” 115.

75. M artin Heidegger, What Is a Thing?, 123.


Note to Pages 120-132243_________________


Throw ing Up A rchitecture

1. Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f fudgement, 188.

2. Ib id ., 162.

3. Ib id ., 185.

4. Ib id ., 186.

5. Jacques D errida, “Psyche: Inventions o f the O ther,” trans. C atherine Porter, in Lindsay Waters and W lad G odzich, eds., Reading De M an Reading (M inneapolis: U niversity o f M innesota Press, 1989), 25-65, 56.

6. Jacques D errida, “ To Speculate— on “Freud,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. (Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1987), 257-409, 280.


8. Jacques D errida, “ Tym pan,” xvi.

9. Jacques D errida. “O utw ork, P refacing,” 5.

10. Jacques D errida, “C ogito and the H isto ry o f Madness,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 31-63, 40.

11. Jacques D errida, “V io lence and Metaphysics: A n Essay on the T hough t o f Em m anuel Levinas,” 91.

12. Jacques D errida, “Econom im esis,” trans. R. K le in , Diacritics, vol. 11, no. 2, 1981, 3-25,20.13. Im m anuel Kant, The Critique o f fudgement, 67.

14. Jacques D errida, “F rom a Restricted To a G eneral Economy: A Hegelianism w ithou t Reserve,” 272.

15. “D ’exclusion renferm ant ce qu ’e lle veut neu tra lise r ou m ettre dehors . . .” Jacques D errida, “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” 113.

16. Jacques D errida, “Desistance,” 16.


18. Ib id ., 65.

19. Ib id ., 151.

20. Ib id ., 155.

Note to Pages 132-135244_________________

21. JeanJacques Rousseau. “A Discourse on the O rig in o f Inequa lity,” trans. G. D. H . Cole, in JeanJacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses (London: Dent, 1973), 27-113, 50.

22. JeanJacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on the M oral Effects o f the A rts and Sciences,” trans. G. D. H . Cole, in Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, 1-26, 5 [transla tion m o d ifie d ].

23. Ib id ., 18 [transla tion m od ifie d ].

24. JeanJacques Rousseau, “ The Social C ontract,” trans. G. D. H . Cole, in Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses. 164-278, 197.

25. JeanJacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on the O rig in o f Inequa lity,” 42.

26. “How cou ld it have happened tha t m odern languages, especially, have come to designate the power o f aesthetic judgem ent by a term (gustus, sapor) tha t refers m erely to a certa in sense organ (the inside o f the m outh) and to the way we use th is organ to d istinguish, as w ell as to choose, th ings we can enjoy [geniessbarerDinge— ‘edible th ings’ ]? A good meal in good company is unsurpassed as a s ituation in w hich sensibility and understanding un ite in one enjoym ent tha t lasts a long tim e and can be repeated w ith pleasure so frequently. B ut the m eal is considered on ly the instrum en t fo r keeping the company together. The host shows his aesthetic taste by his s k ill in choosing w ith universal va lid ity. This he cannot do by his own sense [o f taste], because his guests m igh t choose o ther foods o r drinks, each according to his own private sense. So he arranges fo r a variety tha t enables each guest to fin d som ething that suits his sense, and in th is way his choice has a relative universal va lid ity . . . And th is is how the organic fee ling tha t comes th rough a p a rticu la r sense could give its name to an ideal fee ling: the fee ling , namely, o f a sensuous choice tha t is universally va lid .” Im m anuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View, trans. M ary J. G regor (The Hague: M artinus N ijh o ff, 1974), 110.

27. “ The philosopher should there fore consider w hether it is possible fo r h im to w rite the laws o f d in in g socially fo r those whose way o f life com m its them to concern fo r the m ind ra the r than the body in whatever they undertake.” Im m anuel Kant, “O n Philosopher’s M edicine o f the Body,” in Lewis W hite Beck, ed., Kant's La tin Writings (New York: Peter Lang, 1986), 217-243, 235.

28. To “gorge oneself w ith food” is “ to vio la te a duty to o n e se lf. . . in g lu ttony man m ore closely approxim ates anim al enjoym ent . . . a feast is always a tem ptation to what is im m ora l.” Im m anuel Kant, The Metaphysical Principles o f Virtue. II. The Metaphysics o f Morals, trans. James E llin g to n (Ind ianapolis: B obbs-M errill, 1964), 88-89.

29. JeanJacques Rousseau, “Essay on the O rig in o f Languages,” trans. John H . M oran and A lexander Gode, in On the O rigin o f Language (New York: F rederick Ungar, 1966), 1-74, 53.


31. JeanJacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the O rig in o f Inequa lity,M 80.

32. JeanJacques Rousseau, “Essay on the O rig in o f Languages,” 31.

33. Im m anuel Kant, The Philosophy o f Law, trans. W. Hastie (E dinburgh: T. T. C lark, 1887),112.

Note to Pages 135-138245_________________

34. “ The only qua lifica tion requ ired by a citizen (apart, o f course, from being an adu lt m ale) is tha t he must be h is own master (sui iu ris )t and m ust have some property (which can include any sk ill, trade, fin e a rt o r science) to support h im s e lf/ Im m anuel Kant, “On the Common Saying: ‘T h is M ay be T rue in Theory, B ut it Does N o t A pp ly in Practice,” trans. H . B. N isbet, in Hans Reiss, ed., Kant's Political W ritings (Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1970), 61-92, 78. A lthough the w ife m ust “obey” the husband “Nevertheless, they are a ll equal as subjects before the law . . . ” Ib id ., 75.

35. “A woman, regardless o f her age, is under c iv il tutelage [o r incom petent to speak fo r herse lf (unmundig) ]; he r husband is her natura l curator, though i f a m arried woman has p roperty o f her own, it is another man. I t is true tha t when it comes to ta lk ing , woman, by her nature, is su ffic ien tly g lib [ Mundwerk genughat] to represent both herse lf and her husband, even in court (where i t is a question o f the M ine and T h in e ), and so could be lite ra lly described as m ore than com petent to speak fo r herse lf [bermundigj. B ut ju s t as it is no t woman’s role to go to war, so she cannot personally defend he r representative. A nd this legal tutelage w ith regard to pub lic transactions makes her a ll the m ore pow erfu l where her domestic w elfare is concerned; fo r the rig h t o f the weaker enters in to th is, and m an’s very nature calls on him to respect it and defend i t ” Im m anuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View, trans. M ary J. G regor (The Hague: M artinus N ijh o ff, 1974), section 48, 79. The question o f the dom estic can be fo llow ed in many o the r texts by Kant. See, fo r exam ple, “An Answer to Q uestion: ‘W hat is E n lightenm ent?’ ,” which, in opposing the p o litica l con tro l o f people like “dom esticated anim als,” tu rns on a d istinction between the “p rivate” dom ain o f c iv il in s titu tio ns, like teaching, as “never any m ore than a dom estic gathering” and the “p u b lic ” realm exem plified by publications. Im m anuel Kant, “A n Answer to Q uestion: ‘W hat is E nlightenm ent?’” Kant's Political Writings (Cam bridge: C am bridge U niversity Press, 1970), 54-60. This image o f dom esticity is sustained, a t another level, in the concept o f “hosp ita lity” in “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” trans. H . B. N isbet, in Hans Reiss, ed., Kant's Political Writings, 93-130, 105.

36. Jacques D errida, O f Grammatology, 176-178. O n the necessity fo r an “e th ico -po litica l” reading o f the philosophica l discourses “that reserve po litics and p u b lic space fo r m an, dom estic and private space fo r wom an,” see Jacques D errida , “ The P o litics o f F riendsh ip ,” Journal o f Philosophy, vol. 75, no. 11, 1988, 632-645, 642-643.


38. Jacques D errida, “In te rp re ta tions a t War: Kant, the Jew, the G erm an,” New Literary History, vo l. 22, no. 1, 1991, 39-95, 60.


40. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “A Discourse on P o litica l Economy,” trans. G. D. H . Cole, in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses, 115-153, 117.

41. Im m anuel Kant, Critique o f Pure Reason, 573. T he phallogocentrism o f metaphysics is n o t that o f a tower that excludes, b u t tha t o f a house tha t includes. The idea o f the house is bound to tha t o f grounded structure : “ T hroughou t my w ritings I have made it clear th a t my m ethod im itates th a t o f the arch itect. W hen an a rch itect wants to b u ild a house w hich is stable on ground where there is a sandy topsoil over underly ing rock, o r clay, o r some over firm base, he begins by d igg ing o u t a set o f trenches from w hich he removes the sand, and anything resting on o r m ixed in w ith the sand, so th a t he can lay his foundations on firm so il. In the same way, I began by taking everyth ing th a t was d o u b tfu l and throw ing i t out, lik e sand; and then, when I no ticed tha t it is im possible to doubt

Note to Pages 139-143246_________________

tha t a doubting o r th in k in g substance exists, I took th is as the bedrock on w hich I could lay the foundations o f my philosophy.” Rene Descartes, “Seventh Set o f O bjections w ith the A u th o r’s Replies,” trans. John (Nottingham et al., The Philosophical Writings o f Descartes Vol II, (Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1984), 366-383.

42. Jacques D errida , “Econom imesis,” 21.


44. Im m anuel Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View, 53.

45. Im m anuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling o f the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. John T. G oldthw ait (Berkeley: U niversity o f C a lifo rn ia Press, 1965), 83.

46. Ib id ., 79.

47. Ib id ., 83.

48. Jacques D errida , “Econom im esis,” 25.

49. Ib id .

50. Jacques D errida , “O tobiographies: The Teaching o f Nietzsche and the Politics o f the Proper Nam e,” trans. A vita l R onell, in C hristie V. M cD onald, ed., The E ar o f the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation (New York: Schocken Books, 1985), 1-38, 23. To give

ju s t one exam ple o f the structu ra l ro le o f ind igestion in Nietzsche: “W hat changes the general taste? T he fact tha t some ind iv idua ls who are pow erfu l and in flu e n tia l announce w ithou t any shame, hoc est ridiculum , hoc est absurdum [th is is rid icu lous, th is is absurd], in short, the judgem ent o f th e ir taste and nausea; and then they enforce it tyrannically. Thus they coerce many, and gradually s till m ore develop a new habit, and eventually a ll a new need. The reason why these ind ividua ls have d iffe re n t feelings and tastes is usually to be found in some odd ity o f th e ir life style, n u tritio n o r d igestion . . . ” F riedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. W alter Kaufm an (New York: V intage Books, 1974), 106.

51. Jacques D errida , “S tructure, Sign and Play in the Discourse o f the Hum an Sciences,” 284.

52. Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile, trans. Barbara Foxley (New York: D ent, 1973), 120.

53. Im m anuel Kant, Education (Ann A rbo r: U niversity o f M ichigan Press, 1960), 35.

54. Ib id ., 241.

55. Sigm und Freud, “ The Uncanny,” 235.

56. Ib id ., 236.

57. S igm und Freud, “ Three Essays on the T heory o f Sexuality,” trans. James Strachey, The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, vo l. 7, 1959, 125-243, 177.

58. S igm und Freud, “ The Uncanny,” 219.

59. Sigm und Freud, “M ourn ing and M elancholia ,” trans. James Strachey, The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, vol. 14, 243-258, 255.

N ote to Pages 143-146247_________________

60. Jacques D errida, “Econom im esis,” 23.

61. “Pure Reason . . . is a facu lty o f ju d g in g according to a p rio ri P rincip les. T ha t is why a c ritiq ue o f judgem ent belongs to a com plete critiq u e o f pure (theo re tica l as w ell as practica l) Reason. Even in the [K a n t’s] th ird Critique, Reason is the rea l them e.” M artin Heidegger, The Principle o f Reason, 71.

62. N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok, “ In tro jec tio n -In co rp o ra tio n : M ourn ing o r M elancho lia ,” in Serge Lebovici and D anie l W idlander, eds., Psychoanalysis in France (New York: In te rn a tio n a l U niversity Press, 1980), 3-16, 5.

63. Jacques D errida, “L im ite d In c ., a b c . . . 77.

64. Jacques D errida, “Fors: T he A nguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok,” xxxv iii.

65. Ib id .

66. Ib id ., xv. “a m em ory he buried without legal buria l place, the m em ory o f an id y ll experienced w ith a prestig ious ob ject th a t fo r some reason has become unspeakable, a m em ory thus entom bed in a fast and secure place, awaiting its re su rre c tio n .. . . both the fact tha t the id y ll has taken place and its subsequent loss w ill have to be disguised and denied. Such a situation leads to the setting up w ith in the ego o f a closed-off place, a crypt . . . ” N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok. “A Poetics o f Psychoanalysis: The Lost O bject— M e,” Substance, vo l. 13, no. 2, 1984, 3-18, 4.

67. Jacques D errida, “R oundtable on A utobiography,” 57.

68. N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok, “ In tro je c tio n -In co rp o ra tio n : M ourn ing o r M elancho lia ,” 6.

69. Ib id .

70. Jacques D errida, "Fors: The A nguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok,” x lii.

71. “Cryptonym y would thus n o t consist in representing— h id in g one w ord by another, one th ing by another, a th in g by a w ord o r a w ord by a th ing , b u t in p ick ing o u t from the extended series o f allosemes, a term tha t then (in a second-degree distancing) is translated in to a synonym.” Ib id ., x li.

72. Ib id ., xxv.

73. This cryp tic structure, w h ich parasitica lly occupies the dom estic space o f language, should be compared to H ege l’s account o f language as m ourn ing th rough the constructio n o f tombs, exem plified by fa m ily crypts, m onum ents to the life o f the fam ily, m onuments to domestic life , to the dom esticity o f life : “Hegel knew th a t th is proper and anim ated body o f the s ig n ifie r was also a tomb. The association soma/sema is also at w ork in th is semiology, w hich is in no way surprising. The tom b is the life o f the body as the sign o f death, the body as the o th e r o f the soul, the o the r o f the anim ate psyche, o f the liv in g breath. But the tom b also shelters, m aintains in reserve, capitalizes on life by m arking th a t life continues elsewhere. The fam ily crypt: oifCesis. I t consecrates the disappearance o f life by attesting to the perseverance o f life . Thus, the tom b also shelters life from death. I t warns the soul o f possible death, warns (o f) death o f the soul, tu rns away (from ) death. This double w arning fu n ction belongs to the funera ry m onum ent The

Note to Pages 146-152248_________________

body o f the sign thus becomes the m onum ent in w hich the soul w ill be enclosed, preserved, m ainta ined, kept in m aintenance, present, s ign ified . A t the heart o f the m onum ent the soul keeps itse lf alive, b u t it needs the m onum ent only to the extent tha t it is exposed— to death— in its liv in g re la tion to its own body.” Jacques D errida , “ The P it and the Pyram id: In tro d u c tio n to H egel’s Sem iology,” 82.

74. Jacques D errida , “Roundtable on Autobiography,” 59. compare w ith : “Despite appearances, the deconstruction o f logocentrism is n o t a psychoanalysis o f philosophy.” Jacques D errida , “Freud and the Scene o f W ritin g ,” 196.

75. Jacques D errida , “Fors: The Anguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok,”

76. Ib id ., xxxiv.

77. M artin Heidegger, Kant and the Problem o f Metaphysics, 138. “ The actual in te rp re ta tio n m ust show what does n o t stand in the works and is nevertheless said. To accom plish th is the exegete m ust use violence.” M artin Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics, 162. Compare to D e rrida ’s “I slice th ings up somewhat barbarously and ille g itim a te ly as we always do .’’ Jacques D errida, “L iv in g O n: Border Lines," 117.

78. “ The present, the presence o f the present, and the present o f the present o f presence, are a ll o rig in a lly and forever v io le n t The liv in g present is o rig ina lly m arked by death.” Jacques D errida , “V iolence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the T hough t o f Emmanuel Levinas,” 133. “ Therefore, the though t o f Being, in its unve iling is never fo re ign to a certa in vio lence.” Ib id ., 147. “M oreover, the rap p o rt o f se lf-identity is itse lf always a rappo rt o f violence w ith the o ther.” Jacques D errida , “D econstruction and the O ther,” 117. “ The v io le n t re la tionsh ip o f the w hole o f the West to its o ther.” Jacques D errida, “ The Ends o f M an,” 134.


80. “ The violence o f w ritin g does no t befall an innocent language. There is an o rig ina ry violence o f w ritin g because language is f i r s t . . . w ritin g .” Ib id ., 37.


82. Jacques D errida , “ Im plica tions,” 6.

D oing d ie Tw ist

1. Jacques D errida , “ T itle (To Be S pecified),” 8.

2. Ib id ., 7.

3. Ib id ., 11.

4. Jacques D errida , “L iv ing O n: Border Lines," 152.

5. Jacques D errida , “Before the Law,” trans. A vita l R onell and C hristine R oulston, in Derek A ttrid g e , ed., Acts o f Literature (New York: Routledge, 1992), 181-220, 212.

N ote to Pages 153-158249_________________

6. Jacques D errida, “S h ibbo le th ,” trans. Joshua W ilner, in Derek A ttridge , ed., Acts o f Literature (New York: R outledge, 1992) 370-413, 413. “ The cryp t rem ains, the shibboleth rem ains secret, the passage uncerta in , and the poem on ly unveils th is secret to con firm tha t there is som ething secret there , w ithdraw n.” Ib id ., 404.

7. Ib id .

8. Jacques D errida, “How to A vo id Speaking: D enials,” 23.

9. Ib id ., 36.

10. Jacques D errida, “S cribb le (W riting-P ow er),” trans. Cary P lo tk in , Yale French Studies, 59, 1979, 116-147, 124.

11. Ib id ., 129.

12. See also D errida ’s account o f the undecidable “coup o f fo rce” w ith w hich the p o litica l space defined by the D eclaration o f Independence is necessarily ins titu ted , a perform ative violence covered by po rtray ing its in s titu tio na l laws as founded on na tura l laws. Jacques D errida, “Declarations o f Independence,” trans. Tom Keenan and Tom Pepper, New Political Science, no. 15, Sum m er 1986, 7-15.

13..In “L iv ing On: Border Lines,” D e rrida poin ts to the in a b ility o f the university discourse about a rt to examine the ro le o f a rt in its own construction by again lin k in g the strange ro le o f the title on the b o rd e r and the in s titu tio n o f lite ra ry studies: “W hat is a title? W hat borde rline questions are posed here? I am here seeking m erely to establish the necessity o f th is whole problem atic o f ju d ic ia l fram ing and o f the ju ris d ic tio n o f frames. This problem atic, I feel, has n o t been explored, at least n o t adequately, by the in s titu tio n o f lite ra ry studies in the university. And there are essential reasons fo r that: th is is an in s titu tio n b u ilt on tha t very system o f fram ing .” Jacques D errida, “L iv ing O n: Border Lines,” 88.

14. “Every tim e philosophy determ ines art, masters it and encloses it in the h is to ry o f m eaning o r in the on to log ica l encyclopedia, it assigns it a jo b as m edium . . . By giving it the philosophical name art, one has, it w ould seem, dom esticated it in onto-encycloped ic economy and the h is to ry o f tru th ,” Jacques D errida , “Parergon,” 34.

15. As D errida points o u t elsewhere, “ the vocabulary o f foundation is always, already, a ju rid ic a l vocabulary [le vocabulmre du fondement est toujours, deja, un vocabulaire jurid ique ] .” “Popularities: Du d ro it a la ph ilosoph ic du d ro it,” in Jacques D errida , Du droit a la phibsophie (Paris: G alilee, 1990), 512, 525-553.

16. Jacques D errida, “Force o f Law: The ‘M ystical Foundation o f A u th o rity ’,” trans. M ary Quaintance, Cardozo Law Review, vo l. 11, no. 5 /6 , Ju ly /A ugust 1990, 919-1046, 929.

17. Ib id ., 963.

18. Ib id ., 943.

19. Jacques D errida, “Before the Law,” 203.

20. Ib id ., 199.

21. Ib id ., 195.

Note to Pages 158-163250_________________

22. Jacques D errida , “S hibboleth,” 402.

23. Ib id ., 410. D e rrida ’s whole argum ent here is an elaboration o f a single stanza in a poem by Celan th a t invokes the uncanniness the date: “ (H eart: / make yourse lf known even here, / here, in the m idst o f the m arket. / C all it ou t, the sh ibboleth, / in to the alien hom eland strangeness: / February. N o passeran.”

24. Jacques D errida , “ The Retrait o f M etaphor,” 19. “ I t means tha t we m ust rem ain fa ith fu l, even i f i t im plies a certa in violence, to the in junctions o f the te x t.” Jacques D errida , “D econstruction and the O ther,” 124.

25. Jacques D errida , “ The Ends o f M an,” 135.

26. C hanging te rra in risks “in h a b itin g m ore naively and m ore s tric tly than ever the inside one declares one has deserted, the sim ple practice o f language ceaselessly reinstates the new te rra in on the oldest g round .” Ib id . D econstruction is therefore “never on a totally, o r simply, e x te rio r te rra in .” Jacques D errida, “Positions,” 77.

27. Jacques D errida , “D issem ination,” trans. Barbara Johnson, in Jacques D errida, Dissemination (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981), 287-366, 358.

28. “And we m ust th in k th is w ith o u t nostalgia, tha t is, outside the m yth o f a pure ly m aternal o r paterna l language, a lost native coun try o f thought. On the contrary, we m ust affirm th is, in the sense in w hich N ietzsche puts a ffirm a tio n in to play in a certa in laughter and a certa in step o f the dance.” Jacques D errida , “D iffe rance,” 27.

29. Jacques D errida , “Choreographies,” 69.

30. Jacques D errida , “Aphorism C ountertim e,” trans. N icholas Royle, in Derek A ttridge, ed., Acts o f Literature (New York: Routledge, 1992), 414-433, 419.

31. Ib id .

32. Jacques D errida , “ The Theater o f C ruelty and the Closure o f R epresentation,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference (Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1978), 232-250, 235.

33. Ib id ., 237.

34. Ib id ., 244.

35. Jacques D errida , “La Parole Souflee,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978), 169-195, 192.

36. Ib id ., 184.

37. Ib id ., 187.

38. Ib id ., 194.

39. Jacques D errida , “Desistence,” 27.

40. Ib id ., 16.

41. Jacques D errida , “ The Ghost Dance: An In te rview w ith Jacques D e rrida ,” in terview w ith M ark Lewis and Andrew Payne, trans. Jean-Luc Svoboda, Public, 2, 1989, 60-73, 61.

Note to Pages 164-167251_________________

42. Jacques D errida, “Edmund Husserl’s *O rigin o f Geometry’: An Introduction,” trans. John P. Leavy,Jr. (B righten: H arvester Press, 1978), 88.

43. Ib id ., 91.

44. Ib id ., 99.

45. Jacques D errida, “ T he A rt o f Memoires," 80.

46. Jacques D errida, Cinders, trans. Ned Lukacher (L in co ln : U niversity o f Nebraska Press, 1991), 22.

47. Ib id ., 53.

48. Ib id ., 61.

49. Ib id ., 41.

50. “She plays w ith words as one plays w ith fire , I w ould denounce her as a pyrom aniac who wants to make us fo rg e t th a t in S icily churches are b u ilt w ith the stone o f lava.” Ib id ., 61.

51. Jacques D errida, “Ulysses Gram ophone: Hear Say Yes in Joyce,” trans. T ina Kendall and Shari Benstock, in D erek A ttrid g e , ed., Acts o f Literature (New York: Routledge, 1992), 253-309, 272-294.

52. B ataille, L ’experience interieure. C ited in Jacques D errida . “From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism w ith o u t Reserve,” 261.

53. Ib id ., 260.

54. Ib id ., 253.

55. Ib id ., 264.

56. Sigm und Freud, “ T he U ncanny,” 241. S ignificantly, the example on ly comes up in the m om ent o f its re jection : “We m igh t indeed have begun o u r invesdgation w ith th is example, perhaps the m ost s trik in g o f a ll, o f som ething uncanny, b u t we refra ined from do ing so because the uncanny in it is too m uch in te rm ixed w ith w hat is pure ly gruesome and is in pa rt overlaid by it . ” Ib id . T h is sim ultaneous a ffirm a tio n and re jection o f the m ost e xp lic itly arch itectura l fig u re has to be considered in the specific con text o f Freud’s argum ent. He begins his essay by opposing Jentsch’s descrip tion o f the uncanny as “in te llec tua l uncerta inty” in w h ich the uncanny is exp lic idy understood as a spadal condidon: “something one does n o t know one’s way about in ,” an in a b ility to be “orientated” in an “environm ent.” Ib id ., 221. He then traces the various m eaning o f unheimlich, w hich are repeatedly punctua ted by the spadal fig u re o f the house (“belonging to the house . . . security as in one w ith in the fo u r walls o f h is house . . . surrounded by close walls . . . so heimUg in the house . . . the cottage . . .” ) and even the haunted house (“ (o f a house) haunted,” ). But, in opposing Jentsch, he tacidy opposes th is spadal sense despite the fact th a t he goes on to c ite his own uncanny experience o f spadal d isorien ta tion between the sm all houses in a sm all town in Ita ly, losing one’s way in a m ounta in forest, and w andering “about in a dark, strange room , lo o k in g fo r the door o r the e lectric switch, and co llid in g tim e after tim e w ith the same piece o f fu rn itu re .” Ib id ., 237. He extracts from his own examples the p rin c ip le o f rep e titio n ra the r than tha t o f space itse lf. In fact, it can be argued that Freud finds the them e o f the uncanny its e lf d iso rien ting in precisely the way he attempts to bracket o u t The text stages b u t also denies his experience o f

Note to Pages 167-169252___________________

in te llec tua l uncerta in ty in the face o f the uncanny. S ignificantly, the essay is on ly able to gain co n tro l over the uncanny by bracketing ou t space. The example o f the haunted house, w ith w hich he says he perhaps should have begun, on ly comes up, to be im m ediately bracketed away again, a t the precise m om ent he has regained co n tro l, a recovery o f the p rinc ip les o f psychanalytic theory announced in the very spatial term s he has attem pted to bracket out: “A nd now we fin d ourselves on fa m ilia r g round .” Ib id ., 236. Having been disorientated in the strange space o f the uncanny he returns to the fam ilia r home. Nevertheless, he is forced to invoke the haunted house in o rde r to gain e xp lic it access to the them e o f death, specifica lly tha t o f “sp irits, demons, and ghosts,” w hich has been as tacidy inscribed in to the te x t as the theme o f space from the beginning. In the end, the uncanny turns ou t to be a ghost story, a story o f the subject haunted by what it has repressed, a story in w hich the haunted house is centra l even, i f no t especially because it is exp lic idy and systematically suppressed only to re tu rn again late in the essay in its penultim ate exam ple as a “naive enough” story about the haunting o f a “fu rn ished house” haunted by crocodiles w hich come to life ou t o f the carvings o f its fu rn itu re . Ib id ., 244.

