The essays collected here provide English-speaking readers with a lucid and accessible introduction to the world of France's leading contemporary philosopher. A classic student textbook.

La vie la mort est l'un des séminaires les plus féconds de Jacques Derrida. En jeu : penser la vie et la mort en vertu d'une logique qui ne poserait pas la mort comme l'opposé de la vie. La pureté de la vie n'est-elle pas, par essence, contaminée par la possibilité même de la mort, puisque seul un vivant peut mourir? interroge d'emblée le philosophe. En renversant la perspective classique, Derrida entreprend d'enseigner à ses étudiants que c'est (...) la mort, au contraire, qui rend la vie possible. En quatorze séances érudites et palpitantes délivrées au cours de l'année 1975-1976, Derrida déconstruit l'opposition traditionnelle entre la vie et la mort à travers des lectures multiples et délibérément pluridisciplinaires, élaborant sa pensée aussi bien au contact de la philosophie (Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger) et de l'épistémologie des sciences (Georges Canguilhem) que dans la confrontation à la génétique contemporaine (François Jacob) et à la psychanalyse (catégories freudiennes de pulsions de vie et de mort)."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

An exploration of the political dimensions of forgiveness and repentance from Jacques Derrida. Perjury and Pardon is a two-year seminar series given by Jacques Derrida at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris during the late 1990s. In these sessions, Derrida focuses on the philosophical, ethical, juridical, and political stakes of the concept of responsibility. His primary goal is to develop what he calls a “problematic of lying” by studying diverse forms of (...) betrayal: infidelity, denial, false testimony, perjury, unkept promises, desecration, sacrilege, and blasphemy. This volume covers the seminar’s second year when Derrida explores the political dimensions of forgiveness and repentance. Over eight sessions, he discusses Hegel, Augustine, Levinas, Arendt, and Benjamin as well as Bill Clinton’s impeachment and Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s testimonies before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The seminars conclude with an extended reading of Henri Thomas’s 1964 novel Le Parjure. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Suggested Reading.

In 1996 Jacques Derrida gave a lecture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on the occasion of Antonin Artaud: Works on Paper, one of the first major international exhibitions to present the avant-garde dramatist and poet's paintings and drawings. Derrida's original title, "Artaud the Moma," is a characteristic play on words. It alludes to Artaud's calling himself Mômo, Marseilles slang for "fool," upon his return to Paris in 1946 after nine years in various asylums, (...) while playing off of the museum's nickname, MoMA. But the title was not deemed "presentable or decent," in Derrida's words, by the very institution that chose to exhibit Artaud's work. Instead, the lecture was advertised as "Jacques Derrida... will present a lecture about Artaud's drawings." For Derrida, what was at stake was what it meant for the museum to exhibit Artaud's drawings and for him to lecture on Artaud in that institutional context. Thinking over the performative force of Artaud's work and the relation between writing and drawing, Derrida addresses the multiplicity of Artaud's identities to confront the modernist museum's valorizing of originality. He channels Artaud's specter, speech, and struggle against representation to attempt to hold the museum accountable for trying to confine Artaud within its categories. Artaud the Moma, as lecture and text, reveals the challenge that Artaud posed to Derrida—and to art and its institutional history. A powerful interjection into the museum halls, this work is a crucial moment in Derrida's thought and an insightful, unsparing reading of a challenging writer and artist. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida a tenu ce séminaire sur le rapport entre théorie et pratique à l'École normale supérieure où il enseignait dans les années 1970. L'intérêt philosophique et historique des neuf séances du séminaire réside dans la discussion serrée de Marx, et notamment de la fameuse onzième "Thèse sur Feuerbach", ainsi que dans l'analyse des écrits d'Althusser. Jusqu'à présent, on a pu croire que, à l'exception de quelques allusions, Derrida n'avait commencé à traiter de Marx de façon systématique (...) et approfondie qu'au début des années 1990, quand il publia Spectres de Marc. Or, ce séminaire, qui date de 1975-1976, montre qu'il n'en est rien. "Faut le faire" : Derrida se sert de cette phrase idiomatique comme fil conducteur de son séminaire. Il exploite toutes les ressources qu'elle lui offre pour parler du rapport entre théorie et pratique. Ainsi, il distingue entre deux "accentuations" différentes de l'idiome : d'une part, "faut le faire" signale la nécessité de la pratique, le passage du contempler et du dire à l'agir et au fade, mais d'autre part, "faut le faire" peut aussi renvoyer à une détermination pratico-révolutionnaire plutôt qu'à une détermination théorique de la praxis, comme si, afin d'être révolutionnaire, la praxis devait déjouer l'opposition entre théorie et pratique, et se déterminer à partir d'elle-même."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Proceedings of the 1982 Colloquium in Cerisy-la-Salle, France.

