Rothenberg, Molly Anne. The Excessive Subject. Cambridge UK, Malden MA USA: Polity Press, 2010. Print.
Individuals are always working to re-assemble, re-build the social. The social as in social force is not always already there, ready to take up the explanatory slack.
“As we shall see, the impossibility of immediate (immanent) communication will be decisive for the generation and sustenance of social subjects in a social field.
It is particularly important to keep in mind that signification — the process of bestowing meaning — does not function by way of the intentions of speakers or authors but rather by way of the appropriation of the signifier by the auditor or reader. 17
🙂 I like R’s emphasis on excess. It gives me a whole different understanding of this thing called the remainder the both Laclau and Butler throw around. R. here uses it to mean the surplus in signification, what is necessary for communication to exist.
The excess necessary for signification enables associations by dissolving previous associations: without such dissolution, the link between signifier and signified would ossify and signification would be impossible (19).
Excess signifies the impossibility of immanent communion and for R. this is a good thing indeed.