Speculations

This chapter addresses the vexed relationship between deconstruction and science. ‘Speculation’ is a term common both to Derrida’s early reading of Hegelian speculative philosophy and to his extensive reflection on psychoanalysis in texts such as La Carte postale (The Post Card). In its account of Freud’s singular synthesis of concrete observation and fictive speculation in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, La Carte postale provides an unexpectedly rich interrogation of the logic of scientific discovery, one at odds with recent caricatures of Derrida’s thought by proponents of a ‘speculative’ materialism. Freud’s speculations on the pleasure principle allow Derrida to explore psychoanalysis’s status as a ‘positive’ science, its relationship to technology (or technoscience), as well as the limits of psychoanalysis’s own self-delimitation vis-à-vis its various others: metaphysics, religion, and literature or fiction. Positive science’s structural dependency on ‘speculative fictions’ has implications for our understanding of both science and fiction, but it also has implications for recent calls by neuropsychoanalysts to do away with the speculative dimensions of psychoanalytic inquiry.

Manufacturing of High Quality Titanium Thin Foil by Electrodeposition Route

To challenge the significant reduction of manufacturing cost of Ti thin sheet or foil in the future, manufacturing of Ti foil by electrodeposition route was studied with emphasizing on factors affecting quality of the foil and separability from Mo cathode. Current density was one of the strong factors affecting soundness of deposited Ti foil and its separability from the cathode. Electrolyte bath temperature also affected soundness and separability of deposited Ti foil. Separability was closely related to interdiffusion distance of Ti and Mo, that is, shorter diffusion distance, which was brought by low temperature and low current density, led to good separability as well as good surface quality. By reflecting above knowledge, post card size Ti foil of around 0.1 mm in thickness was successfully obtained. It had good quality and could be separated from the cathode by hand. O and Fe contents were drastically decreased by this process.

“EVERY SPERM IS SACRED”: PALESTINIAN PRISONERS, SMUGGLED SEMEN, AND DERRIDA'S PROPHECY

This paper investigates the contemporary phenomenon of smuggling sperm from within Israeli jails, which I treat as a biopolitical act of resistance. Palestinian prisoners who have been sentenced to life-imprisonment have recently resorted to delivering their sperm to their distant wives in the West Bank and Gaza where it is then used for artificial insemination. On the level of theory, my analysis of this practice benefits from Jacques Derrida's commentary inThe Post Cardon imaginative postal delivery of sperm to distant lovers. I use Derrida's heteronormative implication to examine how Palestinian prisoners defy the Israeli carceral system via the revolutionary act of sperm smuggling. The article then argues that smuggling sperm challenges the conventional gender codes in Palestinian society that see women in passive roles. Drawing on Derrida's metaphorical connection between masturbation and writing, I problematize the perception of speech/orality as primary in traditional Palestinian culture. Women, who mostly act as smugglers, become social agents whose written stories of bionational resistance emerge as a dominant mode of representation.

Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Teacher Efficacy for Promoting Partnership Measure Among a Sample of Head Start Educators

The current study reports the evidence for the reliability (via coefficient α, coefficient ω) and validity (via confirmatory factor analysis, correlations) of the Teacher Efficacy for Promoting Partnership measure. Participants were 255 in-service Head Start educators from all Head Start regions across the United States. Educators were sent a survey to complete with a cover letter, written consent form, survey, and compensation for their contribution. To maximize survey response rates, a follow-up post card and survey were sent. Results from the study indicated strong evidence for the reliability of the measure with both coefficient alpha and coefficient omega. Furthermore, evidence was found for convergent-related validity of the measure. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses suggest that further refinement and analysis of the measure is necessary.

Factors associated with follow-up difficulty in longitudinal studies involving community-dwelling older adults

Background To clarify the factors associated with the gradual drop-out from society in older adults, we defined the stages of follow-up difficulty based on four follow-up surveys on non-respondents of longitudinal mail surveys in community-dwelling older adults. This study aimed to examine the main factors associated with the stages of follow-up difficulty. Methods We conducted a follow-up mail survey (FL1) aimed at the baseline respondents and conducted follow-up surveys on non-respondents of each survey as follows; simplified mail (FL2), post card (FL3), and home visit surveys (FL4). The respondents of each follow-up survey were defined as a stage of follow-up difficulty and their characteristics concerning social participation and interaction at the baseline in each stage were analyzed. Results The respondent numbers of the FL1, FL2, FL3, and FL4 and NR (non-respondents) stages were 2,361; 462; 234; 84; and 101 respectively. Participation in hobby groups for FL2 and FL3, in sports groups in FL4, and for the neighborhood association and social isolation in NR were significantly associated with the stage of follow-up difficulty. Conclusions Based on these results, we conclude that the factors associated with each stage of follow-up difficulty are: 1) their activities start to be restricted by a decline in IADL in the FL2 and FL3 stages, 2) they dislike taking part in physical activity such as sports in the FL4 stage, and 3) they are more socially isolated, not belong to even a neighborhood association owing to be low social interaction in the NR group.

How Are We to Read Beyond the Pleasure Principle?

This paper considers Freud's 1920 text, Beyond the Pleasure Principle, in light of Jacques Derrida's critical commentary on it in The Post Card. Against the deconstructive reading that highlights the performative aspects of Freud's speculative remarks, David-Ménard reads Freud's theory of the death drive as an epistemological and experimental hypothesis necessary for giving an account of the complexity and diversity of the clinical phenomenon of repetition in psychoanalysis. Though the death drive never appears locatable as such in the various examples given by Freud, it is nonetheless accessible in the constellation of differences produced by traumatic dreams, children's games, etc.

From Sense Certainty to the Law of Genre: Hegel, Benveniste, Derrida

This chapter attempts to bring the reading and discussion of Derrida in relation with other texts, and other heritages, in order to illustrate how his manner of philosophizing has transformed our understanding of certain fundamental problems. It sketches a series of rereadings, beginning with the famous first chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, “Sense Certainty.” Relating the Hegelian text to various texts by Derrida—passages from The Post Card, Parages, and Monolingualism of the Other—this chapter shows that, taken together, in their dispersion and their kinship, these texts form what might be called “Derrida's sense certainty.” Between Hegel and Derrida, however, a further mediation is necessary: that provided by Émile Benveniste's 1970 essay, entitled “The Formal Apparatus of Enunciation.”