57. Jacques D errida , “L iv ing O n: Border Lines,” 96.

58. Ib id ., 108.

59. Ib id ., 137.

60. Ib id ., 76.

61. Jacques D errida , “Cartouches,” 195.

62. Ib id ., 217.

63. Ib id ., 244.

64. Jacques D errida , “ To Speculate— on Freud,” 300.

65. Ib id ., 369.

66. Ib id ., 342.

67. Jacques D errida , “ Telepathy,” Oxford Literary Review, vol. 10, nos. 1-2, 1988, 3-42, 28-33.

68. D e rrida ’s “H ow to Avoid Speaking: D enials,” fo r exam ple, describes how a pa rticu la r p o litica l topography is established to the extent tha t the shared language tha t constitutes it is “haunted” by tha t w hich “exceeds” any “position ” in the space and yet leaves its secret m ark w ith in i t The essay explores the strange re lationsh ip “between the place and the place o f the secret, between the secret place and the topography o f the social.” Jacques D errida, “How to Avoid Speaking: Denials,” 21. Likewise, in “Shibboleth,” D errida identifie s how a p o litic a l space is constitu ted by the "unheimhcKn “spectral re tu rn ” in to i t o f tha t w hich has been excluded from it bu t is encrypted w ith in it. Jacques D errida, “S h ibbo le th ,” 394.

69. Jacques D errida , “Force o f Law: The ‘M ystical Foundation o f A u th o rity ’ ,” 965.

70. D e rrida ’s in tro d u c tio n to his firs t reading o f the second h a lf o f “Force o f Law,” (published in a supplem entary foo tno te to the te x t) argues th a t B enjam in’s te x t is a “ghost story” th a t is its e lf haunted: “haunted by haunting itse lf, by a quasi-logic o f the phantom w hich, because it is the m ore fo rce fu l one, should be substituted fo r an on to log ica l log ic o f presence, absence o r rep resen ta tion .. . . the law o f the phantom , the

N ote to Pages 169-174253___________________

spectral experience and the m em ory o f the phantom , o f tha t w hich is ne ither dead n o r liv in g , m ore than dead and m ore than liv in g , on ly surviving . . Ib id ., 973.

71. Ib id ., 1005.

72. Ib id .

73. Ib id ., 1009. “ The secret w ith o u t secret o f resistance, fo r deconstruction, is perhaps a certa in connivance w ith ru in .” Jacques D errida , “Biodegradables: Seven D ia ry Fragm ents,” trans. Peggy Kam uf, C ritica l Inquiry, vo l. 15, no. 4, 1989, 812-873, 851.

74. “ I don ’t fee l that I ’m in a position to choose between an operation tha t we’ll ca ll negative o r n ih ilis t, an opera tion th a t w ould set about fu riously dism anding systems, and the o ther operation. I love very m uch everyth ing th a t I deconstruct in my own m anner; the texts I want to read from the deconstructive p o in t o f view are texts I love, w ith th a t im pulse o f iden tifica tion w hich is indispensable fo r re a d in g .. . . m y re la tion to these texts is characterized by loving jea lousy and n o t at a ll by n ih ilis tic fu ry (one can’t read anything in the la tte r cond ition) . . .’’ Jacques D errida , “R oundtable on A utobiography,” 87.

75. Jacques D errida, “V io lence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the T hough t o f Emmanuel Levinas,” 117.

76. Jacques D errida, “A t T h is Very M om ent in» Whose W ork H ere I A m ,” trans. Rubin Berezdivin, in Robert Bernasconi and Sim on C ritchley, eds., Re-Reading Levinas (B loom ing ton : Ind iana U niversity Press, 1991), 11—48, 18.

77. Ib id ., 19.

78. Ib id ., 11.

79. Ib id ., 18.

80. Ib id ., 42.

81. Jacques D errida, “V io lence and Metaphysics: An Essay on the T hough t o f Em m anuel Levinas,” 88.

82. Jacques D errida, “ T he Deaths o f Roland Barthes,” trans. Pascale-Anne B rau lt and M ichael Naas, in Hugh J. S ilverm an, ed.. Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Merleau-Ponty (New York: Routledge, 1988), 259-296, 267.

83. Ib id ., 268.

84. Ib id ., 267.


86. Ib id ., 214.

87. “De que lle exclusion est-elle faite? E t de que lle envie de vom ir? . . . Le ni-avale-ni-re- je te , ce q u i reste dans la gorge comme autre . . .” Jacques D errida , “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” 94.

88. “Q uand je dis que Glas trava ille au paradoxe de T e ffe t de lecture,* j ’etends en p a rticu lie r qu’i l fa it l ’un de ses themes p rinc ipaux de la reception (assim ilation, d igestion, absorption, in tro jec tion , incorporation), ou de la non-reception (exclusion, fo rc lusion ,

Note to Pages 175-178254___________________

re je t et encore, mais cette fois comme expulsion in testine, incorporation), done du vomis- sement in te rn e ou externe, du travail-du-deuil e t de to u t ce qui v ie n t ou revien t a d^ueu le r. Mais Glas ne tra ite pas seulem ent de ces themes, i l se propose d ’une certaine m aniere a toutes ces operations.” Ib id ., 93.

89. “ . . . i l fau t ad jo ind re ou p lu to t id e n tifie r la question du “rythm e,” des delais rythm es, etc.” Ib id .

90. Jacques D errida , Glas, 15. O n Nietzsche opposing lite ra tu re to those who w rite when they cannot digest som ething, see Jacques D errida, “L iv ing O n: Border Lines,” 106.

91. For D errida , desire has no place w ithou t spacing. Jacques D errida, “Aphorism Counte rtim e ,” 418. O f Grammatology speaks o f the necessary “spacing” between desire and pleasure. Jacques D errida, O f Grammatology, 280.

92. Jacques D errida , “ ‘Eating W ell,’ o r the C alcu lation o f the Subject: A n In te rview w ith Jacques D e rrid a ,” in terview w ith Jean-Luc Nancy, trans. Peter C onnor and A vita l R onell, in Eduardo Cadava et a l., eds., Who Comes after the Subject ? (New York: Routledge, 1991), 96-119. “C arnivorous sacrifice is essential to the structure o f subjectivity, w hich is also to say to the found ing o f the in te n tion a l su b je c t. . ."Jacques D errida, “Force o f Law: The ‘M ystical Foundation o f A u tho rity ,’ 953.

93. Jacques D errida , “ ‘Eating W ell,’ ” o r the C alculation o f the Subject: A n In terview w ith Jacques D e rrida ,” 99.

94. “ Ou a lie u un ‘e ffe t de lectu re ,’ s’i l a lieu?” Jacques D errida , ‘Ja, ou le faux-bond,” 92.

D islocating Space

1. Jacques D errida , “C horeographies,” 69.

2. Ib id ., 68.

3. Jacques D errida , “D econstruction in Am erica: An In te rview w ith Jacques D errida ,” 4.

4. “W hat strikes me when the question you raise is centered around the question o f place is a certa in type o f deconstructive th in k in g , at least the k in d tha t has interested me personally m ore and m ore fo r some tim e now: tha t is, precisely, the question and the enigm a o f event as tha t which takes place [q u i a lieu ], the question o f the enigm a o f place. A nd here we have to proceed very, very slowly and very, very cautiously when we ask ourselves w hat we rea lly mean by place. T h in k in g about the question o f place is a very d iffic u lt th in g — as is th in k in g about event as som ething w hich takes place.” Ib id ., 4.

5. For D errida , “position ” is no t sim ply som ething addressed by discourse b u t is the effect o f discourse. To re th in k position is therefore to re th in k discourse: “As you know, deconstruction means, among o ther th ings, the questioning o f what synthesis is, what thesis is, what a position is, w hat com position is, n o t on ly in term s o f rhe to ric , bu t what position is, what positing means. D econstruction questions the thesis, the theme, the positiona lity o f everyth ing . . ./Jacques D errida , “Jacques D errida on R hetoric and C om position: A C onversation,” 8. “ The very idea o f a the tic presentation, o f Setzung o r Stellung . . . was one o f the essential parts o f the system th a t was under deconstructive question ing.” Jacques D errida , “ The T im e o f a Thesis: Punctuations,” trans. Kathleen M cLauglin , in

N ote to Pages 179-182255___________________

Alan M ontefiore, ed., Philosophy in France Today (Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1983), 34-50, 42. Deconstructive discourse repeatedly iden tifie s examples “a thetic” o r “n o n the tic ” w ritin g “beyond the log ic o f po s itio n ” (o f w hich the m ost extended and detailed example is Freud in D e rrida ’s “ To Speculate— O n Freud” ) and its own athetic cond ition , which sign ifican tly determ ines its p o litica l status: “ the deconstructive je tty in its e lf is no m ore p ropositiona l than positional; it deconstructs precisely the thesis, both as philosophica l thesis . . . and as theme. . . . Hence the necessity fo r deconstruction to deal w ith texts in a d iffe re n t way than as discursive contents, themes o r theses, bu t always as in s titu tio n a l structures and, as is com m only said, as being po litica l-ju rid ica l-soc ioh is to ri- cal— none o f these last words being re liab le enough to be used easily, hence th e ir relative rare use in the most cautious texts called deconstructive .. . . Using an outdated language, one m ight thus say th a t the deconstructive je tty isn ’t essentially theore tica l, the tic, o r them atic because it is also e th ica l-p o litica l.” Jacques D errida , “Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and O the r Small Seismisms,” 86.

6. Jacques D errida, “Fors: The A nguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria Torok,” xliv.

7. Ib id ., xx i.

8. Ib id ., 119.

9. Ib id ., x lv iii.

10. Jacques D errida, “L im ite d In c ., a b c . . . ,” 76.

11. Ib id ., 82.

12. Ib id ., 90. “ The parasite parasites the lim its th a t guarantee the p u rity o f rules and o f in ten tions, and th is is n o t devoid o f im p o rt fo r law, po litics , econom ics, ethics . . . etc.” Ib id ., 98.

13. Ib id ., 103.

14. “W hat is the place, the taking-place, o r the m etaphoric event, o r o f the m etaphoric?” Jacques D errida, “ The Retrait o f M etaphor,” 17. “Does the preface take place, then? W here w ould it take place?” Jacques D errida , “O utw ork, P refacing,” 11. “Does the signatu re take place? Where? How? Why? For W hom?” Jacques D errida , Glas, 3. “Does the tide take place?” Jacques D e rrida , “ T ide (To Be S pecified),” 17.

15. “ T ha t does no t mean (to say) tha t there is no castration, bu t th a t th is there is does n o t take place.” Jacques D e rrid a , Glas, 229.

16. Jacques D errida, “Le facteur de la v e rite ,” 436.

17. Ib id ., 441.

18. Ib id ., 426.

19. Ib id ., 492.

20. Ib id ., 420.

21. “A ll the ‘unheimUcK re la tions o f dup lic ity , w hich un fo ld w ith o u t lim it in a dual structure, fin d themselves o m itte d o r m arginalized in the Seminar. They are o f in terest

Note to Pages 182-185256_________________

on ly at the m om ent when they appear neutra lized, dom inated, mastered in the constitutio n o f the triangu la r sym bolic system . . . W hat thus finds its e lf con tro lled is Unheim- lichkeit, and the anguishing disarray w hich can be provoked—w ithou t any hope o f reappropria tion , o f closure, o r o f tru th .” Ib id ., 460.

22. “Le concept de crise signera it un d e rn ie r symptome, l ’e ffo rt convu lsif pou r sauver un ‘m onde’ que nous n ’habitons plus: plus d'oikas, d ’econom ie, d ’ecologie, de site habitable ‘chez nous’ . . . . La “representation’* de crise et la rhe to rique qu ’e lle organise o n t toujours au m oins cette fin a lite : determ iner, pour la lim ite r, une menace plus grave e t plus in fo rm e , en verite sans figu re e t sans norm e.” Jacques D errida, “Econom ies de la crise,” La Quinzaine Litteraire, 339, August 1983, 4 -5 , 4.

23. “N ’epargnant aucune reg ion , ce m al-etre et cette menace affectent be in la destination de l ’hum anite, et m oins que jam ais depuis cinquante ans nous ne saurions les localises le u r assigner, pour les contenir, un lie u p rop re .” Jacques D errida, “Ce que j ’aurais d it . . .,” 85.

24. Jacques D errida , “ The D ouble Session,” 213.

25. Jacques D errida , “Shibboleth,” 335.


27. Ib id ., 314.

28. Jacques D errida , “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” 62

29. Jacques D errida , “L iv ing O n: Border L ines” 104.

30. Ib id ., 138.

31. Ib id ., 146.

32. Jacques D errida , “Shibboleth,” 409.

33. Ib id ., 407.

34. Jacques D errida , “D econstruction and the O ther,” 107.

35. Ib id ., 112.

36. Jacques D errida , “ Tam pan,” x ii.

37. Jacques D errida , “Some Questions and Responses,” 261.

38. See, fo r exam ple, the discussion o f “dis-closure” in the lectures on Parmenides: “A ccord ing to the obvious m eaning, when we th in k o f the ‘open,’ we th in k o f som ething opened versus som ething closed. A nd w hat is open and opened is ‘a space.’ The open refers to the essential dom ain o f space . . . the open refers to what is spatia l.” M artin Heidegger, Parmenides, 156. I t is n o t sim ply opposed to the enclosure it opens. O n the contrary, it produces i t “D isclosure, however, does no t sim ply resu lt in som ething disclosed as unclosed. Instead, the dis-closure [E n t-bergen\ , is a t the same tim e an en-closure fEwribergen] . . . D isclosure— tha t now means to b rin g in to a she ltering enclosure . . .” Ib id ., 133.