A new translation of Derrida's groundbreaking juxtaposition of Hegel and Genet, forcing two incompatible discourses into dialogue with each other.

Responding to questions put to him at a Roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, the community, the distinction between the messianic and the concrete messianisms, and his interpretation of James Joyce. Derrida convincingly refutes (...) the charges of relativism and nihilism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The “Roundtable” is marked by the unusual clarity of Derrida’s presentation and by the deep respect for the great works of the philosophical and literary tradition with which he characterizes his philosophical work. The Roundtable is annotated by John D. Caputo, the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, who has supplied cross references to Derrida’s writings where the reader may find further discussion on these topics. Professor Caputo has also supplied a commentary which elaborates the principal issues raised in the Roundtable. In all, this volume represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. An ideal volume for students approaching Derrida for the first time, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will prove instructive and illuminating as well for those already familiar with Derrida’s work. (shrink)

Disons que, pour m'en tenir au cadre, à la limite, j'écris ici quatre fois autour de la peinture. Quatre fois, dira-t-on autour de la peinture, donc dans les parages qu'on s'autorise, c'est toute l'histoire, à contenir comme les entours ou les abords de l'œuvre : cadre, passe-partout, titre, signature, musée, archive, discours, marché, bref partout où on légifère en marquant la limite, celle de la couleur même. Du droit à la peinture, voilà le titre ambitieux auquel j'aurais voulu accorder ce (...) livre, son trajet autant que son objet, leur trait commun, qui n'est autre, ni un ni indivible, que le trait lui-même. JD. (shrink)

In February of 1988, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe came together in Heidelberg before a large audience to discuss, in French, the philosophical and political implications of Martin Heidegger's thought, particularly in light of the philosopher's engagement in Nazism. This book presents a transcription and translation of their reflections and exchanges with the audience.

Jacques Derrida explores the ramifications of what we owe to others. Hospitality reproduces a two-year seminar series delivered by Jacques Derrida at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris between 1995 and 1997. In these lectures, Derrida asks a series of related questions about responsibility and “the foreigner”: How do we welcome or turn away the foreigner? What does the idea of the foreigner reveal about kinship and the state, particularly in relation (...) to friendship, citizenship, migration, asylum, assimilation, and xenophobia? Derrida approaches these questions through readings of several classical texts as well as modern texts by Heidegger, Arendt, Camus, and others. Central to his project is a rigorous distinction between conventional, finite hospitality, with its many conditions, and the aspirational idea of hospitality as something offered unconditionally to the stranger. This volume collects the first year of the seminar. (shrink)

Originally published in 1995, Advances was first written by Jscques Derrida as a long foreword a book by one of his most promising former students, the philosopher Serge Margel's Le Tombeau du Dieu Artisan (The Tomb of the Artisn God). Derrida uncovers Margel's unique theory of the promise in relation to an an-archic, pre-chronological temporality, in conjunction with Margel's radical rereading of Plato's Timaeus. As Derrida states right away, Margel's reading is a new Demiurge. A new promise. (...) A new advance. This magisterial late essay is a conversation with Derrida's former student as well as an opening for new reflection on ecological and political crises that are all the more urgent today, when the possibility of death as a human race and the end of the world is more real than ever. (shrink)

Tu ne sauras jamais, vous non plus, toutes les histoires que j'ai pu encore me raconter en regardant ces images.

