Abstract

This paper will follow the thread that may be traced in Derrida’s Mal d’Archive 4 when the title is translated as “The Archive Bug.” In so doing, it will attempt to describe the ways in which the death drive as it appears in Mal d’Archive may be related to the concept of différance as it has emerged in Derrida’s theoretical writings under various names. The argument will hinge on the thinking of différance as a virus, in the sense of an information entity which propagates by entering a genetic structure and substituting elements of its code