Deconstruction is an approach to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was originated by the philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930–2004), who defined the term variously throughout his career. In its simplest form it can be regarded as a criticism of Platonism and the idea of true forms, or essences, which take precedence over appearances. Deconstruction instead places the emphasis on appearance, or suggests, at least, that essence is to be found in appearance. Derrida would say that the difference is "undecidable", in that it cannot be discerned in everyday experiences.
Postmodernism is a broad movement that developed in the mid- to late 20th century across philosophy, the arts, architecture, and criticism, marking a departure from modernism. The term has been more generally applied to describe a historical era said to follow after modernity and the tendencies of this era.
Post-structuralism is the literary and philosophical work that both builds upon and rejects ideas within structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media within pre-established, socially-constructed structures.
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction, which he analyzed in numerous texts, and developed in the context of phenomenology. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.
Paul de Man, born Paul Adolph Michel Deman, was a Belgian-born literary critic and literary theorist. At the time of his death, de Man was one of the most prominent literary critics in the United States—known particularly for his importation of German and French philosophical approaches into Anglo-American literary studies and critical theory. Along with Jacques Derrida, he was part of an influential critical movement that went beyond traditional interpretation of literary texts to reflect on the epistemological difficulties inherent in any textual, literary, or critical activity. This approach aroused considerable opposition, which de Man attributed to "resistance" inherent in the difficult enterprise of literary interpretation itself.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.
The Yale school is a colloquial name for an influential group of literary critics, theorists, and philosophers of literature that were influenced by Jacques Derrida's philosophy of deconstruction. Many of the theorists were affiliated with Yale University in the late 1970s, although a number of the theorists – including Derrida himself – subsequently moved to or became affiliated with the University of California at Irvine.
Christopher Charles Norris is a British philosopher and literary critic.
Joseph Hillis Miller Jr. (1928–2021) is an American literary critic who has been heavily influenced by—and who has heavily influenced—deconstruction.
Jonathan Culler is an American literary critic. He is Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His published works are in the fields of structuralism, literary theory and literary criticism.
Saul Newman is a British political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.
Hugh J. Silverman was an American philosopher and cultural theorist whose writing, lecturing, teaching, editing, and international conferencing participated in the development of a postmodern network. He was Executive Director of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literary & Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University where he was also affiliated with the Department of Art and the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He was Program Director for the Stony Brook Advanced Graduate Certificate in Art and Philosophy. He was also co-founder and co-director of the annual International Philosophical Seminar since 1991 in South Tyrol, Italy. From 1980-86, he served as Executive Co-Director of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. His work draws upon deconstruction, hermeneutics, semiotics, phenomenology, aesthetics, art theory, film theory, and the archeology of knowledge.
Peter Goodrich is a Professor of Law at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is the managing editor of Law and Literature and serves on the editorial board of Law and Critique. He is co-editor of the critical legal studies book series 'Discourses of Law' published by Routledge. Peter Goodrich was one of the founding academic staff in the Birkbeck Law School.
Niall Lucy was an Australian writer and scholar best known for his work in deconstruction.
Robert T. Tally Jr. is a professor of English at Texas State University. His research and teaching focuses on the relations among space, narrative, and representation, particularly in U.S. and comparative literature, and he is active in the emerging scholarly fields of geocriticism, literary geography, and the spatial humanities. Tally is the editor of "Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies," a Palgrave Macmillan book series established in 2013. The translator of Bertrand Westphal's Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces and the editor of Geocritical Explorations, In addition to his numerous essays on literature, criticism, and theory, Tally has written books on Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Kurt Vonnegut, as well as a critical introduction to the work of Fredric Jameson.
Leonard "Len" Lawlor is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Continental philosophy.
Stuart Sim is a literary critic, social critic and critical theorist currently holding place as professor of English literature at Northumbria University. He is known for his researches on globalization, postmodernism, poststructuralism, postmarxism, continental philosophy, cultural theory and critical theory. He has taught in the Open University, North-West Region, and also the University of Sunderland and is the author, or editor, of 30 books. Sim has also written numerous journal articles and book chapters and His work has been translated into 17 languages. He was elected a Fellow of the English Association in 2002. He received his BA and PhD from Manchester University.
John Llewelyn is a Welsh-born British philosopher whose extensive body of work, published over a period of more than forty years, spans the divide between Analytical and Continental schools of contemporary thought. He has conjoined the rigorous approach to matters of meaning and logic typical of the former and the depth and range of reference typical of the latter in a constructive and critical engagement with the work of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas.
Antony Easthope was a scholar, writer, and literary controversialist, who spent most of his career at Manchester Metropolitan University. He taught also at the University of Warwick, Wolfson College, Oxford, the University of Adelaide, and the University of Virginia. In addition to scholarly and popular books on literary theory, film theory, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Easthope was known for his letters to newspapers, particularly The Guardian, often attacking prominent literary figures.
