STRUCTURALISM AND THE LOGIC OF DISSENT By the same author and published by Macmillan SCEPTICISM, SOCIETY AND THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY NOVEL Structuralism and the Logic of Dissent Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan Eve Tavor Bannet Associate Professor of English University of South Carolina M MACMILLAN ©Eve Tavor Bannet 1989 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1989 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyrigfit, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place, London WClE 7DP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1989 Reprinted 1991 Published by MACMILLAN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Bannet, Eve Tavor Structuralism and the logic of dissent: Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan. 1. Structuralism I. Title 149'.96 B841.4 ISBN 978-0-333-46948-4 ISBN 978-1-349-19744-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19744-6 To Jacob Bannet, who made this book possible Contents Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations x Introduction: The Voice of Someone 1 1 Lacan and the Alienation of Language 12 The vel of alienation 12 The beyond in this life 23 Repetition and innovation 30 The intellectual and the other 42 2 Barthes and the Pleasures of Alienation 49 The duplicities of critical play 50 'The intellectual writer that I am' 70 Mythologies of otherness 83 3 Foucault and the Archeology of Alienation 94 Instruments for a history of the present 97 Alienation, social exclusion and mental integration 112 The divided subject and the death of man 144 The specific, positive intellectual 170 4 Derrida and the Wholly Other 184 Reconstructing the text 186 Deconstruction: Game, Rule, Repetition, Writing 202 Conclusion: Recontextualisations 228 vii viii Contents Notes and References 266 Bibliography 280 Index 287 Acknowledgements I am profoundly indebted to the old Lycee FranfQiS de Londres under the late M. Gaudin, both for its draconian discipline and for enabling each of its pupils to become different. I would like to thank Jerome Mandel and Meir Sternberg at Tel-Aviv University, for arranging for me to have the leave I needed, and Dorothea Krook-Gilead and the late Wylie Sypher for reading and commenting on portions of this manuscript. Special thanks are also due to Frances Arnold at the publishers for her wonderful tact, understanding and timely encouragement, and to Julie Coyne, Jane Gostling and the staff of the Brompton Library in London, who went well beyond the call of duty in locating and procuring books for me. I would like to thank the editors of Orbis Litterarum for permission to reprint my article, 'Critical Play: a Reading of Roland Barthes'. This book could not have been written without the constant help and support of my husband, Jacob Bannet, who lived with it from its inception with better than good grace, or without my two lively small sons, Jonathan and Alan, who helped by puncturing abstraction, making me laugh and allowing me to sleep - at least most nights. EVE TAVOR BANNET ix Abbreviations LAC AN Ec. I Ecrits, Vol. I Ec. II Ecrits, Vol. II Sem. I Le Seminaire: Livre I, Les ecrits techniques de Freud Sem. II Le Seminaire: Livre II, Le moi dans la theorie de Freud et dans la technique de la psychanalyse Sem. III Le Seminaire: Livre III, Les psychoses Sem. XI Le Seminaire: Livre XI, Les quatres concepts fondamentaux de la psychanalyse Sem. XX Le Seminaire: Livre XX, Encore Tel. Television BARTHES BR A Barthes Reader (ed. Susan Sontag) cv Critique et Verite DZ Le Degre Zero de 1' Ecriture EC I Essais Critiques EC IV Essais Critiques IV: Le bruissement de la langue ES L'Empire des Signes Frag. Fragments d'un discours amoureux GV Le Grain de Ia Voix: Entretiens 1962-80 ITM Image-Text-Music, essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath M Mythologies Mich Michelet MT Myth Today (in A Barthes Reader-BR) NEC Nouveaux Essais Critiques PT Le Plaisir du Texte R Sur Racine RB Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes SFL Sade, Fourier, Loyola Soli. Sollers Ecrivain X