Abstract
The Course in General Linguistics had a significant legacy within post-structuralism, notably in Derrida’s deconstruction. Even though post-structuralism did not share the scientific aspirations of its predecessor, and did not seek to establish a new school of thought on the foundation of a Great Book, the Course continued to exercise an ideological function as “Saussure’s work” all the same. This chapter focuses especially on Derrida’s influential reception in Of Grammatology. It highlights a tension between Derrida’s general critique of the civilization of the book and his exclusive reference to the volume of the Course in a deconstructive reading of Saussure’s linguistics. Saussure’s unpublished writing may better illustrate Derrida’s call for open-ended textuality and his intellectual biography may serve as a testimony to the end of the book.
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Notes
- 1.
Selected excerpts with interpretative commentary have been published by Herman Parret as “Les manuscrits saussuriens de Harvard,” in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, no. 47, 1993.
- 2.
Maria Pia Marchese edited a critical edition of these manuscripts: Phonétique. Il manoscritto di Harvard, 1995; see also Jakobson “Saussure’s Unpublished Reflections on Phonemes,” 1969.
- 3.
See Godel 1957; “Inventaire des Manuscripts de F. de Saussure Remis à la Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire de Genève” in Cahiers Ferdinand de Saussure, 1960.
- 4.
A selection was published in a critical edition edited by Anna Marinetti and Marcello Meli (Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1986. Le Leggende Germaniche: Scritti Scelti e Annotati. Padua: Libreria Editrice Zielo–Este).
- 5.
Jean Starobinski made this material available in an interesting study of the scientific status of Saussure’s research on the anagrams, his doubts surrounding the entire process and its eventual termination, in: Let mots sous les mots: les anagrammes de Ferdinand de Saussure (Gallimard, 1971; translated as Words upon Words: The Anagrams of Ferdinand de Saussure, Yale UP, 1979).
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Stawarska, B. (2020). Post-structuralism: The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing. In: Saussure’s Linguistics, Structuralism, and Phenomenology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43097-9_12
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