Note to Pages 185-188257___________________

39. M artin Heidegger, The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology, 300.

40. “ This openess exclusively and p rim a rily provides the space in w hich space as we usually know it can u n fo ld . The self-extending, the opening up , o f fu tu re , past and present is itse lf prespatial; o n ly thus can it make room , tha t is, p rovide space.” M artin Heidegger, On Time and Being trans. Joan Stambaugh (New York: H arper and Row, 1972), 14.

41. M artin Heidegger, “A rt and Space,” trans. Charles H . Seibert, M an and World, vol. 6, 3 -8 , 4.

42. Jacques D errida, “P ositions,” 84.

43. Jacques D errida, “ T he T im e o f the Thesis: P unctuations,” 47.

44. Jacques Derrida, “D econstruction and the O the r,” 109.

45. Jacques D errida, “Ulysses G ram ophone: H ear Say Yes in Joyce,” 257.

46. Jacques D errida, “Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Posdsms, Parasitisms, and O th e r Sm all Seismisms,” 82.

47. “I don ’t know w hat today we should ca ll, s tric tly speaking, a ph ilosopher o r an a rtist. I am sure that there are in te resting th ings today th a t m ust connect som ething ph ilosoph ical and som ething a rtis tic w ith o u t being add itiona l to one o r the other. But th is doesn’t make a diagram , th is doesn’t draw a sort o f chart, o r cartography o f th e ir positions. I f we rely on given trad itio n a l positions, we know what to say, we know th a t fo r a philosopher as such, a rt is no t essential. A philosopher, in p rin c ip le , doesn’t w rite works o f art, w hich means tha t he is interested in the m eaning, he is interested in the concept, no t in the fo rm , no t in the com position. B ut— in p rinc ip le , from the p o in t o f view tha t Plato was also an a rtist, and Spinoza was also an a rtis t—fo r S chelling and fo r Nietzsche philosophy was a form o f a rt B u t since w hat I am interested in is the essence o f philosophy, the essence o f a rt, and I d o n ’t know what philosophy and a rt should be, I have no answer to what we have to do. I am sure tha t the w ritin g o f som ething which has to do w ith thought, I d id n ’t say w ith philosophy b u t w ith thought, th is w ritin g can not be an objective w ritin g having no th ing to do w ith the sign ifie rs, w ith the fo rm , w ith the com position. So th in k in g has an essential lin k w ith w ritin g . So here I w ill paraphrase S chelling— any new fo rm o f th in k in g im plies a new way o f w ritin g — an o rig in a lity in fo rm , bu t I am n o t sure tha t th is o rig in a lity is what you ca ll a rtis tic o rig in a lity— deconstruction in thought, it there is such a th ing , is no t s tric tly speaking ph ilosophica l o r a rtis tic .” Jacques D errida, “A rtists, Philosophers and Institu tions: A T alk w ith Jacques D e rrida ,” Rampihe, vo l. 3, no. 3-vo l. 4, no. 1, 1984-85, 34-36, 34.

48. Jacques D errida, “Freud and the Scene o f W ritin g ,” 214.

49. Ib id ., 222.

50. Jacques D errida, “Voice I I . . .,” trans. Verena A nderm att Conley, Boundary II, vol. 12, no. 2, 1984, 76-98, 77.

51. Jacques D errida, ‘“ Genesis and S tructure ’ and Phenom enology,” 155

52. “I t remains that Being, w hich is no th ing , is no t a being, cannot be said, cannot say itse lf, except in the o n tic m etaphor. And the choice o f one o r another group o f meta-

Note to Pages 188-193258_________________

phors is necessarily s ig n ifica n t I t is w ith in a m etaphorical insistence, then, tha t the in te rp re ta tion o f the m eaning o f Being is produced.” Jacques D errida, “ The Ends o f M an,” 131.

53. Ib id ., 133.

54. “My reference to Heidegger is often a reference to those places in H eidegger’s thought where the question o f place is very alive and very mysterious too. A ll th is means tha t the question o f place is absolutely essential, bu t a ll the m ore d iffic u lt to circum scribe and to isolate.” Jacques D errida , “D econstruction in Am erica: An In te rview w ith Jacques D errida ,” 4.

55. Jacques D errida , “R estitutions: The T ru th o f P o in ting ,” 257.

56. Ib id ., 261.

57. “ The ghosdy is n o t fa r away. The re la tion w hich unsticks being from the existent w ithou t m aking som ething else o f it, another existent, bu t m erely a nothingness, a nonexistent w hich is there w ithou t being there as being present, th is re la tion has some connivance w ith haunting. UnheimHckeit is the cond ition— take th is w ord however you w ill— o f the question o f being, o f its being-on-the-way, inasm uch as it (does no t) pass(es) via no th ing . In Zeit und Sein, the experience which relates presence to absence {Anwe- sen/Abweseri) is ca lled unheimUche.** Ib id ., 378.

58. "T h e unheimlichheit o f the th in g .” Ib id , 373.

59. Ib id ., 360.

60. Jacques D errida , “ The Deaths o f Roland Barthes,” 267.

61. Ib id ., 295.

62. Jacques D errida , “ Ousia and Gramme: Note on a N ote from Being and Time," 41.


64. Jacques D errida , “ Ousia and Gramme: Note on a N ote from Being and Time,” 41.

65. Jacques D errida , “Geschlecht: Sexual D ifference, O nto log ica l D iffe rence ,” 73.

66. Ib id ., 77.

67. Ib id .


69. Ib id ., 133.

70. Ib id ., 69.

71. Ib id ., 128.

72. Ib id ., 81.

73. Ib id ., 103.

Note to Pages 193-196259_________________

74. Jacques Derrida, “Languages and the Ins titu tions o f Philosophy,” 130.

75. Ib id ., 132.

76. Ib id ., 146.

77. Ib id ., 134. “In the western tra d itio n , especially in the m odern tra d itio n , since the beginning o f the n ineteenth century— philosophy is located at the top o f the pyram id, it is a p o in t from which the ph ilosopher can watch the whole fie ld , every regim e o f the encyclopedia. I t is the ph ilosopher who knows what the physicality o f physics is, what the psychology o f the psyche is. T he ph ilosopher is a t the top o f the hierarchy, o r what I ca ll the ontologica l encyclopedia. B ut being at the top, he is reduced in fact to alm ost no th ing , to a po in t, a p o in t a t the top o f the pyram id. In p rin c ip le he has the rig h t— to look over everything. A nd he is reduced, as we know, to alm ost no th ing . The philosophy departm ent is noth ing. T he discourse on the death o f philosophy in the western countries, a discourse w hich started a long tim e ago in the n ineteenth century, the discourse on the death o f philosophy has to do, to some extent, w ith th is in s titu tio n a l s itua tion, w hich is n o t only in s titu tio n a l in the externa l sense, it is in s titu tio n a l in the deepest sense.” Jacques D errida, “A rtists, Philosophers and In s titu tion s ,” 36.

78. Jacques Derrida, “Languages and the In s titu tions o f Philosophy,” 133.

79. “II fa u t protester con tre l ’enferm em ent de la ph ilosoph ic. Nous refusions leg itim e- m ent Tassignation a residence . . .” Jacques D errida , “Les antinom ies de la d iscip line philosophique: Lettre preface” in Jacques D errida , Du droit a la philosophie (Paris: G alilee, 1990), 511-524, 517.

80. “De son chez-soi p ro p re .” Jacques D errida , “Les evenements? Quels evenements?,” Nouvel Observateur, 1045 H.S., 1984, 83-84, 84.

81. Jacques D errida, “Les antinom ies de la d iscip line ph ilosoph ique ,” 518-521.

82. Jacques D errida, “A t T his Very M om ent in Whose W ork I A m ,” 33.

83. “I t leaves place fo r the o th e r in a taking-place o f this book where this here no longer shuts in upon itself, upon its own sub ject” Ib id ., 31.

84. Ib id ., 11.

85. Ib id ., 16.

86. “From the m om ent in w h ich the w ork o f deconstruction makes some progress, the risks o f dom estication increase.” Jacques D errida , “ The D erridean View: An Inter-V iew w ith Jacques D errida,” trans. M ary A nn Caws, BM104, vol. 2, no. 1, Sept. 1988, 4-5, 5.

87. Jacques D errida, “Ja, ou le faux-bond,” 108.

88. “In any case, deconstruction is n o t a p ro ject, w hich could ju s t be present in fro n t o f no m atter whom, after some p rio r decision. N o r is it a m ethod, o r a fie ld , which one can try to appropriate fo r oneself, o r to reduce to a hom ogenous space. My w ork w ould be rather inscribed in a con figu ra tion la rger than itse lf, a m obile, p lu ra l con figura tion sometimes fa r from the places m ost fa m ilia r to me (fo r example: arch itecture, film , legal studies). "Jacques D errida , “ T he D erridean View: A n In te rview W ith Jacques D errida ,” 4.

89. Jacques D errida, “Force o f Law: The ‘M ystical Foundation o f A u th o rity /” 931.

Note to Pages 196-200260___________________

90. Jacques D errida , “M nemosyne,” trans. Cecile Lindsay, in Jacques D errida , Memoires fo r PaulDe M an (New York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1986), 1-43, 18.

91. “B ut is there a proper place, is there a p roper story fo r th is thing? I th in k it consists on ly o f transference, and o f a th in k in g through o f transference, in a ll the senses tha t th is w ord acquires in m ore than one language, and firs t o f a ll tha t o f the transference between languages.” Ib id ., 14.

92. Jacques D errida , “D econstruction in Am erica: A n In terview W ith Jacques D errida .”21.

93. Ib id ., 3. T h is involves a displacem ent o f the classical concept o f “sym ptom ”: “deconstructions are n o t an enterprise. I t is already a symptom o f the situation you’re describing: th is change in the tw entieth century in technology, in econom ics, in m ilita ry strategies, these transform ations in languages, etc. I consider deconstruction to be a symptom, bu t at the same tim e, the concept o f ‘sym ptom ’ has to be deconstructed, has to be analyzed; it ’s n o t a symptom in the sense o f a sign at the surface o f what is signified by the sign. I t ’s a sign which transforms th is s itua tion, so the concept o f symptom is no t p e rtin e n t enough.” Jacques D errida , “Some Questions and Responses,” 262.

94. O n the “transla tion ” o f deconstruction in Am erica: “You are supposing tha t the o rig ina l o f deconstruction is no t to be found in Am erica. I don ’t know how true tha t is. I don ’t know i f there is an o rig ina l o f deconstruction.” Jacques D errida, “D econstruction in Am erica: A n In terview w ith Jacques D errida ,” 22. D errida goes on to argue tha t i f it was o rig in a lly named as such in France, it was so already by way o f a “deform ing transla tion ” o f Heidegger.

95. “ There is som ething French in deconstruction, and it w ill be in teresting to analyze th is. Nevertheless, my fee ling is tha t deconstruction is n o t French at a ll, and tha t it is no t so w ell received in France. I t comes from outside.” Jacques D errida, “D econstruction: A T ria logue in Jerusalem .” Mishhenot Sha’ananim Newsletter, no. 7, December 1986, 1-7, 6.

96. Jacques D errida , “Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and O ther Small Seismisms,” 93.

97. Jacques D errida , “Le tte r to a Japanese F riend ,” 4.

98. Jacques D errida , “ The T im e o f a Thesis: P unctuations,” 45.

99. Jacques D errida , “An In te rview w ith D errida ,” in te rv iew w ith C atherine David, trans. David A llison e t al., in David W ood and Robert Bernasconi, eds., Derrida and Differance (C oventry: Parousia Press, 1985), 107-127, 81.

100. Jacques D errida , “Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and O ther Sm all Seismisms,” 72.

101. Ib id ., 75.

102. Jacques D errida , “A fte rw ord : Towards an E th ic o f D iscussion,” 141.

103. Jacques D errida . “L im ited Inc. a b c . . .,” 46.

104. Ib id ., 29.

105. Ib id ., 107.

Note to Pages 200-203261___________________

106. Ib id ., 38.

107. "T h is force o f ru p tu re is due to the spacing w hich constitutes the w ritten sign: the spacing w hich separates i t from o ther elements o f the in te rn a l contextual chain (the always open possibility o f its extraction and g ra ftin g ), bu t also from a ll the form s o f present referent (past o r to come in the m od ified fo rm o f the present past o r to come) th a t is objective o r subjective. T h is spacing is n o t the sim ply negativity o f a lack, bu t the emergence o f the m ark.” Jacques D errida, "S ignature, Event, C ontext,” trans. A lan Bass, in Jacques D errida, M argins o f Philosophy (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982), 307-330, 317.

108. Jacques D errida, “L im ite d Inc. a b c . . . 76.

109. Ib id ., 55.

110. Ib id ., 82.

111. Ib id ., 97.

112. D errida argues th a t the sense in w hich theory “cannot be a p o litica l o r p o litica lly neu tra l. A nd the analysis o f p o litic a l dim ension o f a ll contextual de term ina tion is never a pure ly theoretical gesture. I t always involves a p o litic a l evaluation, even i f the code o f th is evaluation is overdeterm ined, resists classifications [such as r ig h t/le ft], and is yet to come—prom ised—ra th e r than given.” Jacques D errida , “A fte rw ord : Towards an E th ic o f Discussion,” 132. "W hat I am saying im plies a ra th e r p ro found transform ation o f the concept o f the ‘p o litica l.*” Ib id ., 136.

