The Yale school is a colloquial name for an influential group of

literary critics Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

theorists A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...

, and

philosophers A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

literature Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

that were influenced by

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

's philosophy of

deconstruction The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...

. Many of the theorists were affiliated with

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in the late 1970s, although a number of the theorists – including Derrida himself – subsequently moved to or became affiliated with the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...

Relationship to deconstruction

As a school of thought, the Yale School is more closely allied with the

post-structuralist Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critiques ...

dimensions of deconstruction as opposed to its

phenomenological Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

dimensions. Additionally, the Yale School is philosophically affined to the 1970s version of deconstruction that

John D. Caputo John David Caputo (born October 26, 1940) is an American philosopher who is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo is a ma ...

has described as a "

Nietzschean Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Repres ...

free play of signifiers" and not the 1990s version of deconstruction that was far more concerned with political and ethical questions.

Origins

During the period between the late 1960s and the early 1980s,

was the home of a variety of thinkers who were indebted to

. The group included high-profile literary scholars such as

Shoshana Felman Shoshana Felman is an American literary critic and current Woodruff Professor of Comparative Literature and French at Emory University. She was on the faculty of Yale University from 1970 to 2004, where in 1986 she was awarded the Thomas E. Donn ...

, Paul de Man,

Geoffrey Hartman Geoffrey H. Hartman (August 11, 1929 – March 14, 2016) was a German-born American literary theorist, sometimes identified with the Yale School of deconstruction, although he cannot be categorised by a single school or method. Hartman spent most ...

J. Hillis Miller Joseph Hillis Miller Jr. (March 5, 1928 – February 7, 2021) was an American literary critic and scholar who advanced theories of literary deconstruction. He was part of the Yale School along with scholars including Paul de Man, Jacques De ...

, and

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...

. This group came to be known as the ''Yale School'' and was especially influential in literary criticism because de Man, Miller, Hartman and Bloom are all considered to be prominent literary critics. The four critics listed above, along with Derrida, contributed to an influential anthology, ''Deconstruction and Criticism''. However, Harold Bloom's position was always somewhat different from that of the rest of the group, and he later distanced himself from deconstruction.

Book summaries

''Deconstruction and Criticism'' (1979)

In his introduction to ''Deconstruction and Criticism'', Hartman draws a distinction between Derrida, Miller, and de Man on the one hand, and himself and Bloom on the other. The former category he refers to as "boa-deconstructors" who pursue deconstruction to its utmost conclusions and who are more philosophically rigorous in their writings. Hartman claims that both himself and Bloom are "barely deconstructionists" and that they "even write against it on occasion." Hartman claims that his writing style in particular is more reliant on the traditional role of

pathos Pathos (, ; plural: ''pathea'' or ''pathê''; , for "suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is c ...

as a fundamental impetus for literary language. In contrast, deconstruction as advocated by Derrida seeks to reveal that the very notion of pathos is caught up in the rhetorical play which is endemic to language.

Selected readings

*(1973) ''“Speech and Phenomena” and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs'',

*(1976) ''Of Grammatology'',

*(1978) ''Writing and Difference'',

*(1979) ''Deconstruction and Criticism'' *(1981) ''Dissemination'',

*(1981) ''Positions'',

*(1982) ''Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust'', Paul de Man *(1983) ''On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism'',

Jonathan Culler Jonathan Culler (born 1944) is an American literary critic. He was Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His published works are in the fields of structuralism, literary theory and literary critici ...

*(1983) ''The Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America'', Jonathan Arac,

Wlad Godzich Wlad Godzich (Władysław Bogusz Godzich, Wladyslaw Bogusz Godzich) (born May 13, 1945 in Germany, raised in France) is a literary critic, literary theorist, translator, and scholar. He is attributed with influencing the conceptualization of m ...

, Wallace Martin, editors. *(1985) ''Rhetoric and Form: Deconstruction at Yale'', Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer, editors. *(1989) ''Memoires for Paul de Man'',

*(1992) ''Acts of Literature'',

*(1994) ''The Wake of Deconstruction'',

Barbara Johnson Barbara Ellen Johnson (October 4, 1947 – August 27, 2009) was an American literary critic and translator, born in Boston. She was a Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Soci ...

Move to Irvine

After teaching at Yale from 1972 to 1986,

left for the

, where he is today Distinguished Research Professor of English and Comparative Literature. Shortly after J. Hillis Miller's arrival at UC Irvine in 1986, Derrida himself became Professor of the Humanities at UCI. Derrida remained at UCI until 2003, one year before his death. Until his death, Derrida had slowly been turning over lecture manuscripts, journals and other materials to UCI's special collections library under an agreement he signed in 1990. After Derrida's death, his widow and sons said they wanted copies of UCI's archives shared with the Institute of Contemporary Publishing Archives in France. The university had sued in an attempt to get manuscripts and correspondence from Derrida's widow and children that it believed the philosopher had promised to UC Irvine's collection, although the suit was dropped in 2007. The Irvine Langson Library Special Collections also houses the Paul de Man Papers, a collection of personal and professional papers documenting de Man's work in comparative literature.

References

Deconstruction Yale University Writing circles Literary criticism