Originally published in 1984. In Applied Grammatology, Gregory Ulmer provides an extraordinary introduction to the third, "applied" phase of grammatology, the "science of writing," outlined by Jacques Derrida in Of Grammatology. Ulmer looks to the later experimental works of Derrida (beginning with Glas and continuing through Truth in Painting and The Post Card). In these, he discovers a critical methodology radically different from the deconstruction for which Derrida is known. At the same time, he finds the source of a new pedagogy for all the humanities, one based on grammatology and appropriate to the era of audiovisual communications in which we live. Detractors of Derrida often accuse him of superficial wordplay and of using images and puns as nonfunctional subversions of academic conventions. Ulmer argues that there is, in fact, a fully developed use of homonyms in Derrida's style, which produces its own distinctive knowledge and insight. Derrida's experiments with images, moreover—his expansion of descriptions of everyday objects such as umbrellas, matchboxes, and post cards into cognitive models—serve to reveal a simplicity underlying intellectual discourse, which could be used to eliminate the gap separating the general public from specialists in cultural studies. Comparing the stylistic innovations of Derrida with Jacques Lacan's use of puns and diagrams, with the German performance artist Joseph Beuys's demonstration of models, and with the "montage writing" of the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Ulmer explores the possibility of deriving a postmodernist pedagogy from Derrida's texts. The first study to suggest the full potential of the program available in Derrida's writings, Applied Grammatology is also the first outline of a Derridean alternative to deconstructionism. With its shift away from Derrida's philosophical studies to his experimental texts, Ulmer's book aims to inaugurate a new movement in the American adaptation of contemporary French theory.

Originally published in 1984. In Applied Grammatology, Gregory Ulmer provides an extraordinary introduction to the third, "applied" phase of grammatology, the "science of writing," outlined by Jacques Derrida in Of Grammatology. Ulmer looks to the later experimental works of Derrida (beginning with Glas and continuing through Truth in Painting and The Post Card). In these, he discovers a critical methodology radically different from the deconstruction for which Derrida is known. At the same time, he finds the source of a new pedagogy for all the humanities, one based on grammatology and appropriate to the era of audiovisual communications in which we live. Detractors of Derrida often accuse him of superficial wordplay and of using images and puns as nonfunctional subversions of academic conventions. Ulmer argues that there is, in fact, a fully developed use of homonyms in Derrida's style, which produces its own distinctive knowledge and insight. Derrida's experiments with images, moreover—his expansion of descriptions of everyday objects such as umbrellas, matchboxes, and post cards into cognitive models—serve to reveal a simplicity underlying intellectual discourse, which could be used to eliminate the gap separating the general public from specialists in cultural studies. Comparing the stylistic innovations of Derrida with Jacques Lacan's use of puns and diagrams, with the German performance artist Joseph Beuys's demonstration of models, and with the "montage writing" of the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Ulmer explores the possibility of deriving a postmodernist pedagogy from Derrida's texts. The first study to suggest the full potential of the program available in Derrida's writings, Applied Grammatology is also the first outline of a Derridean alternative to deconstructionism. With its shift away from Derrida's philosophical studies to his experimental texts, Ulmer's book aims to inaugurate a new movement in the American adaptation of contemporary French theory.

Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable.

A new experience of identity is emerging within the digital apparatus under the rubric of “avatar.” This study develops “concept avatar” as an opportunity to invent a practice of citizenship native to the Internet that simulates the functionality of measure dramatized in the traditions of “descent” (“avatar”) or “incarnation,” including the original usage in the Bhagavad Gita, and the Western evolution of the virtue of prudence from the Ancient daimon, through genius and character, to the contemporary sinthome.

Everything you need to know about Derrida's Of Grammatology in one volume.Jacques Derrida was one of the most famous and influential philosophers of the later twentieth century. First published in 1967, Of Grammatology is his best known text, introducing many fundamental concepts relating to linguistics and writing which he would develop in his later work. This book provides a commentary on Of Grammatology that can be read alongside--rather than instead of--the text itself by students encountering Derrida for the first time."e;

While many books have claimed parallels between modern physics and Eastern philosophy, none have dealt with the historical influences of both Chinese traditional thought and non-mechanistic, holistic western thought on the philosophies of the scientists who developed electromagnetic field theory. In The Holistic Inspirations of Physics, R. Valentine Dusek asks: to what extent is classical field theory a product of organic and holistic philosophies and frameworks? Electromagnetic theory has been greatly influenced by holistic worldviews, Dusek posits, and he highlights three alternative scientific systems that made the development of electromagnetic theory possible: medieval Chinese science, Western Renaissance occultism, and the German romantic traditions. He situates these "alternative" approaches in their social context and background, and traces their connection with components of "accepted" physical science in relation to a number of social movements and philosophical theories. Readers will learn of specific contributions made by these alternative traditions, such as the Chinese inventing the compass and discovering the earth's magnetic field and magnetic declination. Western alchemical ideas of active forces and "occult" influences contributed to Newton's theory of gravitation force as action at a distance, rather as a result of purely mechanical collisions and contact action. Dusek also describes the extent to which women's culture supplied (often without credit) the philosophical background ideas that were absorbed into mainstream field theory.