The Seventh Function of Language

Cornell University, Ithaca, fall 1980

(CONFERENCE ORGANIZER: Jonathan D. Culler)

LIST OF TALKS:

Noam Chomsky

Degenerative grammar

Hélène Cixous

Les larmes de l’hibiscus

Jacques Derrida

A Sec Solo

Michel Foucault

Jeux de polysémie dans l’onirocritique d’Artémidore

Félix Guattari

Le régime signifiant despotique

Luce Irigaray

Phallogocentrisme et métaphysique de la substance

Roman Jakobson

Stayin’ Alive, structurally speaking

Fredric Jameson

The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a socially symbolic act

Julia Kristeva

Le langage, cette inconnue

Sylvère Lotringer

Italy: Autonomia—Post-political politics

Jean-François Lyotard

PoMo de bouche: la parole post-moderne

Paul de Man

Cerisy sur le gâteau: la déconstruction en France

Jeffrey Mehlman

Blanchot, the laundry man

Avital Ronell

“Because a man speaks, he thinks he’s able to speak about language.”—Goethe & the metaspeakers

Richard Rorty

Wittgenstein vs Heidegger: Clash of the continents?

Edward Said

Exile on Main Street

John Searle

Fake or feint: performing the F words in fictional works

Gayatri Spivak

Should the subaltern shut up sometimes?

Morris J. Zapp

Fishing for supplement in a deconstructive world

59

“Deleuze isn’t coming, right?”

“No, but Anti-Oedipus is playing tonight. I’m so excited!”

“Have you heard the new single?”

“Yeah, it’s awesome. So L.A.!”

Kristeva is sitting on the grass between two boys. Stroking their hair, she says: “I love America. You are so ingenuous, boys.”

One of them tries to kiss her neck. She pushes him away, laughing. The other whispers in her ear: “You mean ‘genuine,’ right?” Kristeva giggles. She feels a shiver of electricity run down her squirrelish body. Facing them, another student finishes rolling and lights a joint. The pleasant smell of the grass spreads through the air. Kristeva takes a few hits. Her head spins a little bit. She pontificates soberly: “As Spinoza said, each negation is a definition.” The three young pre–New Wave post-hippies laugh and exclaim rapturously: “Wow, say that again! What did Spinoza say?”

On campus, students come and go, some looking busy, others less so, crossing the wide lawn between Gothic, Victorian, and Neoclassical buildings. A sort of bell tower overlooks the scene, itself perched on top of a hill that rises above a lake and some gorges. We may be in the middle of nowhere, but at least we’re in the middle. Kristeva bites into a club sandwich because the baguette, which she loves so much, has not yet reached the remote Tompkins County, in deepest New York State, halfway between New York City and Toronto, former territory of the Cayuga tribe, which was part of the Iroquois Confederation, and home to the small city of Ithaca, home in turn to the prestigious Cornell University. She frowns and says: “Unless it’s the other way around…”

They are joined by a fourth young man, who comes out of the hotel-management school carrying an aluminum packet in one hand and Of Grammatology in the other (but he doesn’t dare ask Kristeva if she knows Derrida). He’s brought muffins, oven fresh, that he made himself. Kristeva is happy to take part in this improvised picnic, getting tipsy on tequila. (Unsurprisingly, the bottle is hidden inside a paper bag.)

She watches the students walk past, carrying books or hockey sticks or guitar cases under their arms.

An old man with a receding hairline, his abundant hair brushed back as if he once had a thick bush on his head, mumbles to himself under a tree. His hands, which shake in front of him, look like branches.

A young, short-haired woman, who looks a bit like a cross between Cruella in 101 Dalmatians and Vanessa Redgrave, appears to be the only member of an invisible protest march. She shouts slogans that Kristeva does not understand. She seems very angry.

A group of young guys is playing with an American football. One recites Shakespeare while the others drink red wine from the bottle. (Not wrapped in paper, the rebels.) They throw the ball to one another, taking care to get a good spiral. The one with the bottle fails to catch the ball in his other hand (which is holding a cigarette), so the others make fun of him. They already seem pretty drunk.

Kristeva looks at the bush-man with the receding hairline; he looks back at her and they hold each other’s gaze, just for an instant, but a touch too long for it to be insignificant.