113. Ib id ., 111.

114. Ib id ., 112. When D e rrid a reflects upon th is argum ent elsewhere, he insists on the necessity o f re th ink ing vio lence: “I ’m n o t sure i f there is a pure and general s tric t ru le fo r avoiding violence in argum entation. . . . there is a problem w ith violence. Some violence cannot be avoided, so we have to elaborate sim ply, e xp lic itly the problem o f violence, violence in academ ic discussion and so on . . . You can’ t avoid— and you should n o t avoid—any violence in o rd e r to avoid violence. . . . I say tha t perhaps we have on ly the choice between d iffe re n t kinds o r qualities o f violence, depending on the context. Sometimes a v io lent gesture is less v io len t, m ore d isarm ing than another and so on. A non-vio lent gesture is possible. . . . we are th in k in g o f a good vio lence, w hich w ould be non-vio lent w ith regards to the bad violence, the evil one. So I am th in k in g o f som ething non-vio lent and we are try in g to discuss th is and to share th is th in k in g so as to try to do w hat we can to avoid the w orst vio lence, and even i f we cannot determ ine the rules and do anything positive to avoid any violence whatsoever, perhaps in th is shared th in k in g o f non-violence, some non-vio lence happens w ithou t ou r ca lcu la tion . N on-violence, o r pure non-violence cannot be calculated, b u t perhaps it happens. . . . So from th a t p o in t o f view ’deconstruction’ w ou ld be a dream o f such a non-vio lence.” Jacques D errida , “A Discussion w ith Jacques D e rrid a ,” W riting Instructed vo l. 9, no. 1 /2 , 1989, 7-18, 10.

115. Jacques D errida, “A fte rw o rd : Towards an E th ic o f D iscussion,” 125.

116. Ib id ., 135.

117. Ib id ., 133.

118. Jacques D errida, “ T he Law o f G enre,” trans. A vita l R onell, Glyph 7, 1980, 202-229, 219

N ote to Pages 204-205262___________________

119. Ib id ., 204.

120. Ib id ., 206.

121. Ib id ., 213.

In-C onclusion

1. “ I w ould try to elaborate the problem o f violence and to th in k what violence is. And again i f I say what violence is, I w ould have to transform the question because the concept o f ‘being* already involves some violence. Even the question ‘W hat is?* is n o t to ta lly devoid o f violence. So I w ould like to th in k beyond— here we come back to deconstruction— to th in k beyond a tra d itio n in which even the m ost neu tra l and innocent and on to log ica l question conveys some violence.** Jacques D errida, “A Discussion w ith Jacques Derrida,** 12. “D econstruction is firs t o f a ll a way o f n o t le ttin g yourse lf be im posed on by a program o f answers in the fo rm o f questions. It*s a m anner o f in te rroga ting the question itse lf; the question and questions: and even the a u tho rity o f questioning.** Jacques D errida, “ The D erridean View: An In te rview w ith Jacques Derrida,** 5. The “style** o f deconstructio n is “n o t a p ropositiona l one, b u t I w ou ldn ’t say tha t it ’s to ta lly in terrogative. O f course, it ’s m ore in te rroga tive than p ropositiona l, OK, b u t the fo rm o f the questions, the questio n in g syntax, is n o t taken fo r granted, n o t taken fo r the firs t and last fo rm o f th in k in g . So we have to question the fo rm o f question ing, in a sense w hich is n o t positive: I w ould d istingu ish between the positive, o r positions, and a ffirm ations. I th in k th a t deconstructio n is ra the r a ffirm a tive than question ing; th is a ffirm a tio n goes th rough some radical questioning, b u t is no t questioning in the fin a l analysis.** “Jacques D errida on the U n iversity,” in te rview w ith Im re Salusinsky, Southern Review, 19 ,1986 ,3 -12 ,9 . T h is questioning o f the au tho rity o f the question begins as a sustained question ing o f “ the p rivilege o f questioning in H eidegger’s though t.” See Jacques D errida , “O n Reading Heidegger: A n O u tlin e o f Remarks to the Essex C o lloqu ium ,” Research in Phenomenology, vol. 17, 1987, 171-188, and Jacques D errida , O f Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. G eoffrey Benn ing ton and Rachel Bowlbey (Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1989). O n the way in w hich the space o f philosophy is bo th established as an “enclosure” o r “founded dw e lling ” inasm uch as philosophy is a “com m unity o f the question” bu t is rad ica lly com plicated by the ambiguous status o f the question, see, particu la rly, “V iolence and Metaphysics: A n Essay on the T hough t o f Em m anuel Levinas,” 79-80.

References

Works by Jacques D errida C ited

“A fterw ord: Toward an E th ic o f Discussion.” Trans. Samuel Weber. In Jacques D errida, Lim ited Inc. Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1988, 111-160.

“Les antinom ies de la d isc ip lin e philosophique: Le ttre preface.” In Jacques D errida , Du droit a la philosophie. Paris: G alilee, 1990, 511-524.

“Aphorism C ountertim e.” Trans. N icholas Royle. In Derek A ttridge , ed., Acts o f Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 414-433.

“A rch itecture Where the Desire May L ive.” Domus 671, 1986, 17-25.

“The A rt o f Memoires” Trans. Jonathan C uller. In Jacques D errida , Memoires fo r Paul De M an. New \b rk : Colum bia U niversity Press, 1986, 45-88.

“A rtists, Philosophers and In s titu tion s: A Talk w ith Jacques D errida .” Rampike, vol. 3, no. 3 -vo l. 4, no. 1, 1984-85, 34-36.

“A t This Very M om ent in T h is W ork Here I A m .” Trans. R ubin Berezdivin. In R obert Bernasconi and Simon C ritch ley, eds., Re-Reading Levinas. B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1991, 11^48.

“Before the Law.” Trans. A vita l R onell and C hristine Roulston. In Derek A ttridge, ed.. Acts o f Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 181-220.

“Biodegradables: Seven D ia ry Fragm ents.” Trans. Peggy Kam uf. C ritical Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 4, 1989, 812^873.

“Cartouches.” Trans. G e o ff B ennington and Ian M cLeod. In Jacques D errida, The Truth in Painting. Chicago: U n ive rsity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 183-253.

“Ce que j ’aurais d it . . .” In Le complexe de U onard ou la Societe de creation. Paris: E ditions de Nouvel Observateur, 1984, 77-92.

References264

“Choreographies.” Trans. C hristie V. M cDonald. Diacritics, vol. 12, no. 2, 1982, 66-76.

Cinders. Trans. Ned Lukacher. L in co ln : U niversity o f Nebraska Press, 1991.

“C ogito and the H is to ry o f Madness.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 31-63.

“The Deaths o f Roland Barthes.” Trans. Pascale-Anne B rau lt and M ichael Naas. In H ugh J. Silverm an, ed.. Philosophy and Non-Philosophy Since Merleau-Ponty. New York: Routledge, 1988, 259-296.

“Declarations o f Independence.” Trans. Tom Keenan and Tom Pepper. New Political Science, no. 15, Sum mer 1986, 7-15.

“D econstruction and the O ther.” In R ichard Kearney, ed., Dialogues w ith Contemporary Continental Thinkers, M anchester: M anchester U niversity Press, 1984, 105-126.

“D econstruction: A Tria logue in Jerusalem .” Mishkenot Sha’ananim Newsletter, no. 7, December 1986, 1-7.

“D econstruction in Am erica: An In te rv iew w ith Jacques D errida .” In te rview w ith James Creech, Peggy Kam uf, and Jane Todd. C ritical Exchange, no. 17, W in te r 1985, 1-33.

“The D erridean View: A n Inter-view w ith Jacques D e rrida .” In terview w ith Edward M arx. Trans. M ary A nn Caws. BM104, vol. 2, no. 1, Sept. 1988, 4 -5 , 8.

“Desistance.” Trans. C hristopher Fynsk. In tro d u c tio n to C hristopher Fynsk, ed., Typography: Mimesis, Philosophy, Politics. Cam bridge: H arvard U niversity Press, 1989, 1-42.

“D iffe rence.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy. Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago, 1982, 1-27.

“A Discussion w ith Jacques D errida .” W riting Instructor, vol. 9, no. 1 /2 , 1989, 7-18.

“D issem ination.” Trans. Barbara Johnson. In Jacques D errida, Dissemination. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 287-366.

‘T he D ouble Session.” Trans. Barbara Johnson. In Jacques D errida , Dissemination. C hicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 287-366.

“Du T out.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida. The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 497-521.

“Econom ies de la crise.” La Quimaine Litteraire, 339, August 1983, 4-5.

“Econom im esis.” Trans. R. K le in . Diacritics, vo l. 11, no. 2, 1981, 3-25.

“ ‘E ating W ell,’ o r the C alculation o f the Subject: A n In te rview w ith Jacques D errida .” In terview w ith Jean-Luc Nancy. Trans. Peter C onnor arid A vita l R onell. In Eduardo Cadava et a l., eds., Who Comes after the Subject? New York: Routledge, 1991, 96-119.

Edmund HusserVs *O rigin o f Geometry V A n Introduction. Trans. John P. Leavy, Jr. B righten: H arvester Press, 1978.

“The Ends o f M an.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , Margins o f Philosophy. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982, 109-136.

References265

“Entre crochets: en tre tien avec Jacques D errida, prem iere p a rtie ,” Digraphe 8, A p ril 1976, 97-114.

“Les evenements? Quels evenements?,” Nouvel Observateur, 1045 H.S., 1984, 83-84.

“Le facteur de la verite .” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. C hicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 411^196.

“Force and S ign ifica tion .” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f C hicago Press, 1978, 3-30.

“Force o f Law: The ‘M ystical Foundation o f A u th o rity ’. ” Trans. M ary Q uaintance. Cardozo Law Review, vol. 11, no. 5 /6 , Ju ly /A ugust 1990, 919-1046.

uFors: The Anguish W ords o f N icolas Abraham and M aria T orok.” Trans. Barbara Johnson. Foreword to Nicolas Abraham and M aria Torok. The W olf M an’s Magic Word. Trans. N icholas Rand. M inneapolis: U niversity o f M innesota Press, 1986, x i-x lv iii.

“Freud and the Scene o f W ritin g .” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference. Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 196-231.

“From Restricted to G eneral Econom y: A Hegelianism w ith o u t Reserve.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 251-277.

“ ‘Genesis and S tructure ’ and Phenom enology.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 154-168.

“Geschlecht: Sexual D iffe rence , O nto logica l D iffe rence .” Research in Phenomenology, X III, 1983, 65-84.

“The Ghost Dance: A n In te rv iew w ith Jacques D e rrida .” In te rview w ith M ark Lewis and Andrew Payne. Trans. Jean-Luc Svoboda. Public, 2, 1989, 60-73.

Glas. Trans. John P. Leavy, Jr., and R ichard Rand. L in co ln : U niversity o f Nebraska Press, 1986.

“How to Avoid Speaking: D enials.” Trans. Ken Frieden. Sandford B udick and W olfgang Iser, eds., Languages o f the Unsay able: The Play o f Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory. New York: Colum bia U n iversity Press, 1989, 3-70.

“Im plica tions.” An in te rv iew w ith H e n ri Rose. Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Positions. Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 1-14.

“In terpreta tions at W ar: Kant, the Tew, the G erm an.” New Literary History, vol. 22, no. 1, 1991,39-95.

“An Interview w ith D e rrid a .” In te rview w ith C atherine David. Trans. David A llison et al. In David Wood and R obert Bernasconi, eds., Derrida and Differance. Coventry: Parousia Press, 1985, 107-127.

“Ja, ou le faux-bond.” Digraphe, 11, M arch 1977, 83-121.

“Jacques D errida in C onversation.” In te rview w ith Raul M ortley. In Raul M ortley, ed., French Philosophers in Conversation: Derrida, Irigary, Levinas, Le Doeuff Schneider, Serres. London: Routledge, 1990, 92-108.

References266

“Jacques D errida on R hetoric and C om position: A C onversation.” In terview w ith Gary A. O lson. Journal o f Advanced Composition, 10, 1990, 1-21.

‘Jacques D errida on the U niversity.” In terview w ith Im re Salusinsky, Southern Review, 19, 1986, $-12.

“La Parole Soufflee.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 169-195.

“Languages and In stitu tions o f Philosophy.” Trans. Sylvia S oderlind e t al., Semiotic In quiry/Researches Semiotiques, vol. 4, no. 2, 1984, 92-154.

“The Law o f G enre.” Trans. A vita l R onell, Glyph 7, 1980, 202-229.

“Le tter to a Japanese F riend .” Trans. David W ood and Andrew Benjam in. In David Wood and R obert Bernasconi, eds., Derrida and Differance. Coventry: Parousia Press, 1985, 1-5.

“L im ited Inc. a b c . . Trans. Samuel Weber. In Jacques D errida, Lim ited Inc, Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1988.

“L iv in g O n: Border L ines” Trans. James H u lbe rt. In H aro ld Bloom e t al., eds., Deconstruction and Criticism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979, 75-176.

“M allarm e.” Trans. C hristine Roulston. In D erek A ttridge , ed.. Acts o f Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 110-126.

“Me-Psychoanalysis: An In tro d u c tio n to the T ranslation o f The Shell and the Kernal by N icolas Abraham .” Trans. R. K le in . Diacritics, vo l. 9, no. 1, 4r-12.

“Mnem osyne.” Trans. Cecile Lindsay. In Jacques D errida , Memoires fo r Paul De Man. New York: C olum bia U niversity Press, 1986, 1-43.

“M ochlos ou le c o n flit des facultes.” Philosophic, 2, A p ril 1984, 21-53.