"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. (...) Thirty years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable. (shrink)

In this important new book, Jacques Derrida talks with Bernard Stiegler about the effect of teletechnologies on our philosophical and political moment. Improvising before a camera, the two philosophers are confronted by the very technologies they discuss and so are forced to address all the more directly the urgent questions that they raise. What does it mean to speak of the present in a situation of "live" recording? How can we respond, responsibly, to a question when we know (...) that the so-called "natural" conditions of expression, discussion, reflection, and deliberation have been breached? As Derrida and Stiegler discuss the role of teletechnologies in modern society, the political implications of Derrida's thought become apparent. Drawing on recent events in Europe, Derrida and Stiegler explore the impact of television and the internet on our understanding of the state, its borders and citizenship. Their discussion examines the relationship between the juridical and the technical, and it shows how new technologies for manipulating and transmitting images have influenced our notions of democracy, history and the body. The book opens with a shorter interview with Derrida on the news media, and closes with a provocative essay by Stiegler on the epistemology of digital photography. In Echographies of Television, Derrida and Stiegler open up questions that are of key social and political importance. Their book will be of great interest to all those already familiar with Derrida's work, as well as to students and scholars of philosophy, literature, sociology and media studies. (shrink)

In Hospitality, Volume I, Jacques Derrida continues a seminar series he inaugurated in 1991 under the general title of "Questions of Responsibility." Delivered at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris from November 1995 through June 1996, the seminar is guided by questions that focus on responsibility and "the foreigner": How is the foreigner welcomed and/or repressed? What does the notion of the foreigner reveal about kinship, ethnicity, the city, the state, and the nation? (...) What are the stakes of the opposition between friend and enemy? How should we think of this in relation to borders, citizenship, displaced populations, immigration, exile, asylum, integration, assimilation, xenophobia, and racism? Derrida approaches these questions through readings of several classical texts as well as more modern texts from Heidegger, Arendt, and Camus, among others. Central to his project is a rigorous distinction between conventional hospitality (always finite and conditional) and the idea of a hospitality open unconditionally to the newcomer. (shrink)

In the 1960s a radical concept emerged from the great French thinker Jacques Derrida. Read the book that changed the way we think; read "Writing and Difference," the classic introduction.

Jacques Derrida explores the ramifications of what we owe to others. Hospitality reproduces a two-year seminar series delivered by Jacques Derrida at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris between 1995 and 1997. In these lectures, Derrida asks a series of related questions about responsibility and “the foreigner”: How do we welcome or turn away the foreigner? What does the idea of the foreigner reveal about kinship and the state, particularly in relation (...) to friendship, citizenship, migration, asylum, assimilation, and xenophobia? Central to his project is a rigorous distinction between conventional, finite hospitality, with its many conditions, and the aspirational idea of hospitality as something offered unconditionally to the stranger. This volume collects the second year of the seminar, which considers an Islamic problematic of hospitality, the relevance of forgiveness, and the work of Emmanuel Levinas. (shrink)

Derrida is one of the few Continental philosopher-critics as esteemed for his writings about visual topics as for his attention to more textually based subjects. This volume collects key and scarce writings about the making and apprehension of "visual objects," though the chief focus is on drawing, painting, and photography (with sorties into video and film). What preoccupied Derrida when it came to the visual arts is visibility: what does a pencil actually trace-make visible- when someone is making (...) a drawing? What aspect of the drawing documents the artist's thought and what part documents an external object? What comes from painting other than a painting? The writings collected range from essays originally published in small magazines and journals to never-before translated talks and interviews. There are 19 pieces in all, of which seven have been previously published in English.. The rest have been translated into English for the first time. None is included in the Press's already substantial inventory of works by Derrida. The collection comprises three thematic sections: (1) "The Traces of the Visible" is attuned to the field's preoccupation with the "trace," what is an "image," visibility, and space. (2) "Rhetoric of the Line: Painting, Drawing" engages nearly every register in which one can experience art: the materiality of line and text, the eros of aesthetic experience, the politics of color, and the components of painting, writing and drawing taken together. (3) "Spectralities of the Image: Photography, Video, Cinema and Theatre" explores the media we most readily associate with modern and contemporary art practices. (shrink)

'No writer has probed the riddle of the Other with more patience and insight than Jacques Derrida.

"In this densely imbricated volume Derrida pursues his devoted, relentless dismantling of the philosophical tradition, the tradition of Plato, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger--each dealt with in one or more of the essays. There are essays too on linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, Austin) and on the nature of metaphor ("White Mythology"), the latter with important implications for literary theory. Derrida is fully in control of a dazzling stylistic register in this book--a source of true illumination for those prepared to (...) follow his arduous path. Bass is a superb translator and annotator. His notes on the multilingual allusions and puns are a great service."--Alexander Gelley, Library Journal. (shrink)

Chora L Works documents the unprecedented collaboration, initiated in 1985, between philosopher Jacques Derrida and architect Peter Eisenman on a project for the Parc de la Villette in Paris. Woven into the volume are discussion transcripts, candid correspondence, and essays, as well as sketches, presentation drawings, and models. Derrida and Eisenman's design process was guided by Plato's chora text from the Timeaus; their unique reciprocal relationship was an interchange - and transformation - of voices.

