Identifying Interlocutors and Critical Conversation

Deconstruction emerged in the late 1960s largely as a result of Jacques Derrida’s inaugural work in challenging the movement of structuralism. In fact, Derrida’s way of thinking challenges the very paradigm of Western philosophy, including Plato’s forms and Descartes’ cogito, maintaining that human language can form no truly grounding concept. Language, and its ability to both defer and differ (leading to différance), is our basis for existing in and comprehending the world around us; what glue together such a system (and all of the systems/experiences which exist as a result of language) are ideologies (Tyson 235--242). 

Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism were once lumped together, but now “queer theory” is the more encompassing term. Adrienne Rich is noted as being an especially important figure in queer theory; she criticizes the heterosexist culture which birthed compulsory heterosexuality. Moreover, Rich’s ideas dip into lesbian criticism, establishing what it means to be part of the lesbian continuum as well as what it means to make behavioral choices that demonstrate women-identification. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is an interlocutor for queer theory in general, responsible for emphasizing “the intricacies of human sexuality” as “any number of paired opposites other than same-sex or different-sex object choice” (Tyson 305--322).