O f Grammalology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltim ore: Johns H opkins U niversity Press, 1976.

O f S pirit: Heidegger and the Question. Trans. G eoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1989.

“O n Colleges and Philosophy.” In terview w ith G eoff B ennington. ICA Documents 4: Postmodernism, 1986, 66-71.

“O n Reading Heidegger: An O u tlin e o f Remarks to the Essex C o lloqu ium ,” Research in Phenomenology, vo l. 17, 1987, 171-188.

“O tobiographies: The Teaching o f Nietzsche and the P o litics o f the Proper Nam e.” Trans. A vita l R onell. In C hristie V. M cD onald, ed., The Ear o f the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation. New York: Schocken Books, 1985, 1-38.

uOusia and Gramme: N ote on a N ote from Being and Time. ” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , Margins o f Philosophy. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1982, 26-67.

“O utw ork, P refacing.” Trans. Barbara Johnson. In Jacques D errida , Dissemination. C hicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 1-59.

References267

“Parergon.” Trans. G eo ff B ennington and Ian M cLeod. In Jacques D errida , The Truth in Painting. Chicago: U n iversity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 15-147.

“La Parole Soufflee.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 169-195.

‘T h e P it and the Pyram id: In tro d u c tio n to H egel’s Sem iology.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy, Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago, 1982, 69-108.

“P lato’s Pharmacy.” Trans. Barbara Johnson. In Jacques D errida , Dissemination. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 61-172.

T h e Politics o f F riendsh ip .” Journal o f Philosophy, vo l. 75, no. 11, 1988, 632-645.

“Popularities: Du d ro it a la ph ilosoph ic du d ro it.” In Jacques D errida , Du droit a la philosophie. Paris: G alilee, 1990, 525-535.

“Positions.” Interview w ith Jean-Louis H oudebine and Guy Scarpetta. Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Positions. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 37-96.

T h e P rincip le o f Reason: The U niversity in the Eyes o f its P upils.” Trans. C atherine P orter and Edward P. M orris . Diacritics, vol. 13, no. 3, 1983, 3-20.

“Proverb: ‘He that w ould pun Trans. John P. Leavy,Jr. In John P. Leavy,Jr., Glossary.L inco ln : University o f Nebraska Press, 1986, 17-21.

“Psyche: Inventions o f the O the r.” Trans. C atherine Porter. In Lindsay Waters and W lad G odzich, eds., ReadingDe M an Reading. M inneapolis: U niversity o f M innesota Press, 1989, 25-65.

“R estitutions o f the T ru th in P o in ting [pointure].” Trans. G eoff B ennington and Ian M cLeod. In Jacques D e rrida , The Truth in Painting. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 255-382.

T h e Retrait o f M etaphor.” Trans, by editors. Enclitic, vo l. 2, no. 2, 1978, 5-34.

“Roundtable on Autobiography.” Trans. Peggy Kam uf. C hristie V. M cD onald, ed., The Ear o f the Other: Otobiography, Transference, Translation. New York: Schocken Books, 1985,39-90.

“R oundtable on T ransla tion .” Trans. Peggy Kam uf. In C hristie V. M cD onald, ed.. The Ear o f the Other. Otobiography, Transference, Translation. New York: Schocken Books, 1985, 9 1 - 162.

“Scribble (W riting-Pow er).” Trans. Cary P lo tk in . Yale French Studies, 59, 1979, 116-147.

“Semiology and G ram m atology.” In te rview w ith Ju lia Kristeva. Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Positions. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1981, 15-36.

“S hibboleth.” Trans. Joshua W ilner. In Derek A ttrid g e , ed., Acts o f Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 370-413.

“Signature, Event, C ontext.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , Margins o f Philosophy. Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1982, 307-330.

References268

“Some Questions and Responses,” N igel Fabb e t a l., eds., The Linguistics o f W riting Arguments between Language and Literature. Manchester: M anchester U niversity Press, 1987, 252-264.

“Some Statements and Truism s about Neo-logisms, Newisms, Postisms, Parasitisms, and other Small Seismisms.” Trans. Anne Tom iche. In David C a rro ll, ed., The States o f “Theory": History, A rt and C ritical Discourse. New York: Colum bia U niversity Press, 1990, 63-94.

Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on HusserVs Theory o f Signs. Trans. David B. A llison. Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1973.

“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse o f the Hum an Sciences.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 278- 294.

“Telepathy,” Trans. N icholas Royle. Oxford Literary Review, vo l. 10, nos. 1—2, 1988, 3-42.

‘T he Theatre o f C ruelty and the C losure o f Representation.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 232-250.

“The T im e o f a Thesis: Punctuations.” Trans. Kathleen M cLauglin . In A lan M ontefiore, ed., Philosophy in France Today. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1983, 34-50.

“T itle (To Be S pecified).” Trans. Tom Conley. Substance, 31, 1981, 5-22.

“To Speculate— on “Freud.” ” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1987, 257-409.

“Des Tours de Babel.” Trans. Joseph F. Graham. In Joseph F. Graham, ed., Difference in Translation. Ithaca: C orne ll U niversity Press, 1985, 165-207.

T ym phan ,” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, Margins o f Philosophy. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago, 1982, ix -x x ix .

“Ulysses G ram ophone: H ear Say Yes in Joyce.” Trans. T ina Kendall and Shari Benstock. In Derek A ttridge , ed., Acts o f Literature. New York: Routledge, 1992, 253-309.

“V iolence and Metaphysics: A n Essay on the T hought o f Em m anuel Levinas.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida , W riting and Difference. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago Press, 1978, 79-153.

“Voice I I . . .” Trans. Verena A nderm att Conley. Boundary II, vol. 12, no. 2, 1984, 76-93.

“W hite M ythology: M etaphor in the Text o f Philosophy.” Trans. A lan Bass. In Jacques D errida, M argins o f Philosophy. Chicago: U niversity o f Chicago, 1982, 207-271.

Works by M artin Heidegger C ited

“A rt and Space,” Trans. Charles H . Seibert. M an and World, vol. 6, 3-8.

The Basic Problems o f Phenomenology. Trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter. B loom ington: Ind iana U n iversity Press, 1982.

R eferences

269

Being and Time. Trans. John M acquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: H arper and Row, 1962.

“B u ild ing , Dwelling, T h in k in g .” Trans. A lb e rt Hofstadter. In M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 143-161.

The Essence o f Reasons. Trans. Terrence M alick. Evanston: N orthw estern U niversity Press, 1969.

History o f the Concept o f Time: Prolegomena. Trans. Theodore K isiel. B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1985.

Identity and Difference. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. New York: H arper and Row, 1969.

An Introduction to Metaphysics. Trans. Ralph M anheim . New Haven: Yale U niversity Press, 1959.

Kant and the Problem o f Metaphysics. Trans. R ichard Taft. B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1990.

“Language.” Trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter. In M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 187-210.

“Le tter on Hum anism .” Trans. David F arre ll K re ll. In M artin Heidegger: Basic Writings. New York: H arper and Row, 1977, 193-242.

The Metaphysical Foundations o f Logic. Trans. M ichael H eim . B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1984.

Nietzsche Vol. I : The W ill to Power as A rt. Trans. David F arre ll K re ll. San Francisco: H arper and Row, 1979.

Nietzsche, Vol. I l l : The W ill to Power as Knowledge and as Metaphysics. Trans. David F arre ll K re ll. San Francisco: H arpe r and Row, 1987.

On Time and Being. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. New York: H arper and Row, 1972.

“The O rig in o f the W ork o f A rt.” Trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter. In M a rtin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 15-87.

“O vercom ing M etaphysics.” Trans. Joan Strambaugh. In M artin Heidegger, The End oj Philosophy. New York: H a rpe r and Row, 1973, 84-110.

Parmenides. Trans. A ndre Schuwer and R ichard Rojcewicz. B loom ington: Ind iana U niversity Press, 1992.

“ . . . Poetically Man Dwells . . . ,” Trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter. In M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 211-229.

The Principle o f Reason. Trans. R eginald L illy . B loom ing ton : Ind iana U niversity Press, 1991.

“Remembrance o f the Poet,” Trans. Douglas Scott. In M artin Heidegger, Existence and Being. W ashington: Gateway, 1949, 233-269.

References270

“The Q uestion C oncern ing Technology.” Trans. David F arre ll K re ll. M artin Heidegger: Basic Writings. New York: H arper and Row, 1977, 283-317.

ScheUings Treatise on the Essence o f Human Freedom. Trans. Joan Stambaugh. Athens: O hio U niversity Press, 1985.

“The Way to Language.” Trans. Peter D. H ertz. In M a rtin Heidegger, On the Way to Language. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 111-136.

“W hat Are Poets For?” Trans. A lb e rt H ofstadter. In M artin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. New York: H arper and Row, 1971, 89-142.

What Is a Thing? Trans. W. B. Barton and Vera Deutsch. Chicago: H enry Regnery Company, 1967.

What Is Called Thinking? Trans. J. G lenn Gray. New York: H arper and Row, 1968.

O ther Authors C ited

Abraham , N icolas, and M aria Torok. “In tro jec tion -Inco rpo ra tion : M ourn ing o r M elancho lia .” In Serge Lebovici and D aniel W idlander, eds., Psychoanalysis in France. New York: In te rna tiona l U niversity Press, 1980, 3-16.

Abraham , N icolas, and M aria Torok. “A Poetics o f Psychoanalysis: The Lost O bject— M e.” Substance, vol. 13, no. 2, 1984, 3-18.

Benjam in, W alter. ‘T he Task o f the T ranslator.” Trans. H a rry Zohn. In H annah A rendt, ed., Illum inations. New York: Schocken Books, 1968, 69-82.

Descartes, Rene. “Seventh Set o f O bjections w ith the A u th o r’s Replies.” Trans. John (Nottingham et al. The Philosophical Writings o f Descartes Vol II. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1984.

Freud, Sigm und. “Three Essays on the T heory o f Sexuality.” Trans. James Strachey. The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, London: H ogarth Press, 1955, vol. 7, 1959, 125-243.

Freud, Sigm und. “M ourn ing and M elancholia ,” Trans. James Strachey. The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, London: H ogarth Press, 1955, vol. 14, 243-258.

Freud, Sigm und. “The Uncanny.” The Standard Edition o f the Complete Psychological Works o f Sigmund Freud, London: H ogarth Press, 1955, vol. 17: 217-256.

Kant, Im m anuel. “An Answer to Q uestion: ‘W hat is E nlightenm ent?’ Trans. H . B. N isbe t In Kant's Political Writings. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1970, 54-60.

Kant, Im m anuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point o f View. Trans. M ary J. Gregor. The Hague: M artinus N ijh o ff, 1974.

Kant, Im m anuel. The Critique o f Judgement. Trans. James Creed M eredith . London: O xford U niversity Press, 1952.

References271

Kant, Im m anuel. Critique o f Pure Reason. Trans. N orm an Kemp Sm ith. London: M acM illan and Co., 1929.

Kant, Im m anuel. Education. A nn A rbo r: U niversity o f M ichigan Press, 1960.

Im m anuel K an t The Metaphysical Principles o f Virtue. II. The Metaphysics o f Morals. Trans. James E lling ton . Ind ianapolis: B obbs-M errill, 1964.

Kant, Im m anuel. Observations on the Feeling o f the Beautiful and the Sublime. Trans. John T. G oldthw ait. Berkeley: U n iversity o f C a lifo rn ia Press, 1965.

Kant, Im m anuel. “O n P hilosopher’s M edicine o f the Body.” In Lewis W hite Beck, ed., Kant's Latin Writings. New York, Peter Lang, 1986, 217-243.

Kant, Im m anuel. “O n the Com m on Saying: ‘T h is May be T rue in Theory, B ut I t Does N o t A pply in Practice’ .” Trans. H . B. N isbet. In Hans Reiss, ed., Kant's Political Writings. Cam bridge: Cambridge U niversity Press, 1970, 61-92.

Kant, Im m anuel. “Perpetual Peace: A P hilosophical Sketch.” Trans. H .B . N isbet. In Hans Reiss, ed., Kant's Political W ritings. Cam bridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1970, 93-130.

Kant, Im m anuel. The Philosophy o f Law. Trans. W. Hastie. E d inburgh: T. T. C lark, 1887.

Nietzsche, F riedrich. The Gay Science. Trans. W alter Kaufm an. New York: V intage Books, 1974.

Panofsky, Irw in . Idea: A Concept in A rt Theory. Trans. Joseph J. S. Peake. New York: H arper and Row, 1968.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “A Discourse on the M ora l E ffects o f the A rts and Sciences.” Trans. G. D. H . Cole. In JeanJacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses. London: D ent, 1973, 1-26.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “A D iscourse on the O rig in o f Inequa lity.” Trans. G. D. H . Cole. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses. London: D ent, 1973, 27-113.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. “A Discourse on P o litica l Economy.” Trans. G. D. H . Cole. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses. London: D ent, 1973, 115-153.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile. Trans. Barbara Foxley. New York: D ent, 1973.

Rousseau, JeanJacques. “Essay on the O rig in o f Languages.” Trans. John H . M oran and A lexander Gode. In On the O rigin o f Language. New York: F rederick Ungar, 1966, 1-74.

Rousseau, JeanJacques. “The Social C ontract.” Trans. G. D. H . Cole. In JeanJacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses. London: D ent, 1973, 164-278.

W igley, M ark. “A rch itecture a fte r Philosophy: Le C orbusier and the Em peror’s New P ain t,” Journal o f Philosophy and the Visual Arts, no. 2, 1990, 84-95.

