Glas: Eines der Hauptwerke des Philosophen Jacques Derrida
"Dekonstruktion sollte nicht nur gemeint sein, sondern sprachlich inszeniert werden, was im Falle von Glas sogleich in der Gestaltung des Buches sichtbar wird: Zwei Spalten stehen auf jeder Seite einander gegenüber, links die Auseinandersetzung mit Hegel, rechts der Genet-Teil, wobei beide Textkolumnen keine weiteren Kapitelunterteilungen aufweisen, mitten im Satz beginnen und enden.
Es gibt Anekdoten über einen wochenlangen Streit der Konstanzer Universitätsbibliothek mit dem Buchhändler über angeblich fehlende Seiten am Anfang und Ende des Buches. Auch der fortlaufende Text der beiden Säulen wird häufig durch Zitate unterbrochen, die wie Blöcke in sie eingesetzt sind. Kein Wunder also, dass die Theoretiker des Hypertextes dieses Buch neben Finnegans Wake von Joyce als wichtigen Meilenstein ihrer Vorgeschichte feiern. Man kann gewissermaßen zwischen den Textebenen hin- und hernavigieren, ein fester Bezug – etwa horizontaler Natur zwischen der Hegel- und der Genet-Passage oder zwischen Anfang und Ende – lässt sich dennoch nicht ausmachen."
(Michael Wetzel, Zeit Online)
2). Jacques Derrida (1974) "Glas"
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Iranian popular theatrical forms through the lens of Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of carnival
"[Mikhail] Bakhtin's concept of carnival as a subversive, disruptive world-upside-down event in which the repressive views, lies, and hypocrisy of the officially run and dominated everyday world are unmasked provides a powerful theoretical concept for any study of Iranian popular theatrical and related musical forms. Bakhtin was concerned with polyvocality and the fact that from the onset of the European Renaissance the voices of the common people were increasingly not heard. The Islamic Republic's ban on the performance of improvisational comic theater would seem to support this theoretical stance with empirical evidence of official reaction. In the European context analyzed by Bakhtin, a writer, exemplified by Rabelais, enacts an important role because he or she reflects the voices of the low, the peasant, the outcast. In Bakhtin's view, the healthy voice of the low, which questions the high-the church and the state-is an important check on oppressive officials in a healthy society.
A full-fledged carnival—such as those in Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans—does not exist in the Iranian culture sphere. By carnival I mean a massive demonstration of excessive eating, drinking, and sexual and bodily exposure, popularly associated with Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, that does not occur within an Islamic/Iranian context. Threads and themes of carnivalesque and grotesque subversion, however, can be found woven through the fabric of the Iranian world. Here the needle that pricks the official religious, social, and political powers most is the traditional comic theater in its many guises.
In many ways siyah-bazi and ru-howzi embody Bakhtin's notions of the grotesque and the carnivalesque. Gholam-siyah, the blackface clown, the 'low Other,' always wins over his master: the world upside down. Gholam-siyah's extravagant clothing, movements, speech, and lower-class language demonstrate Bakhtin's dictum, 'the grotesque...cannot be separated from folk humor and carnival spirit' (Stallybrass and White 1986, 43). Gholam's bright red costume and conical hat, for example, are probably the closest thing to carnival costume in the entire Middle East. William O. Beeman, a scholar of Iranian linguistics, discusses the blackface clown: 'The clown distorts normal physical movement by jumping, running, flailing his arms, and twisting his body into odd shapes' (1981, 515). This is, of course, part of his repertoire, for sight gags make up much of the comedy of traditional comic theater. This grotesque twisting of the body is also part of the dancing that occurs in the comic theater, especially by the male characters."
(Mass Mediations)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
