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Articles

Using Mise en abyme to Differentiate Deleuze and Derrida

 

ABSTRACT

In this paper I shall tackle the problem of differentiating Deleuze and Derrida. Various writers have done so, comparing these philosophers’ conceptions of repetition and difference. I shall attempt to enrich, sharpen and sometimes criticize these writers by exploring the paradigm through which Deleuze and Derrida have (explicitly) reflected upon repetition and difference in the first place: the mise en abyme, a literary concept designating a work that doubles itself within itself. I shall argue that Derrida applied to his theory of difference a degenerated picture of the mise en abyme, which I shall term the “lacunal”, and which would cause him, against himself, to grasp the concept of difference “logocentrically”. On the other hand, Deleuze – attending to the actual emblem and to what literary theorists had to say about it – drew its correct lesson: the Other is less that which challenges Totality than the very coexistence between the Other-than-Totality and the Totality it challenges.

Notes

1 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 118.

2 Toloudis, “Metaphor and Mise en abyme”, 30.

3 See, for example, De-Nooy, “The Double Scission”.

4 See also Dickmann, “The Book as Assemblage” (esp. 23–25).

5 Kuiken, “Deleuze/Derrida”. Paraphrasing Derrida.

6 Johnson, introduction to Dissemination, viii.

7 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 40.

8 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 44.

9 Carrard, “From Reflexivity to Reading”, 848.

10 Rimmon-Kenan, “Ambiguity and Narrative Levels”, 28.

11 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 44.

12 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 206n.

13 Ricardou, “The Story within the Story”, 328.

14 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 44.

15 Ricardou, “The Story within the Story”, 328–29.

16 Ricardou, Le Nouveau Roman, 31 (translation mine).

17 Le Poidevin, “Worlds within Worlds?”, 231.

18 Deleuze, Cinema 2, 70 (italics mine).

19 Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror, 184.

20 Derrida, Of Grammatology, 70.

21 Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror, 188.

22 Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, 13.

23 Derrida, Of Grammatology, 163.

24 Derrida, Of Grammatology, 20.

25 Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, 158.

26 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 170.

27 Derrida, The Post Card, 304.

28 Hobson, Jacques Derrida: Opening Lines, 75.

29 McHale, Postmodernist Fiction, 14.

30 De-Nooy, “The Double Scission”, 24.

31 Derrida, Dissemination, 355.

32 Derrida, Limited Inc., 11.

33 De-Nooy, “The Double Scission”, 23.

34 De-Nooy, “The Double Scission”, 24.

35 Derrida, The Truth in Painting, 27.

36 De-Nooy, “The Double Scission”, 26

37 Derrida, Limited Inc., 62.

38 Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror, 281.

39 Derrida, Limited Inc., 7.

40 Gasché, The Tain of the Mirror, 212.

41 Derrida, Of Grammatology, 212.

42 Derrida, Dissemination, 206.

43 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 168.

44 Smith, “Deleuze and Derrida”, 62.

45 Smith, “Deleuze and Derrida”, 62

46 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 154.

47 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 222n.

48 Dällenbach, The Mirror in the Text, 111.

49 Füredy, “A Structural Model of Phenomena”, 752.

50 Ricardou, Le Nouveau Roman, 73. English citation from Deleuze, Cinema 2, 82.

51 Ricardou, Nouveau Roman: Hier, Aujourd’hui, 221 (translation mine).

52 Bearn, “Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze”, 441.

53 Villani, La Guêpe et l’Orchidée, 130.

54 May, “Difference and Unity”, 33.

55 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 33–34.

56 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 28.

57 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 192.

58 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 222.

59 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 295.

60 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 124.

61 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 49.

62 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 48.

63 Leibniz, “Correspondence with Arnauld”, 233.

64 Magny, Histoire du Roman Français, 273.

65 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 47.

66 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 353.

67 Bergson, Mind-Energy, 197.

68 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 79.

69 Kuiken, “Deleuze/Derrida”, 297.

70 Kuiken, “Deleuze/Derrida”, 303–04.

71 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 46.

72 Kuiken, “Deleuze/Derrida”, 300–01.

73 Kuiken, “Deleuze/Derrida”, 304 (italics mine).

74 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 41.

75 Lawlor, “The Beginnings of Thought”, 81.

76 Lawlor, “The Beginnings of Thought”, 67.

77 Lawlor, “The Beginnings of Thought”, 81.

78 Lawlor, “The Beginnings of Thought”, 81.

79 Derrida, The Truth in Painting, 291.

80 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 17.

81 Huizinga, Homo Ludens, 9.

82 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 284 (cites Nietzsche).

83 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 283.

84 Bearn, “Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze”, 460.

85 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 56.

86 Bearn, “Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze”, 441.

87 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 78.

88 Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, 10.

89 Bearn, “Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze”, 452.

90 Bearn, “Differentiating Derrida and Deleuze”, 460.

91 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 357.

92 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 246.

93 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 124.

94 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 62.

95 May, Difference and Unity, 33.

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