SEXUATED TOPOLOGY AND THE
SUSPENSION OF MEANING
A NON-HERMENEUTICAL PHENOMENOLOGICAL
APPROACH TO TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
WILLIAM J. URBAN
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Abstract
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Introduction
| Part I | The Historical Struggle with Meaning: From the One to the Other |
| Chapter 1.0 | Hermeneutics |
| 1.1 | From Regional to General Hermeneutics |
| 1.2 | Schleiermacher and the Transcendental Turn to Hermeneutics |
| 1.3 | The Rise and Debates over Hermeneutical Phenomenology |
| Chapter 2.0 | Phenomenology |
| 2.1 | The Two Types of Phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger |
| 2.2 | The Ontological Phenomenology of Understanding |
| 2.3 | The Epistemological Phenomenology of Interpretation |
| Chapter 3.0 | (Post)Structuralism |
| 3.1 | Structuralism |
| 3.2 | Post-Structuralism |
| Chapter 4.0 | Aesthetic Theory |
| 4.1 | Truth without Meaning in Scripture and Poetry |
| 4.2 | The Topology of the Kantian Sublime |
| Chapter 5.0 | Psychoanalysis |
| 5.1 | Classical Psychoanalysis |
| 5.2 | Contemporary Psychoanalytic Thought |
| 5.3 | Lacanian Psychoanalysis |
| Part II | Sexuated Topology and Textual Analysis |
| Chapter 6.0 | Derivation of the Formulae of Sexuation and Stasis |
| 6.1 | The Aristotelian Hermeneutical Circle? |
| 6.2 | From the Aristotelian to the Lacanian Logical Square |
| 6.3 | Additional Interpretive Consequences of the Minimal-Maximal Distinction |
| Chapter 7.0 | Setting the Formulae of Sexuation in Motion |
| 7.1 | Counting Nothings in the Land of Nyania |
| 7.2 | The Breakdown of the Meaning-relation |
| 7.3 | The Suspension of Meaning |
Notes
Bibliography
LIST OF FIGURES
| Figure 5.1 | Lacan's Alpha-Numeric Ciphering Matrix |
| Figure 5.2 | A Δ Distribution |
| Figure 5.3 | The Vel of Alienation |
| Figure 5.4 | Separation |
| Figure 5.5 | The Möbius Strip |
| Figure 5.6 | Retroactive Trajectory of Meaning |
| Figure 5.7 | Definition of a Signifier and the Places of Discourse |
| Figure 5.8 | The Master's and the Analyst's Discourse |
| Figure 5.9 | The Hysteric's and the University Discourse |
| Figure 5.10 | The Mirror Stage |
| Figure 6.1 | The Classical Aristotelian Logical Square (modified) |
| Figure 6.2 | The Lacanian Logical Square |
| Figure 6.3 | A Hyperbolic Function |
| Figure 7.1 | The Lacanian Logical Square and the Four Discourses (Combined) |
| Figure 7.2 | The Topology of the Lacanian Logical Square |
| Figure 7.3 | The Suspension of Meaning |
EPIGRAPH
Drifting body its sole desertion
Flying not yet quite the notion
—Jerry Cantrell, Would? (1992)
They don't know how old I am,
they found armour in my belly
from the 16th century, conquistador, I think.
They don't know how old I am,
they found armour in my belly.
Passion out of machine-revving tension, lashing
out at machine-revving tension, brushing by the
machine-revving tension.
Morning broke out the backside of a truck-stop
the end of a line a real, rainbow-likening, luck stop
where you could say I became chronologically "Fucked-Up".
Put ten bucks in just to get the tank topped off.
Then, I found a place it's dark and it's rotted.
It's a cool, sweet kinda-place
where the copters won't spot it
and I destroyed the map, I even thought I forgot it,
however, every-day I'm dumping the body.
—Gordon Downie, Locked in the trunk of a car (1992)
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