Description

In Freud, Heidegger, and Derrida, the study of human subjectivity and meaning takes on a new series of “frames” or “positions”: the operations of Dream-Work, the meaning of Being (ours and big-picture) in the experiences of Nothingness, Knowledge, and post-Humanism, and the interdependent complexities of Language and Sense. Freud’s psychoanalytic theory explores the ‘latent content’ fueling our dreams and neuroses; Heidegger’s phenomenological ontology focuses on the position of Dasein and the dynamics of anxiety, truth, and language; and Derrida’s theory of Deconstruction wrestles with the phenomena of Difference and Humanism within language (including Heidegger’s). So, each in their own way reframes how we are to understand human ‘subjectivity’ and ‘sense.’ And each introduces a new style of argumentation and writing in order to do so.

The Explanatory Task: What is each thinkers main/most important argument in terms of (1) offering a new position on how Subjectivity and Sense (meaning) work; (2) how these positions involve touches of the ‘aesthetic’, arguably, in terms of their topic and style. The Inter-textual Task: What are one/two underlying themes that can be traced and compared across the three projects, and is there a further side to this theme that you think needs to be added? For example, maybe the thread is the idea of the ‘latent’ vs. ‘surface’ (in the psyche, in moods/meaning, in language); or maybe it is the idea of the ‘shifting ground’ vs. ‘fixed ground’ (in consciousness, being, language/humanism); or maybe it is the idea of ‘imagination’ v. ‘logic’ (in dream-work, truth, signification). Those are just some possibilities. Doing a good job with the second part will require securing a good basis through the first part. Suggestion: use the device of identifying a possible ‘misreading’ (then