W igley, M ark. “Heidegger’s House: The V iolence o f the D om estic.” D : Columbia Documents in Architecture and Theory, no. 1. 1992, 91-121.

Index

Abraham , N icholas, 143-146, 175,247n66

Abyss, 39-44, 48-49, 62, 90, 94, 107, 113- 115, 225nl0, 230n8, 241n63

Aesthetics, 13-15, 17, 60-61, 63-67, 77- 78, 83-90,123-129, 131-134, 139-140, 143, 244n26 249nl4

A ffirm a tio n , 159-160, 166, 170, 186, 250n28

A lien , 3-4, 111-112, 128, 140-142, 147, 154, 161, 179-180, 192, 241n64

A liena tion , 98, 109-110, 135, 158 A lte rity (other, otherness) 24, 56, 73,

107-108, 128, 134,136, 139-141, 165, 171-172, 179,195, 233n43

A ppropria tion , 37-38, 42, 102, 125, 237nl4

A rch itecton ic, 9, 32, 37, 44, 48, 74-75,77, 90, 164, 188, 222n l7 , 227n40, 236n79, 241n69

A rch itecture as an a rt, 13-14, 20-21, 64-68, 78, 82,

85-87, 90, 125,131, 164, 186, 223nl9, 2 3 1 n ll

vs. bu ild ing , 25, 28, 44, 93, 131, 133 as a d iscip line , 20-21, 30, 46, 56, 85, 88, 98, 196, 210-218

A rt (artw ork), 13, 60-61, 63-68, 78, 83- 87, 89-91, 93, 110, 124-125, 127,133, 143 ,154-155,186,188-189 257n47

A rtaud, A n ton in , 160-161, 166

Banality, 121Barthes, Roland, 173, 189 B ataille, Georges, 166

Benjam in, W alter, 3 -4 , 19, 150-151, 169, 252n70

Bergson, H e n ri, 72 B lanchot, M aurice, 150-152, 167, 203 B order (boundary), 72, 126, 150-151,

153, 184-185, 192-193, 204 B u ria l, 6, 56,156, 162, 169, 174,178,

183, 195, 214, 216, 247n66

Celan, Paul, 153, 250n23 C losure, 72, 88, 144, 147, 185, 210 C olum n, 75-76, 87, 2 3 1 n ll, 234n52,

235n54Concept, 78-79, 223n27, 235n58 C onstruction , 7 -9 , 18, 27, 32,59, 62, 77,

222n l7 , 227n40 vs. deconstruction, 36, 38, 43

C onsum ption, 125-132, 138, 140-141, 143, 145, 167

C ontract, 4, 125, 127, 132-135, 145,184 between arch itecture and philosophy, 5 -

6, 19-22, 31, 95, 123, 217 C on tro l, 26, 140, 182

o f a rch itectu re, 12, 27-28, 212 th rough arch itecture, 48, 60, 81-82,

101, 127 o f o rnam ent 11, 82-84 o f representation, 10-11, 14, 23, 81, 127 o f space, 69, 72, 176, 198 th rough space, 151, 176

Cracks, 5, 53-54 Crisis, 182C rypt, 56, 144-147, 149, 153,158, 165,

167, 169, 173-176, 178-179, 184, 200, 230n65, 247n73, 249n6

In d e x

274

Dance, 158-162, 165, 173, 177 Death, 68-69, 71, 77-78, 124, 133, 142,

145-145, 164, 167-168, 221n6, 247n73, 248n78, 251n56

De Man, Paul, 45, 164 Descartes, Rene, 7, 39-40, 98, 245n41 Design, 20, 83, 91, 134 Desire, 24, 29-32, 43, 70-72, 83, 90-91,

125, 126-128, 132, 143, 162, 175-176 D estruction, 37-38, 41-42, 56, 86, 99,

120, 161, 164, 185, 225n9, 226n22, 226n25, 230n68

Detachm ent, 125-128, 131 D igestion, 126, 128, 130, 137, 145-145,

200Disavowal, 6, 14-15, 71-72, 92, 186 D islocation, 166, 177, 186-188, 192, 195-

197Disgust, 139-143, 170, 174-175 D isplacem ent, 73, 118-119, 123, 145,

177-178, 195 Dom estication, 11, 107-109, 111, 118,

155, 157, 160, 166, 172, 192, 196 by a rch itectu re, 104, 107, 118, 129, 137-

138,o f arch itecture, 14-15, 119, 129, 217—

218o f deconstruction , 196, 198-200 o f space, 129, 218 o f woman, 134-137, 245n35

Domestic space, 106, 114, 117, 126, 129, 134-136, 146, 149, 157, 161-163, 166, 172, 179, 182, 247n73

Dom estic violence, 107-109, 120, 146 Door, 152-153Double, 15, 26, 76, 82, 126, 129, 135,

141-142, 146, 158, 169 D raw ing, 9, 16, 20, 37, 164, 209 D w elling, 77, 97, 102-103, 106, 113-114,

117, 138, 161, 171, 181, 240n52

Eating, 125, 128, 131-134, 144, 167, 174, 176, 244n26, 244n27, 244n28

Economy, 117-118, 120, 125, 127-128, 136-138, 172, 174, 182, 204, 241n74

Edifice, 7-9, 16, 24, 26, 35-36, 42, 44-45, 48-50, 56, 62, 81-82, 86, 89-90, 97,100, 105, 111, 115, 123, 133, 157, 163, 179, 222n l5

Enclosure, 111, 113-114, 120, 127, 129, 131, 138, 146, 158, 161-162, 166, 182, 188, 194, 204, 256n38

Enigmas (o f a rch itec tu re ), 35, 50, 82, 85, 153, 160

E rection, 17, 45, 54, 61, 64, 76, 138, 165, 188

Ethics, 52, 156, 170, 201 Exile, 113-114, 164

Fam iliar, 6, 59-61, 65, 98, 102, 108-112, 114-115, 117-118, 120, 142, 171, 181, 195, 200, 217, 240n52, 241n68, 241n74

Family, 106, 109, 115, 117-118, 136-137, 159, 166, 168, 180, 238n31, 241n64, 241n74

Fem inine, 136-137, 165, 172 F ic in io , M arsilio , 103 Folds, 3, 5, 22, 27, 54, 91, 124, 126, 144,

169-171, 178, 195, 204 Force, 8, 75-76, 88, 94, 107, 146, 151-

152, 161, 170, 194, 199, 202, 206, 219, 227n37

Foundation (s), 7, 9, 17, 19, 43, 47, 49,55, 64, 67, 80, 86, 89-90, 93-94, 106, 133, 138, 164, 166, 169, 188, 226n l8 , 226n27, 227n40, 236n79, 245n41, 249n l5

Fracture, 70, 76, 92, 108, 145-146, 208 Frame, 76, 84, 86, 197, 249n l3 Freud, S igm und, 102,104, 115, 130, 142,

186-187Das Unheimliche, 108, 141-143, 167-168,

181-182, 238n36, 251n56

Genet, Jean, 43, 76, 174, 234n52 Gap, 2, 5 -6 , 26, 31, 84, 87, 92, 181 Ghost (phantom ), 144, 163-169, 173,

188-189, 193, 196, 238n36, 251n56, 252n70, 258n57

G round, 7-12, 18, 24, 40, 43-44, 51, 60- 66, 82, 86, 89-90, 93-94, 111, 115,164, 188, 227n40, 230n8, 241n69, 250n26

p rin c ip le o f ground, 39-40, 48, 222nl3, 2 2 5 n ll, 226n l8

underground, 36, 43, 94, 160 underm ine, 36, 44, 75, 94, ungrounded (groundless), 7, 40, 92,

109, 113, 230n8

H aunting, 6, 72, 142, 162-171, 173, 178- 182, 186-187, 189, 196, 216, 218, 252n68, 252n70, 258n57

haunted house, 163, 165-168, 177, 188, 201, 251n56

Hegel, Georg, 36, 45, 68, 72, 76-78, 102- 103, 129, 137, 166, 174, 190, 247n73

Heidegger, M artin , 57, 225n8, 232n26, 234n48, 262n l

Index275

abyss (Abgrund), 39-41, 62, 111, 225n l0 , 230n8, 241n63

appropria tion (Ereignis), 102, 237n l4 architectonic, 9, 222n l7 , 236n79,

241n69architecture, 6-7, 59, 77, 80-81, 95,

230n5, 2 3 1 n llartw ork, 60-61, 63-68, 87, 89, 93, 110,

143, 188-189 Being (Sein), 8, 41, 111, 117-118 b u ild ing , 7-9, 37, 39-40, 61, 65-66, 86, 93-94, 222nl7, 2 37n l3 , 241n68

construction, 8, 62, 82, 222n l7 destruction (Destruktion)y 37-38, 41, 56,

99, 120, 161, 164, 185, 225n9, 226n22, 226n25, 230n68

draw ing, 9, 37dw elling, 97, 113-114, 240n52 edifice, 7, 111, 115, 222 n l5 en-closure, 256n38fam ilia r, 60-61, 65, 98, 110-112, 114,

240n52, 241n64, 241n68 foundation , 7, 9, 64, 93-94, 188,

222n l5 , 226nl8, 226n27, 236n79 ground (Grund), 7-10, 39, 51, 61-66,93, 111, 115, 188, 2 2 2 n l3 , 230n8,241n69

home, 97, 104, 109-110, 112, 114-115, 158, 239n40, 241n68

homelessness, 98, 100, 114-115 homesickness, 109house, 97-104, 107, 110, 113, 115-116,

119, 188, 237nl3, 240n46 Kant, 7, 9, 37, 62, 83, 116 language, 111, 113, 115, 191, 237n l3 ,

237n39, 241n68, 241n70 mystery (Geheimnisvoll), 114 Nietzsche, Frederich, 112—113 openess, 93, 185-186, 256n38, 257n40 place, 112, 241n57, 258n54 Plato, 112, 241 n57 position , 178presence, presencing, 8 -9 , 99-100, 102-

103, 113, 230n8 p rinc ip le o f ground, 39-^10, 48, 2 2 5 n ll, 226nl8, 228n47

room , 111, 240n52 site, 61, 65space, 77, 81, 112,115, 191, 241n57, 257n40

spatial significations (Raumbedeutungen), 105, 191, 238n23

standing, 8-9 , 38, 41, 61, 64, 66, 97,108, 188, 226nl9, 230n5

structure , 10, 61, 63, 111, 113, 120, 222n l7

support, 8, 39-41, 62-63, 93 technology, 41, 98, 101, 104, 111,226n l8

transla tion , 94, 225n l7 , 236n83 u n b u ild ing (Abbau), 37-38, 41, 56, 99, 226n22, 226n25, 230n68

uncanny (Unheimlich), 109-112, 114- 115, 239n40, 239n41, 239n42, 241n68, 241n70

unhom ely (Unheimische), 112-113 violence, 60, 111-112, 114-115, 146,

240n46, 241n69, 241n70, 248n77 w ithdraw al, 114, 118, 190

H ierarchy, 11, 16, 27, 53, 60, 89, 107,125, 140

Hom e, 97, 102, 104, 108-115, 137, 142, 154, 158-160, 168, 171, 181, 182, 194, 196, 200, 239n40, 241n68

hom ecom ing, 114, 179 homelessness, 98, 100, 114-115, 160, 181 homesickness, 109 unhom ely, 112-113

Host, 54-55, 88, 128, 133, 180 House, 97-111, 113, 115-120, 124-126,

129-132, 134-139, 141-142, 146, 149, 157-162, 165, 167-169, 171-172, 174, 177-183, 188, 193-194, 201, 218-219, 237n l3 , 237n39, 240n46, 251n56

House arrest, 136, 159-160, 177, 194 H usserl, Edm und, 17, 26, 37, 41, 68, 72,

107, 163-164 H u t, 131-133

Idea, 2, 20, 63, 73, 103-104, 112-113, 241n57

Inco rp o ra tio n , 143-146, 156, 167-169, 171-172, 174-176, 179, 201

Ind igestion , 125, 130-133, 167, 171-172, 174-175, 246n50

In h ab ita tio n , 44, 50, 56, 102, 108, 111, 128, 140, 153, 158-159, 182, 250n26

as strategy, 21, 24, 31, 37, 53, 100-101, 105-106, 109, 120, 158-159, 161-162, 166

Inside vs. outside, 83-84, 85, 88, 92, 104- 105, 107-108, 126, 128, 130-131, 141, 144, 146, 150, 154, 158, 162, 172-173, 180-181, 182-183, 193, 233n41

In s titu tion s (in s titu tio n a l practices), 46 - 47, 54-55, 138, 140, 171, 229n57, 229n58, 229n59, 254n5

arch itecture (as a d isc ip lin e ), 20-21, 30, 46, 56, 85, 88, 98, 196, 210-218

Index276

In s titu tions (in s titu tio n a l practices) (continued)

arch itecture o f, 48, 51, 53-54, 156, 170, 194

a rt, 65, 188cu ltu re , 15, 31, 35, 119, 216 o f deconstruction, 53-55, 197-198 dom esticity o f, 162-163, 166, 182 foundation o f, 49, 51, 154-155, 169,

228n47, 249n l2 m ate ria lity o f, 47-48, 54 philosophy, 8, 12, 50, 75, 92, 119, 126,

193-195, 259n77 po litics o f, 46-55, 153, 169, 179, 183,

214, 229n57 as p roduction o f place, 177, 181, 183,

188, 196-197 and representation, 173 space o f, 48, 53, 151, 153-157, 161-162,

169, 173-174, 186, 189, 196, 211 structure o f, 46, 49, 52-55, 155, 170, 191 subord ination o f space, 68-69, 71-73,

