This essay advances an interpretation of early Christian codex books, which goes beyond Catherine Pickstock’s critique of Jacques Derrida. Firstly, it summarizes Derrida’s deconstruction of Plato’s Phaedrus and introduces his understanding of writing as différance. Secondly, it outlines Pickstock’s After Writing in order to understand her emphasis upon the liturgical nature of platonic dialogue. It is here that an ambiguity emerges between writing and codex books in Pickstock’s account. In response, the insights of book historians such as Roger Chartier will (...) be brought to bear in order to understand the longer history of the codex, which sees the printing press as a continuation of the early transition from roll to codex in the second century of the Common Era. It has long been noted that Christians of this period were early and pervasive adopters of codex binding for their sacred literature. By summarizing the reasons why, it will be shown how the codex expressed early Christian religious concerns. (shrink)

Over the last twenty years, Jürgen Habermas has been at the forefront of debates involving religion in the public sphere. In the wake of 9/11 he has responded to the problems of terrorism, “radical Islam,” and the so-called Muslim question in Europe, attempting to align these issue with his broader theories of deliberative democracy and postsecularism. Although Habermas aims for an inclusive model of deliberation in the public sphere, I argue that his reliance on macro theories of secularization and modernization (...) reproduce an ideal of secular liberal democracy as the standard by which to think about various “Others,” including Muslims. As a result, I claim that he ends up reproducing a soft variety of the “clash of civilizations” thesis by failing to account for the complexity of Muslim identities. In conclusion, I look at alternative models that are better able to historicize and contextualize “Islam” in the past and present, and point to significant gaps that must be filled if his proposals are to be taken seriously. (shrink)

Derrida's early reluctance to spell out political implications of deconstruction gave way during the course of the 1980s to a series of analyses of political concepts and issues. This article identifies the principal intellectual strategies of Derrida's political engagements and provides a detailed account of his concept of ‘democracy to come’. Finally, it suggests several points of contact between Derrida and recent liberal political philosophy, as well as some areas in which deconstructive analyses require further refinement if fruitful exchange is (...) to occur. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years, academic debate over pornography in the discourses of feminism and cultural studies has foundered on questions of the performative and of the word's definition. In the polylogue of Droit de regards, pornography is defined as la mise en vente that is taking place in the act of exegesis in progress. (Wills's idiomatic English translation includes an ‘it’ that is absent in the French original). The definition in Droit de regards alludes to the word's etymology (writing (...) by or about prostitutes) but leaves the referent of the ‘sale’ suspended. Pornography as la mise en vente boldly restates the necessary iterability of the sign and anticipates two of Derrida's late arguments: that there is no ‘the’ body and that performatives may be powerless. Deriving a definition of pornography from a truncated etymology exemplifies the prosthesis of origin and challenges other critical discourses to explain how pornography can be understood as anything more than ‘putting (it) up for sale’. (shrink)

The most urgent problem facing the European Union is to develop the best approach to conflicts over integration in the fields of culture, economics and foreign policy. The essay argues that a particular form of democratic integration is better than the two predominant approaches. This approach draws on the actual practices of the democratic negotiation of integration that citizens engage in on a daily basis but which tend to be overlooked and overridden in the dominant approaches.

This paper proposes a Wittgenstein-inspired critique of the prism of translation that frames the recent literature about the debate between Rawls and Habermas on the role of religious reasons in the public sphere. This debate originates with the introduction of Rawls’s proviso in his conception of the public use of reason, 765-807, 1997), which consists in the “translation” of religious reasons into secular ones, which he thinks is necessary in order for religious reasons to be legitimate in the public sphere. (...) Even though Wittgenstein is not himself concerned with religious pluralism as a political issue, there are numerous scholars who have discussed the political implications of his remarks, 691–715, 2007; Moore Philosophy and Social Criticism, 36, 1113-1136 2010; Pohlhaus and Wright Political Theory, 30, 800–27, 2002). The thesis of this paper is that the interpretation proposed by Cora Diamond in regards to ethical and religious questions turns out to be a suitable way out of the “translation requirement”. According to this solution, if there is to be an understanding between secular and religious citizens on the basis of religious reasons, it should not rely on a “translation” but rather on mutual self-representation. (shrink)

Lasse Thomassen has previously published a number of books including the introductory Habermas: A Guide for the Perplexed and edited The Derrida-Habermas Reader, as well as a collecti...

This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida’s later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice (...) under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls “iteration,” or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification. The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx’s spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Adorno’s negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory. (shrink)