Theory of the Text vs the Work (as you read these two Barthes essays, compare Barthes’s ideas to McGann’s concept of the textual condition and Derrida’s critique of western metaphysics, beginning with the issue of speech as presence, writing as absence (and all the binaries that must now be put under erasure). Are all three in agreement? What differentiates their projects/arguments?)
- Roland Barthes “Death of the Author” http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf
- Roland Barthes “From Work to Text” http://courses.wcupa.edu/fletcher/special/barthes.htm
Origins of Writing
- Andrew Robinson “Writing Systems” (3-18) PDF from The Book: A Global History (Oxford, 2013)
- Walter Ong “Writing is a Technology that restructures Thought” (23-49) PDF
Class discussion will divide into two specific discussions. First, we will discuss Barthes in comparison to Derrida. Then we will discuss Robinson and Ong in relation to each other .