Where to Begin?

A visit to Sydney by Iris van der Tuin, one of the editors of the New Materialisms Series with Edinburgh University Press, first alerted most of the contributors to this collection that we were doing something unusual. The ‘doing’ involved our participation in a regular research workshop that we affectionately called ‘Mull’, and it was here that we committed to reading the most challenging texts in our individual research areas. We weren't too fussed about the subject matter or whether we all shared an interest in a particular author; the agreement was to read together and to encourage an environment of curiosity. I have mentored all of the contributors in one way or another over many years, and as a result we have all become comfortable with our differences. Looking back however, I can see that in the beginning we were especially satisfied with the outcome of these get-togethers – we could spot an argument's logical misstep and follow its repetitions with reasonable ease, enjoying the advantage of a group hunt. But as cornering and despatching our quarry with increasing alacrity began to disappoint I think it was only then that the more difficult task of learning how to read with an author – how to find the value that might be hidden in faltering hesitations and contradictions, how a weak spot might be an opportunity to be mined rather than a flaw to be condemned – became our main objective.

My own view is that we were learning how to read grammatologically, and yet this description tells us very little. Deconstruction is the methodology that eschews methodology, indeed, its paradoxical identity is a mirror maze of confusion for the novice. Not surprisingly, its linguistic reductionism and hermeticism have drawn criticism, and in the main, deconstruction has appeared peripheral and even redundant in relation to contemporary political and sociological concerns. Although I have never accepted this reading it has been popular nevertheless; a ready excuse for dismissal without the bother of actual engagement. However this perspective appears to be shifting, and in regard to this particular project, scholars such as Claire Colebrook, Cary Wolfe, David Wood, Michael Marder and Timothy Morton argue that deconstruction might ventilate current debates in posthumanism and deep ecology, and complicate the impasse between the humanities and the sciences.