75, 77, 124, 126, 175, 216, 218, 232n21 university, 47-55, 154, 165-166, 186,

193-194, 198, 201, 228n47, 230n65, 236n82, 249n l3 , 259n77

violence of, 161, 169-170, 179, 203, 248n78

In te rio r, 56, 69, 62, 73, 83, 90-91, 101- 102, 104, 107, 111, 113, 115, 120, 125- 126, 128-129, 132, 147, 150, 152, 157, 162, 166, 179, 195,

In tro jecdon , 143-144, 174-175

Kafka, Franz, 152, 158Kant, Im m anuel, 50-51, 146, 194,

245n34, 245n41aesthetics, 13, 86, 89-90, 123-125, 127,

129, 131-133, 139-140, 244n26 arch itecton ic, 37, 90 a rch itectu re, 13-14, 86-87, 125, 131,

138, 223n l9 design, 91 disgust, 139-141 eating, 244n26, 244n27 ed ifice , 7, 9, 62, 89-90, 116 founda tion , 7, 9, 89-90 ground, 7, 9, 51, 62, 89-90 ornam ent (decoration) 13-14, 83-84,87, 89, 132

taste, 83, 123-125, 132-134, 244n26, u tility , 13-14, 123, 125, 132, 223n l9

Lacan, Jacques, 181, 238n36Lacoue-Labarthe, P hilippe, 162

Language, 3 -5 , 10, 23-25, 40, 68, 70, 75, 81-82, 97, 100, 102, 105, 111, 113,115, 134,145-146,153, 171, 184, 188, 191, 221n2, 223n30, 225n l7 , 235n54, 237n l3 , 237n39, 241n68, 241n70, 247n73

Laughter, 166Law, 27, 118, 135, 149-152, 154-157,

159, 172, 188, 192, 201-203o f the house, 106, 126, 136-137, 149,

161-162, 167-168, 172, 178, 180-181, 183, 193-194, 219, 249nl5

Le ibn iz, G o ttfried , 39, 72 Levinas, Em m anuel, 105, 170-172, 195 Levi-Strauss, Claude, 10, 68 L ine , 66, 72, 104, 131, 141, 144, 150-

151, 160, 184, 190, 192, 195, 209-210, 218

L ite ra tu re , 79, 153-155Logos, 40, 67, 81-82, 106-7, 114, 138,

193, 241n74

M allarm e, Stephane, 73, 75 Mask, 71-72, 109, 111, 115, 146, 209, 211 Mastery, 69, 134-136, 138-139, 238n31,

245n34M ateria lity, 70, 103, 112, 130, 136, 145 o f a rch itecture, 2, 16, 19-22, 25, 30, 59,

63, 67, 79-80, 86-87, 92, 94, 112, 116, 119, 126, 129, 137, 206, 208, 211-212, 2 3 1 n ll

o f ins titu tions, 47-48, 54 o f ornam ent, 83, 135 o f te x t/w ritin g , 77, 79

M etaphor (image, fig u re ), 1, 223n22, 241n74, 255nl4, 257n52

arch itectu ra l, 8, 12-13, 15-19, 30, 32,36, 42, 45, 59, 63, 71, 78, 82, 85, 88 - 92, 94-95, 97-102, 115-118, 120, 123, 130, 202, 206, 208, 217-219, 223n27

spatial, 17-18, 79, 104-105, 112, 176, 191, 238n23

M onum ent, 78, 165, 170, 247n73 M ou rn ing , 143-145, 165, 174, 247n73

Nietzsche, F rederich, 62, 112-113, 140, 158-160, 166, 246n50, 250n28, 257n47

Non-place, 176, 179, 183-184, 194-195, 198

O bject (status o f), 2, 14, 30-31, 41, 92, 95, 124, 127-128, 130, 139, 143-145,160, 163,177, 208-209, 211, 226n l9 , 227n40

vs. subject, 86, 112, 198-199, 206

Index277

Oikos (household), 101-102, 136-137,157, 159, 162, 168, 172, 174, 179-182, 188, 200

O pening (open, openess), 26, 42, 70, 73- 74, 93, 100, 185-187, 194-195, 197,200, 210, 215, 233n41, 256n38, 257n40

O rder, 8, 11-12, 59, 66, 71, 75, 79-80,109, 135, 154, 159, 188, 208

O rig in , 10, 24, 40-41, 114, 152, 224n37 O rnam ent (decoration), 2, 11-14, 16, 26 -

28, 44, 64, 82-87, 89-93, 116, 123, 132- 135, 188-198

Outside (exterior, e x te rna l), 69-70, 72 - 73, 78, 88, 105, 127, 129,158, 177,185, 232n21, 232n31

Paradigm, 25, 29, 103, 112, 118, 129,. 135,167,180Parasite, 154, 161, 166, 173, 179-184,

192, 200-201, 204, 218, 255n l2 Patriarchy, 134-137, 165, 245n34, 245n35 Place, 75, 77, 92, 94, 107, 110, 112, 123,

128, 135-136, 138, 152-153, 155, 158- 160, 166, 176-185, 188-198, 200, 241n57, 241n57, 252n68, 254n4, 258n54, 259n88

Plato, 36, 38, 68, 72, 103-104, 106, 112- 113, 154, 191-192, 216, 238n31,241n57, 257n47

Play, 10, 23, 60, 76, 77, 106, 199 Pleasure, 72, 125, 132, 134, 144, 146-

147, 149, 254n91 Police, 146, 150-160, 162, 170, 184, 192,

200, 202P olitics (the p o litica l), 27, 135-137, 153,

155-156, 194, 201-202, 217, 252n68, 2 6 1 n ll2

o f deconstruction, 47, 49, 51-55, 120, 156, 229n56, 229n57, 229n59, 154, 5

o f institu tions, 46-55, 153, 169, 179,183, 214, 229n57

Poe, Edgar A llen , 181 Position, 178, 254n5 Presence, 10-11, 43, 70, 73, 81-82, 129,

145, 162, 248n78, 230n8, 252n70 o f the house, 99-100, 102-104, 107,

117, 126, 130, 160, 164, 169, 188, Presentation (presencing), 8 -9 , 23, 63,

81-82, 87, 94, 113, 139, 142 Proper (proprietary) 32, 73, 92, 101-102,

137, 180proper place, 181, 195-196, 260n91 im proper, 22, 32, 142

Psychoanalysis, 55, 72, 146, 168, 181,213, 234n48, 251n56

P ublic vs. private, 62, 135, 137, 245n35, 245n41

P urity (im p u rity ), 3 -4 , 132, 134 Pyram id, 72, 77-79

Q uestion, 205, 262n l

Reading, 88, 124, 174-175, 203, 206-207, 209, 229n57, 234n50

R epresentation, 41, 43-44, 82, 125, 127, 139-140, 142

and arch itecture, 10-11, 14, 23, 25, 27, 44, 59, 63-64, 66, 87, 106, 119, 132- 133 ,173,212-213

and house, 102, 106, 112-113, 117, 130, 134, 163

space, 160Repression, 6, 21, 29, 44, 72, 73, 81, 95,

106-109, 114, 127-128, 130-131, 140, 142, 146, 151, 155-156, 161, 172, 182- 183, 186, 196, 207, 209, 213, 217-218, 251n56

Rhythm , 72, 75, 159, 162, 173, 175, 208, 219

Room, 80, 111, 130, 167, 240n52 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 68, 71-72, 74,

131-137, 141-142, 234n45 Rousset, Jean, 17 R uin , 43, 50, 253n73

Saussure, Ferdinand, 68 Scaffo ld ing, 16, 24, 90 S earle,John, 199-202 Secret, 28, 44, 114, 127-128, 130, 144-

146, 151-153, 156, 158, 164, 167-168, 179, 184, 193, 249n6, 252n68

Security, vs. insecurity, 44, 55, 115, 118- 119, 131, 137-138, 142, 150, 152, 188, 200

Semper, G o ttfried , 85 Sensuality, 68, 83 -84 ,128 , 134-135, 139 S chelling, F ried rich , 93 Shelter, 50-51, 77, 98, 100, 106, 109-110,

162, 165Sign, 4, 68, 77-78, 124-125, 132, 145,

232n21, 260n93 Silence, 202-204 Site, 18, 6 1 ,6 5 ,6 9 ,1 1 1 ,1 8 0 S o lic ita tion (shaking, trem b lin g ), 35, 42 -

43, 46, 54-55, 70, 73, 166 Solid ity, 11, 31, 55, 153 Sophocles* Antigone, 111 Space (spa tia lity ), 18, 67-72, 74-78, 97,

105, 112, 115, 119-120, 126, 147, 150, 154, 158-162, 169, 172, 176, 179, 185,

Index278

Space (spa tia lity) (continued)189-192, 198-204, 206, 209, 211, 232n21, 257n40

Spacing (espacemenl), 69-76, 78-80, 82, 135, 137, 147, 149-156,158-161.166, 173-176, 179, 183, 186-188, 190-192, 197, 199-200, 203, 207, 219, 232n26, 232n27, 233n32, 233n43, 234n47, 234n52, 261nl07

Speech, 67-70, 73, 78, 81-82, 106, 124- 125, 127, 160-161, 232n21

S tab ility (s tab iliz ing ), 11, 35, 40, 42, 52, 54, 59, 88, 93, 179, 188

in s ta b ility (destab iliz ing), 29, 39, 48, 53 - 54, 66, 99

Standing, 8 -9 , 27, 38, 41, 61-62, 64, 66, 97, 108, 155, 188, 226n l9

S tructure, 2, 7, 10-12, 17-18, 24-29, 43 - 44, 46, 49, 52-55, 61, 63, 74-76, 8 0 - 82, 84, 86-87, 91, 93, 97, 106, 108,111, 113, 120, 130, 155-156, 170, 179, 187-189, 191, 193-195, 222nl7,227n40, 230n5

Subject, the. 111, 142, 175-176, 206-207 Superstructure, 17, 27, 63, 89, 106, 155 Supplem ent, 11, 25, 27, 83-84, 117, 136,

150, 154, 167, 173, 180-181, 183, 189 Support, 8, 11, 39-41, 44, 60, 62-63, 67,

75, 92-93, 188 Surface, 2 -3 , 44, 207, 214 Survival, 4, 33, 167,169, 221n6, 241n74,

252n70 Symptom, 197, 160n93 System (ph ilosoph ica l), 36, 42, 44, 104,

164, 180, 236n79

Taking-place, 177-178, 180, 183-184, 193-195, 197, 200, 255n l4

Taste, 83, 89, 123-125, 127-128, 131- 134, 143, 244n26

Technology, 41, 98, 101, 104, 111, 163, 226n l8

Techne, 103-104 Threshold, 72, 153, 184, 209-210 T ide, 75, 150, 154Tom b, 6, 77 ,137 , 146,163-165, 167-168,

174, 247n73 Topography, 144-145, 159, 252n68 Topology, 22, 150, 167, 176, 181, 187,

192-194, 200 Torok, M aria, 143-146, 175, 247n66 Tower o f Babel, 23-25, 31-32, 94 Transference, 8, 191, 196, 260n91 Transgression, 146, 150, 161 Translation, 1-6, 19-20, 22-28, 30-32,

40-41, 57, 91, 92, 94, 221n2, 221n6,

222n8, 223n29, 224n37, 225nl7, 230n68, 235n54, 236n82, 236n83, 241n74, 260n94

U n b u ild in g , 37-38, 41-42, 56, 99 ,119 , 226n22, 226n23, 230n68

Uncanny, 108-118, 120, 123, 141-143, 157, 158, 162, 167-169, 177-178, 181- 183, 189, 200, 203, 238n36, 239n40, 239n41, 239n42, 241n68, 241n70, 251n56, 252n68, 255n21, 258n57

U ndecidability, 50, 108, 138, 141, 151,155, 169, 178, 180, 183, 200

U nfam ilia r, 65, 108, 110, 114, 116-117 Unspeakable (a rch itectu re ), 15, 21-22,

24, 182, 219 U tility , 13-14, 63, 123-125, 131-132

V io la tio n , 28, 54, 94, 107-109, 121, 128, 134-136, 140, 142, 146-147, 149, 152- 153, 156-157,170, 173, 176, 192, 202, 215, 217, 219

V iolence, 3 -4 , 24, 28, 31, 60, 107-109, 111-115, 118, 120-121, 135, 137-138, 140, 146-147, 150-158, 161, 180, 181, 197, 200, 204, 208, 217, 223n30, 240n46, 241n69, 241n70, 248n77, 248n78, 248n80, 2 6 1 n ll4

o f deconstruction , 146-147, 149, 151- 152, 157-158, 167, 170-171, 203-204, 206-207, 248n77, 250n24

in s titu tio n a l, 161, 169-170, 179, 203, 248n78

V ision, (visible, eye, view) 12-15, 112, 124, 130-131, 139, 146, 153, 160, 178

and arch itecture, 9, 55-56, 61-62, 82, 86, 179

V om it, 139, 143-144, 174-175

W alls, 51, 108, 127,130,138, 144-145,156, 171, 230n65

W arburton, W illiam , 154 Weakness, 25, 35, 42-43, 220 W indow, 87W ithdraw al, 44, 100, 114, 118, 151, 190-

191W oman, 134-135, 139-141, 165, 245n34,

245n35 W oolf, V irg in ia , 165W ritin g , 68-69, 72, 75-81, 127, 135, 154,

164, 175, 186-187, 200-201, 232n26, 232n31, 248n80

Oslav 1 dejin umeni |

‘ AV (-.!• (