ABSTRACT
The goal, then, for Jacques Derrida is to 'reach the point of a certain exteriority in relation to the totality of the age of logocentrism' through 'a certain deconstruction of that totality which is also a traced path'. In many ways, deconstruction is a very liberal and progressive project in its aim to evenly distribute privilege and diffuse power. Ideally, deconstructionists desire to see a diffusing of power; the binary terms are dismantled to show a plethora of terms and subject positions that speak to and define the former privileged and disenfranchised terms. Rather than being apolitical or ahistorical as many detractors of deconstruction have argued, deconstruction is, from Derrida's perspective, immensely political and historical. Political and institutional interventions lend themselves to trauma studies. Especially in trauma studies, bodies are violated, contested, and injured: the bodies can be read and explored through deconstruction.
