Choose ONE of the following four topics on Derrida and deconstruction. As with the previous worksheet, they have different levels of difficulty. In answering any of these questions, be sure you define your terms fully and clearly, and that you discuss thoroughly all the concepts mentioned and explain their relation to each other. Use specific examples to illustrate your ideas wherever possible. Be sure you have demonstrated your clear and complete grasp of the fundamental ideas of the theory before you move on to more complex discussions, such as implications or critiques of the theory.

• 1. What is a "binary opposition," and how are they central to Derrida's understanding of how human thought is structured? What is the "scandal" that Derrida says Levi-Strauss discovered, and how are binary oppositions important to that "scandal"?

• 2. What does Derrida add to Saussure's and/or Levi-Strauss' ideas of structure? How does Derrida define the "center" of a structure or system? What are the characteristics of the center? What is "play" and why is it important? How is the center related to "play"?

• 3. Consider the following story:

  ("Upstairs and Downstairs," in Owl at Home, by Arnold Lobel (NY: HarperCollins Children's Books, 1975) pp. 41-49.
  
  

  Owl's house had an upstairs and a downstairs. There were twenty steps on the stairway. Some of the time Owl was upstairs in his bedroom. At other times Owl was downstairs in his living room.
  When Owl was downstairs, he said "I wonder how my upstairs is?" When Owl was upstairs, he said "I wonder how my downstairs is getting along? I am always missing one place or the other. There must be a way," said Owl, "to be upstairs and to be downstairs at the same time. Perhaps if I run very, very fast I can be in both places at once."
  Owl ran up the stairs. "I am up," he said.
  Owl ran down the stairs. "I am down," he said.
  Owl ran up and down the stairs faster and faster. "Owl!" he cried. "Are you downstairs?" There was no answer. "No," said Owl. "I am not downstairs because I am upstairs. I am not running fast enough."
  "Owl!" he shouted. "Are you upstairs?" There was no answer. "No," said Owl, "I am not upstairs because I am downstairs. I must run even faster."
  "Faster, faster, faster!" cried Owl. Owl ran upstairs and downstairs all evening. But he could not be in both places at once.
  "When I am up," said Owl, "I am not down. When I am down, I am not up. All I am is very tired!"
  Owl sat down to rest. He sat on the tenth step because it was a place that was right in the middle.

  What would deconstruction have to say about this story? How might Derrida have (re)written it to illustrate his ideas?

• 4. Discuss this central paradox of Derridean deconstruction: "We have no language...which is foreign to the history [of Western metaphysics]; we can pronounce not a single destructive proposition which has not already had to slip into the form, the logic, and the implicit postulation of precisely what it seeks to contest" (A&S p. 85). What is Derrida saying? What might be some of the implications of this statement?