Prodigiously influential, Jacques Derrida gave rise to a comprehensive rethinking of the basic concepts and categories of Western philosophy in the latter part of the twentieth century, with writings central to our understanding of language, meaning, identity, ethics and values. In 1993, a conference was organized around the question, 'Whither Marxism?’, and Derrida was invited to open the proceedings. His plenary address, 'Specters of Marx', delivered in two parts, forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated when (...) it was first published, a rapidly changing world and world politics have scarcely dented the relevance of this book. (shrink)

The animal that therefore I am (more to follow) -- But as for me, who am I (following)? -- And say the animal responded -- I don't know why we are doing this.

The book's two essays, 'Limited Inc.' and 'Signature Event Context, ' constitute key statements of the Derridean theory of deconstruction. They are perhaps the clearest exposition to be found of Derrida's most controversial idea.

Prodigiously influential, Jacques Derrida gave rise to a comprehensive rethinking of the basic concepts and categories of Western philosophy in the latter part of the twentieth century, with writings central to our understanding of language, meaning, identity, ethics and values. In 1993, a conference was organized around the question, 'Whither Marxism?’, and Derrida was invited to open the proceedings. His plenary address, 'Specters of Marx', delivered in two parts, forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated when (...) it was first published, a rapidly changing world and world politics have scarcely dented the relevance of this book. (shrink)

This question leads the book across the geopolitical and technoscientific space in which the deafening disavowal of Marx is being proclaimed today.

One of the world's most famous philosophers, Jacques Derrida, explores difficult questions in this important and engaging book. Is it still possible to uphold international hospitality and justice in the face of increasing nationalism and civil strife in so many countries? Drawing on examples of treatment of minority groups in Europe, he skilfully and accessibly probes the thinking that underlies much of the practice, and rhetoric, that informs cosmopolitanism. What have duties and rights to do with hospitality? Should (...) hospitality be grounded on a private or public ethic, or even a religious one? This fascinating book will be illuminating reading for all. (shrink)

____Specters of Marx__ is a major new book from the renowned French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It represents his first important statement on Marx and his definitive entry into social and political philosophy. "Specter" is the first noun one reads in _The Manifesto of_ _the Communist Party._ But that's just the beginning. Once you start to notice them, there is no counting all the ghosts, spirits, specters and spooks that crowd Marx's text. If they are to count for something, (...) however, one must question the spectropoetics that Marx allowed to invade his discourse. In ____Specters of Marx,__ Derrida undertakes this task within the context of a critique of the new dogmatism and "new world order" that have proclaimed the death of Marxism and of Marx. (shrink)

First published in 1981. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The notorious French philosopher, literary critic and film star First translated in 1983, Dissemination contains three of Derrida's most central and seminal works: 'Plato's Pharmacy', 'The Double Session' and 'Dissemination'. The essays provide original readings of philosophy and literature, and present a re-evaluation of the logic of meaning and the function of writing in Western discourse. This is a groundbreaking work on the relationship and interplay between language, literature and philosophy.

These two lectures by Jacques Derrida, 'Foreigner Question: Come from Abroad' and 'Step of Hospitality/No Hospitality', derive from a series of seminars on 'hospitality' conducted by Derrida in Paris, January 1996. The book consists of two texts on facing pages. 'Invitation' by Anne Dufourmantelle appears on the left clarifying and inflecting Derrida's 'response' on the right. The interaction between them not only enacts the 'hospitality' under discussion, but preserves something of the rhythms of teaching. The book (...) also characteristically combines careful readings of canonical texts and philosophical topics with attention to the most salient events in the contemporary world, using 'hospitality' as a means of rethinking a range of political and ethical situations. For example, Antigone is revisited in light of the question of impossible mourning; the trial of Socrates is brought into conjunction with the televised funeral of François Mitterrand. (shrink)

Speech and phenomena.--Form and meaning.--Differance.