ABSTRACT
The apartheid debate between Jacques Derrida and Anne McClintock/Rob Nixon does not stop short at “textuality” but at the import of deconstruction. Mistaking deconstruction for another ahistorical tool of textual analysis, McClintock/Nixon repeat the banality of most critical discourses on racism. In Derrida, the word “apartheid,” when properly deconstructed, reveals all the programs embedded in the worst kind of racism, demonstrating how deconstruction can work effectively as a means for us to go beyond words to reach the historical reality.
Key words: Apartheid, deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, racism, techne, textuality
＊Lim
Kien Ket (林建國)
earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Rochester, New
York. He is Assistant Professor at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics and
Cultural Studies, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan.