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Close Reading without all the New Criticism Baggage
If you're looking for nihilism, denials of metaphysics, or other such silliness, this book has none of them.If you're looking for insightful close-readings of some Platonic dialogues and their ethical implications, this book does that quite well.

Derrida's two essays deal with the foreigner in Plato, and he does quite a nice job of articulating the tensions inherent in hospitality--the home into which the stranger enters is my home, but I have to yield place to the stranger while remaining solidly the proprietor of the home.That tension extends to national identities, theological questions, and all sorts of other fun stuff by the end of the book.

I still have not read the commentary in the facing columns of the book, so read some other reviews if you'd like to know about them. ... Read more

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At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. Deconstruction, the movement that he founded, has received as much criticism as admiration and provoked one of the most contentious philosophical debates of the twentieth century. Derrida's contribution to European and American literary and philosophical culture was enormous and a comprehensive overview of his extraordinary life and work is long overdue. "Jacques Derrida: A Biography" offers for the first time a complete biographical overview of this important philosopher, drawing on Derrida's own accounts of his life as well as the narratives of friends and colleagues. Powell explores Derrida's early life in Algeria, his higher education in Paris and his development as a thinker, before examining the extraordinary influence of his published works and the celebrity status that he achieved in both Europe and the USA.Powell goes on to explore the crisis Derrida faced toward the end of the 1970's, when structuralism was waning, and his renewed efforts to create a public forum for deconstruction, often in the face of fierce criticism from the popular press. He concludes with an account of his last years and publications, which are both reflective and more assertive in their commentary on the times in which we live, bringing to light his thoughts on fame, life, and death. "Jacques Derrida: A Biography" provides an essential and engaging account of this major philosopher's remarkable life and work. ... Read more

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Now the dust has settled on my book
I may be entitled to say a word about it. I am the author of it. I was personally attracted to Derrida's writing because, while growing up I was dominated by ideas deriving from emotional attachments to the politics of Western Civilisation and universal true religion. Jacques Derrida seemed to me to have attained to a superhuman position beyond Right and Left in politics. He had a keen mind, and an aversion to belonging. He appeared to me like Nietzsche's 'blonde beast', a mix of many elements of various cultures. He knew too much, and he found it hard to settle for any position. He loved the future, and he was prone to strange images and phrases like the transitional Black Lodge sequences of David Lynch's films which, while having no distinct meaning in conceptual form, seem to lie at the heart of existence for human beings.

I myself wanted to be at the heart of being, to know the truth, to hear the voice of God. Derrida longs for these things too. He discredits those who claim to have the truth because he still seeks. Who cares for his biography, really? Like him, I seek myself really, and hope to find myself in an other. The superman listens out for the voice of the other. And sees signs of a glimpse of something which is truly new and original. If the full presence of this divine truth does not come, then let us at least be honest about that. Derrida's works meant this desire and disappointment at once.

To be honest, I wrote his biography because I also wanted, with a desire which was relatively pointless since I only sought myself, to know the details of his 74 years.

Now, in my view, what negative views there are about my book are justified in many ways. But the shame for voicing them and accepting them should be felt by those who do that negative work. You might be right to say that 'there is not enough biographical information'. Yes. That is right. Leonardo Da Vinci, Hegel, Beethoven and our other heroes exceed their biography. Derrida implied that there will have to be a new type of biography. My book is not a biography... I wrote against you scholars and teachers, you who earn a salary for reading and teaching what is utterly free, secret, beyond good and evil, beyond Right and Left, and beyond the calculated lifestyle of the average man or woman. I was never at home at our inflated and redundant universities, and neither is this book at home there.

If there is anything which will profit you when reading this, it is my image of a philosopher who belongs with all his intellect and his heart to a new coming order of thought which will, actually, outlast our times, and lead into a new age. I only hope that there are people in coming times with the intellect to be able to read this man's work in French or in English translation. From the outset, from the Introduction, I was only concerned with the future of our culture, and in finding out how Derrida, like Nietzsche, was concerned with the same thing. Naturally, this coming world should have some of the kindness, greatness, and desire for the absolute truth which Derrida represents for me.

Super bad.
Usually I appreciate Continuum's editorial line, but in this case they really messed it up. They went for the easy sales.

The biggest problems of this book are:
1. It does not add anything new to what it was already know about Derrida
2. It fails to mention the secret of Derrida's life, i.e. that he had a son with Sylvane Agacinski that was later adopted by Jospin when he marrid Sylvane
3. When it tries to move beyond Derrida's life and talk about his work, it messes up big time
4. It's badly written

Good intention, bad execution
Badly written: "Derrida was never restrained in print about what he saw as the shortcomings of his contemporaries in the efforts they made to embody their ideals." (p. 35).
Not a biography as much as a sketchy summary of Derrida's works. The "biographer" didn't have access to Derrida's private papers (correspondence, etc).

best i have read!
Derrida's biography may not only face scorn from those who do not admire him, but also from those who expect a biography to mimic Derrida's so difficult books. Given the hatred Derrida's work faces in his life and death, a half-way step towards reconciliation with resistance to deconstruction, such as this book is, is of supreme benefit.



To my mind, this biography offers a good introduction to Derrida's thought and life. It gives to the uninitiated the first step toward Derrida. It consistently invites the reader to actually read Derrida's works, and therefore, even where its own readings are partial and too brief, they point to the importance and the meaning of Derrida's works.



If there are readers who wish to learn about Derrida and modern philosophy, and about much besides, including the question of what the meaning of life is, and what thinking is, then I do not know of a better book with which to begin. I also think it will be a good antidote to the over-enthusiasm of those who think that Derrida's revolution has already happened, and that it needs no further efforts. Derrida's work requires those willing to go their own way, and not simply to mimic Derrida's style and his frame of mind.



The more widely this book is read, the more it will be possible to see and hear philosophy being done in the present day in a relevant way.

A Trace of Jackie
For anyone interested in Derrida, the man; for anyone new to Derrida's thinking and finding it difficult (this book will help clear things up for you); for anyone who wishes to read aninteresting biography about a philosopher with an a strong impact academic institutions during his own life time - this is book is it. I found Powell's monograph well-written, interesting and insightful. ... Read more

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Definitely Deconstruction
The introduction was the most difficult chapter. After that, it actually starts to make some sense.

A must have for deconstruction aesthetics
A reading of Adami's reading of Derrida's Glas.Fantastic book.Recommended to those who want a new view of painting, art, and history in general.

Very interesting book
Derrida has a very complicated way of writing : it is not easy avoiding metaphors, the verb to be, the 'I'.Especially when the subject is art, beacause it is exactly the realm of the aesthetic, the subjective,the presence. This, I think, is one of his most difficult texts.
This book sets to investigate the multiple questions that develop in the presence of Cezanne's proposal : Cezanne's aim is to tell the truth in painting.
What is the relation between truth anda beauty, language and image, philosophy and art?Derrida investigates those in two large chapters called 'Parergon' and 'Van Gogh boots'. ... Read more

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A Dedication From Freud's Father To His Son
Archive Fever - A Freudian Impression is the text of a lecture given by Jacques Derrida at the Freud Museum in London during an international colloquium entitled "Memory: The Question of Archives" organized by the Société Internationale d'Histoire de la Psychiatrie et de la Psychanalyse. The location, the theme of the conference, the title of the lecture, the list of persons present and absent: all matters enormously for the understanding of this text, which highlights a decisive aspect of Derrida's thought.

Freud's last house after he flew to London in 1938 became a museum after his daughter Anna passed away in 1982. It shelters part of Freud's personal archives, his library, his daughter's papers, and a research center on the history of psychoanalysis.

To paraphrase Derrida, Freud's house is used as a scene of domiciliation: it gives shelter, it assigns to residence, and it consigns, as it gathers together signs. As a place for archives [the word comes from the Greek arkheion, the residence of the superior magistrate], it is at once institutive and conservative. "It has the force of law, of a law which is the law of the house," writes Derrida. The archivization produces as much as it records the event. It opens "the question of the future itself, the question of a response, of a promise and of a responsibility for tomorrow". In the case of psychoanalysis, the conservation of archives raises specific questions: "What is this new science of which the institutional and theoretical archive ought by rights to comprise the most private documents, sometimes secret?" asks Derrida.

But the House of Freud is also the place of a lineage: that of the father of psychoanalysis, whom all analysts claim as ancestor, and also the lineage of an individual who was taken in his own web of kinship relationships, in particular with his father Jakob and with his daughter Anna. The private library contains a Philippsohn Bible that Sigmund Freud had studied in his youth and that his father, having rebound the volume in "a new skin", gave him back on his thirty-fifth birthday, inscribed with a personal dedication in Hebrew.

It may be possible to read into the text of the dedication an allusion to Freud's circumcision, although the point is a matter of debate. But the gift of the father refers unambiguously to Freud's Jewish heritage: as a child Sigmund Freud had been "deeply engrossed" in the reading of the Bible, and as an adult he was still able to decipher his father's handwritten inscription in Hebrew, which renewed the covenant passed when the Book was first given.

This question of deferred obedience to the father, and of allegiance to the Law, was also taken up by Freud's daughter Anna. In 1977, she was invited by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem to inaugurate an endowed chair carrying the name of her long dead father. Unable to go, she sent a written statement which acknowledges, among other things, that the accusation according to which psychoanalysis is a "Jewish science", "under present circumstances, can serve as a title of honour."

This is the main point Derrida wants to get at. It has now become difficult to discuss Freud and psychoanalysis without any reference to Judaism. Freud, of course, vehemently denied the notion of a Jewish science, and he emphasized the universal (non-Jewish) essence of psychoanalysis, although he sometimes hinted--in the private archives unearthed by historians--the influence of his Judaism or Jewishness over the elaboration of the new science.

This debate was forcefully addressed by the historian Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi in his Freud's Moses: Judaism Terminable and Interminable. Yerushalmi, who "discovered" the Hebrew dedication in Freud's Bible, is the absentee to which Derrida's lecture is addressed. Indeed, the whole text could have been condensed in the two words of a dedication, a "To Yerushalmi" that would also have echoed the greetings that Jews exchange at the Passover Seder and at Yom Kippur.

As Yerushalmi himself notes, the notion of a Jewish science will very much depend on how the very terms Jewish and science are to be defined. Derrida remarks that "only the future of science, in particular that of psychoanalysis, will say whether this science is Jewish, because it will tell us what science is and what Jewishness is." Following Yerushalmi, Derrida posits that if Judaism is terminable, Jewishness is interminable: it is "precisely the waiting of the future, the opening of a relation to the future, the experience of the future" as an event radically to come. In other words, it is "the affirmation of affirmation, the yes to the originary yes" that deconstructionist theologians like John Caputo sum up as a double "oui-oui".

But to Derrida the question of Freud's relation to Judaism also covers a more personal aspect. He refers in a parenthesis to himself as "I who have not only a father named Hayim, but also, as if by chance, a grandfather named Moses. And another, Abraham." He mentions several times the issue of circumcision, "that singular and immemorial archive called circumcision", adding that "this is not just any example for me". And he confesses that in addressing a colleague on the issue of Freud and Judaism, "I am speaking of myself."

There are other themes addressed in the text: the issue of ghosts, addressed at length in Specters of Marx but that Derrida revisits by noting that Freud also "had his ghosts"; the link between history and psychoanalysis, or between psychoanalysis and any discipline, as no discipline can escape, deny or repress the "Freudian impression". We even learn in passing that Derrida was the proud owner of a portable Macintosh computer. And of course, there is the style, the inimitable verb of Derrida, which is beautifully rendered by the translator. This short volume is a worthwhile addition to the Derridean corpus.

Great translation!
Its often really hard to get the meaning of words just right when taking them from another language. This was a great job. ... Read more

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The Difficulties of Democracy
Most basically, this book is a study of the notion of democracy.Most basically, Derrida's point is that any enactment of a democratic political regime must in some fundamental ways undermine the very principles of democracy upon which it is founded.Democracy thus only and always exists in and as this tension between its idea and its realization.This tension cannot be "corrected" but instead defines the very terrain of political judgment and responsibility.This is one of Derrida's most accessible writings--an excellent companion to the essay "Force of Law," which is also quite accessible and which also deals with the tension between idea and realization that defines the political realm._Rogues_ is also a quasi-commentary on Plato's _Republic_, evident in its explicit discussion of the "decline of states" from Book VIII, but also from its ongoing allusions to the themes and text of the _Republic_.Michael Naas's _Derrida From Now On_ and Leonard Lawlor's _This is Not Sufficient_ both offer commentaries on this text which would be helpful to someone studying the text.

Easy read, solid thinking, and clearly relevant.
This book displays just how clear, articulate, and direct Derrida can be at times while dealing with a topic that readers can easily understand as relevant to contemporary times and the narrow sense of politics readers often bring to criticize Derrida's texts.Still, this still is a very solid piece of philosophical and social thought and one that can lend meaningful insights into the politics of Derrida's earlier works (e.g. Differance, Post Card).That said, there are some off-the-cuff moments in here that are perhaps a bit soft and a critical reader may find perturbing.It's not the most philosophically rigorous or tight work by Derrida, but such tends to be the nature of lectures and interviews.Nonetheless, if one wants to see what Derridean thinking brings when confronting the issues of nation states in a "post-9/11 world" (and that's an odd construction in itself) then this book is a must-read.

Derrida Deconstructs the notion of "Rouge States"
If you are in to Derrida, political science, contemporary political philosophy, understanding the contemporary political landscape, and notions of a new Democracy to come -this is a must read. ... Read more

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Offers a constructive new approach to the debate between hermeneutics and deconstruction. ... Read more

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Jacques Derrida (born 1930) is undoubtedly the single most influential figure in current Anglo-American literary theory. Yet many scholars and students, not to mention general readers, would be hard put to give an account of Derrida's own writings. In this admirably clear and intelligent introduction, Christopher Norris demonstrates that Derrida's texts should be understood as belonging more to philosophy than to literature. Norris explains the significance of Derrida's writing on texts in the Western philosophical tradition, from Plato to Kant, liegel, and tiusserl, placing him squarely within that tradition. He also discusses some of the reasons for the massive institutional resistance that has so far prevented philosophers from engaging seriously with Derrida's work. This book will be welcomed by readers in search of an introduction to Derrida's work that neither underrates its difficulties nor invests his ideas with a kind of protective mystique.

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Deconstructed
Norris offers an acute survey of Derrida's deconstructive project and tools.He also argues in Derrida's defense that American scholars who read Derrida as a proponent of a Barthe-like free-for-all are mistaken.Thearguments are clear, and the text is relatively easy reading. ... Read more

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This is the book that introduced deconstruction as a tool for literary and cultural theorists throughout the English-speaking world, and set the ball rolling for the subsequent controversies over the use of theory to study liuterature. ... Read more

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Inside and Outside
Derrida, for all the supposed density of his writing, is a simplifier. Deconstruction owes much of its popularity (in America) to the fact that it says: philosophy is not all that complicated, just see how the inside andoutside collapse into one another and you can tear any text at its seams.Derrida follows the same procedure with poor old Edmund: the entirety ofthe LU shamble if Husserl is unable to maintain the integrity of silentthought, in which no Anzeichen point toward anything. Unlike the canals onMars, which may point to intelligent life, silent thought is unmediated andnot supplemented (to use a Deriddaism) by a sign. The collapse (or rending)of inside and outside by the supplement mark the presence of absence: theword, a mere supplement to the presence of silent thought, separates andjoins the "life" and "presence" of consciousness withabsence, repetition, and death.

An introduction to Derrida and his related "différance"
Arguably one of the most convtroversial philosophers within the Continental tradigion, Derrida's work either heralds a revolution in philosophy or its utter destruction.

Derrida cites two importantpedigrees (as the title suggests):Husserl and (tacitly) de Saussure.

Using the "course in general linguistics" of de Saussure,Derrida notes a certain degree of freedom, a "jeu," between thewords-as-symbols and the thought contents they produce.Exploiting deSaussure's note that the relation between the sign and the mental contentis arbitrary, Derrida questions the validity of any text (where the notionof text includes, but is not limited to, books, magazines, commercials,art, sex).

Derrida sees behind any "text" its entirerecursive history, the weight of all the words, the mental experience ofthe reader.

At the point he considers the reader's experience he startsto deal with phenomenology - the study proposed and defined by Husserlhimself in his Vienna and Paris lectures.A short definition might be thatPhenomenology is the study of how man mentally relates to the objects ofhis experience(I admit, debatably so).

This book proposes Derrida'sfamous example of "différance" and its effect upon the Gallicallytrained ear and mind.So if you want to seem witty and "with-it"this introductory tome shall suffice.

As far as my own deconstruction /critique of the work.As an introductory work it is dense.Derrida isoften criticized for losing himself in intellectual crevices, being prolix,and employing poor stylistics.These are not unmerited.Yet for thereader who wishes to move beyond the fashionability of tossing"deconstructionist" out at cocktail parties, this is a must read. It is certainly part of the 20th century canon.

My own conclusions aremixed.In his later works Derrida becomes truly absurd, laughable, silly,and occasionally brilliant.Yet his work never fails to move its readerseither to agree that he is either an idiot, a bad writer, or thatphilosophy as we know it has long been dead. Perhaps like a Socraticgadfly, Derrida is moving us to an entire gestalt shift vis-à-vis ourrelationship with philosophy and social institutions.

A solid backgroundof Kant/Hegel, as well as a familiarity with lingustics (the aforementionedcourse in general lingustics of de Saussure) greatly ease the difficulty inpenetrating his work. ... Read more

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Inside and Outside
Derrida, for all the supposed density of his writing, is a simplifier. Deconstruction owes much of its popularity (in America) to the fact that it says: philosophy is not all that complicated, just see how the inside andoutside collapse into one another and you can tear any text at its seams.Derrida follows the same procedure with poor old Edmund: the entirety ofthe LU shamble if Husserl is unable to maintain the integrity of silentthought, in which no Anzeichen point toward anything. Unlike the canals onMars, which may point to intelligent life, silent thought is unmediated andnot supplemented (to use a Deriddaism) by a sign. The collapse (or rending)of inside and outside by the supplement mark the presence of absence: theword, a mere supplement to the presence of silent thought, separates andjoins the "life" and "presence" of consciousness withabsence, repetition, and death.

An introduction to Derrida and his related "différance"
Arguably one of the most convtroversial philosophers within the Continental tradigion, Derrida's work either heralds a revolution in philosophy or its utter destruction.

Derrida cites two importantpedigrees (as the title suggests):Husserl and (tacitly) de Saussure.

Using the "course in general linguistics" of de Saussure,Derrida notes a certain degree of freedom, a "jeu," between thewords-as-symbols and the thought contents they produce.Exploiting deSaussure's note that the relation between the sign and the mental contentis arbitrary, Derrida questions the validity of any text (where the notionof text includes, but is not limited to, books, magazines, commercials,art, sex).

Derrida sees behind any "text" its entirerecursive history, the weight of all the words, the mental experience ofthe reader.

At the point he considers the reader's experience he startsto deal with phenomenology - the study proposed and defined by Husserlhimself in his Vienna and Paris lectures.A short definition might be thatPhenomenology is the study of how man mentally relates to the objects ofhis experience(I admit, debatably so).

This book proposes Derrida'sfamous example of "différance" and its effect upon the Gallicallytrained ear and mind.So if you want to seem witty and "with-it"this introductory tome shall suffice.

As far as my own deconstruction /critique of the work.As an introductory work it is dense.Derrida isoften criticized for losing himself in intellectual crevices, being prolix,and employing poor stylistics.These are not unmerited.Yet for thereader who wishes to move beyond the fashionability of tossing"deconstructionist" out at cocktail parties, this is a must read. It is certainly part of the 20th century canon.

My own conclusions aremixed.In his later works Derrida becomes truly absurd, laughable, silly,and occasionally brilliant.Yet his work never fails to move its readerseither to agree that he is either an idiot, a bad writer, or thatphilosophy as we know it has long been dead. Perhaps like a Socraticgadfly, Derrida is moving us to an entire gestalt shift vis-à-vis ourrelationship with philosophy and social institutions.

A solid backgroundof Kant/Hegel, as well as a familiarity with lingustics (the aforementionedcourse in general lingustics of de Saussure) greatly ease the difficulty inpenetrating his work. ... Read more

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In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucidexplanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability,iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a newenlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to arange of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals andanimality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, andmourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as abrilliantly imaginative and often very funny writer. Other criticalintroductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature andgenealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, inparticular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature inDerrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based ondetailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of suchwriters as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, Poe, Emily Bronte, Franz Kafkaand Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view thatdeconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways inwhich "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns,such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility andjustice, law and democracy.

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With death looming, Jacques Derrida, the world’s most famous philosopher—known as the father of “deconstruction”—sat down with journalist Jean Birnbaum of the French daily Le Monde. They revisited his life’s work and his impending death in a long, surprisingly accessible, and moving final interview.

Sometimes called “obscure” and branded “abstruse” by his critics, the Derrida found in this book is open and engaging, reflecting on a long career challenging important tenets of European philosophy from Plato to Marx.

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traces of the man
There are memorable insights into the man Jacques Derrida in this short book. Removed from the rarefied philosophical air of his works, we find him at home with his main support, his wife Marguerite - and an open suitcase - as he faces death. The theme of survival and self-preservation is uppermost in his thoughts and that the traces he has left along the way signify both his impending death and the hope these traces survive him. He is aware of the inbuilt contradictions in his thought and writing `I am at war with myself,' he says and makes no apology - `that is life.' The only disappointing aspect for me is his articulation of a utopian European dream, emerging from political dislocation and crisis, but this does not detract from a thoroughly worthwhile read. Along the way Derrida leads you into some of his texts and the chronologically arranged Selected Bibliography at the end is most useful.

Deconstructing one's own demise
I'm not a big enthusiast of Derrida. Much like those who like to hear themselves talk, I have always come away from Derrida convinced he was someone who liked to watch himself write.
This book is anything but that, and certainly whether you are George Harrison or Jean Paul Sartre, death has a way of sharpening one's focus and editing the superfluous. Heidegger would have simply nodded and said, yes, being-toward-death does that. In the case of Derrida, the infatuation with his own opinions is dismissed and he gets down to what's real here. And to that extent this is indeed a moving, chilling and unblinkingly honest coming to terms.
You can draw your own conclusions when the book ends, but it reminded me of Sartre's HOPE NOW, an astounding last interview with Bernard Henri-Levy who was inisistent on getting Sartre to cop to Messianic Judaism and in his obsessive drive missed what Sartre was saying at the end of his life: that in what he had seen in the course of the human struggle, there was every reason for hope now. Derrida was always more positive than J-P S, and he seems intent on delivering a valedictory for the converted and the curious that by thinking, we approach the being of freedom.
A wonderful way to say good-bye...

Chilling
My five stars is based on the overall value of this work.It offers a better insight into this man than any work ever has--including the film "Derrida" as well as his "Circumfession."If I were to base my rating on pure theoretical value, this would maybe be a "3 Star" review.However, the value of this short work is far greater than that.

I read it in one sitting and it gave me goosebumps on several occasions.These are the chilling words of a dying man baring his soul as he was formerly so opposed to doing.

If you're looking for an introduction to Derrida, this is not the book for you.If you're looking for the icing on the cake or perhaps further inspiration from this man, you will not be disappointed.
... Read more

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Free lunch?
I've been trying to read Derrida off and on for about six years. Before that, I had heard good things about him from people I respected to varying degrees (in literary, not philosophical, circles) for perhaps a dozen years. This review isn't so much one for this book as for Derrida in general. The three stars are intended to be neutral, rather than informative, as I don't consider myself to be qualified to judge. Not really, anyway.

What I've come to believe is that a person can really only appreciate intelligence in a window of limited radius (say, two standard deviations) about one's own. So, if my mind is 3.5 to 4 s.d. right of the mean in mathematics, then while I'm certainly no genius, I ought to be able, with effort, to make sense of the work of all but a few of the very top mathematicians in the world. That's gratifying, and pretty cool. But now, let's say that my facility with language is much less impressive (1.5 to 2 s.d. right of the mean). Now what? Is the reading of, say, Derrida going to be a complete waste of my time?

Answer: yes. (Please don't try to convince me otherwise. I tried hard. Really, I did.)

What I'm thereby missing is another question, and it's this question that you'll get wildly varying answers to, depending on who you ask.

Generous critics tell me I'm just missing a lyrical, albeit substanceless, play of words/ideas that would be a lot of fun for me to listen to if I were just a little bit smarter. The "faithful" on the other hand would have me know that Derrida is the most important philosopher in the world, and that what I'm missing is...well...usually I don't understand what they are saying, either, so I don't know what. But it's supposed to be something good. Really good.

I decided finally that I could figure out the truth if only Derrida would talk about something recognizable and mundane (and recognizably mundane) for just one paragraph. Unfortunately, he's usually on "jouissance", "differance" or some other thing I don't know what is (logocentric metaphysics?), so I can't tell whether he's forced to these language extremes by the subtlety of his thought, or whether he's just having a bit of fun with ideas that would otherwise sound banal or trite if expressed in some form of human idiom.

Forgive me for quoting at such ridiculous length, but from my perspective "ridiculous" is the operative word in matters Derridean, and I think it's important, in a fair review, to give a hint, even to novices like myself, of the flavor of the writing...given that it's controversial whether or not the writing itself is the star attraction. Pithy or too-cute one-liners might serve to amuse, but they don't, by themselves, necessarily constitute verbosity. Intractable passages likewise fail to give an adequate test for those of us who can't decipher them.

From pages 13-14 (italics in the original removed, sadly, due to limitations in this medium): "For there to be a gift, it is necessary that the donee not give back, amortize, reimburse, acquit himself, enter into a contract, and that he never have contracted a debt. (This "it is necessary" is already the mark of a duty, a debt owed, of the duty-not-to: The donee owes it to himself even not to give back, he ought not owe and the donor ought not count on restitution.) It is thus necessary, at the limit, that he not recognize the gift as gift. If he recognized it as gift, if the gift appears to him as such, if the present is present to him as present, this simple recognition suffices to annul the gift. Why? Because it gives back, in the place, let us say that the symbolic re-constitutes the exchange and annuls the gift in the debt. It does not reconstitute an exchange, which, because it no longer takes place as exchange of things or goods, would be transfigured into a symbolic exchange. The symbolic opens and constitutes the order of exchange and of debt, the law or the order of circulation in which the gift gets annulled. It suffices therefore for the other to perceive the gift--not only to perceive it in the sense in which, as one says in France, "on percoit," one receives, for example, merchandise, payment, or compensation--but to perceive its nature of gift, the meaning or intention, the intentional meaning of the gift, in order for this simple recognition of the gift as gift, as such, to annul the gift as gift even before recognition becomes gratitude. The simple identification of the gift seems to destroy it. The simple identification of the passage of a gift as such, that is, of an identifiable thing among some identifiable "ones," would be nothing other than the process of the destruction of the gift. It is as if, between the event or the institution of the gift as such and its destruction, the difference were destined to be constantly annulled. At the limit, the gift as gift ought not appear as gift: either to the donee or to the donor. It cannot be gift as gift except by not being present as gift. Neither to the "one" nor to the "other". If the other perceives or receives it, if he or she keeps it as gift, the gift is annulled. But the one who gives it must not see it or know it either, otherwise he begins, at the threshold, as soon as he intends to give, to pay himself with a symbolic recognition, to praise himself, to approve of himself, to gratify himself, to congratulate himself, to give back to himself symbolically the value of what he thinks he has given or what he is preparing to give. The temporalization of time (memory, present, anticipation; retention, protention, imminence of the future; "ecstases," and so forth) always sets in motion the process of a destruction of the gift: through keeping, restitution, reproduction, the anticipatory expectation or apprehension that grasps or comprehends in advance."

If you weren't counting, that was 28 occurrences of "gift". Not bad for a single paragraph; though I'm sure Milton could've done it in one sentence, if someone had told him how witty it would be.

Please understand, I've quoted but a fraction of a multi-paragraph, pages-long ramble on the "paradox of gift". Much too long to quote in full. As a piece of writing, it's definitely amusing. Intricate, imaginative, at least somewhat brilliant if not dazzlingly so (this isn't to say Derrida is not often quite dazzling). Is it philosophy? Well, maybe, sort of. I think the entire discursion says, roughly: "There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Just, with a lot less economy.

A matrix of Derrida's early programmatic texts and thought
If there could be such a thing as a text that 'exemplifies' Derrida's thought, one that meticulously and clearly explains the strategies of 'deconstruction,' while at the same time distilling not just its own theory, but also producing a critical reading of several other prominent thinkers and their texts (and one that of course demonstrates the practical ends of the exposé of his theory), then "Given Time" ("Donner le temps") would unequivocally be that book. It is that good. In fact, it is superb. For those who have read Derrida's texts of the late 60s and early 70s, and know where they stand regarding Derrida's ideas, this book acts like a kind of overview or survey of his thought, a matrix or map of his thought, an architectural plan, even a game plan.

The primary text is a story by Baudelaire, and Derrida uses this two-page story to explicate the relations he has with his own masters, the lessons learned and the major points that he has taken from them and transformed. Husserl on the notion of the gift and the necessity to zigzag (a "Zick-Zack" or "mouvement en vrille") between bound and free idealities; Heidegger on being and temporality and the impossibility of appropriation or presence; Bataille on excess. All through a refreshing reading of Baudelaire's story together with Mauss' seminal essay from 1923 "The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies" (often considered the most influential work of anthropology, focusing on the social customs of exchange and the obligation to reciprocate) which conceives of a total social fact of gifting that Bataille had himself begun to unhinge in his 1949 "The Accursed Share" by implicitly laying waste to Hegel's philosophical economy - a multivolume work that was itself greatly influenced by "The Gift."

From a map of thought to Derrida's Joycean world
"Given Time" is a brief treatise on the layered notions of the 'gift' in several important works (in Husserl, it means what is given to us in the world through the 'immediate experience' of our senses; in Husserl's phenomenological reduction or "epoche" what is intended is separated from what is given. Derrida, in his earliest critical works on Husserl, analyzes the conceptual foundations of the intuition/intention relationship, and while he critiques Husserl's formal limits of the two, he nevertheless maintains that the "epoche" remains "the principal of principals" for transcendental phenomenology, and as such is also indispensable for his own work. However, via Heidegger, Derrida will insist that in every act of being given there remains by necessity an aspect of the gift that holds itself back, is not given, and that gives nothing - the flipside of giving, as Deleuze noted, is theft. This temporizing aspect of the gift is reflected in Derrida's title "Given Time"). Derrida's thesis is that giving is only possible through a splintered 'time' of originary difference, which produces a doubling-effect of the notion of the 'origin,' and which means that the only possibility of authenticity will always be that of inauthenticity, which doubles and splits the difference. In other words, contamination occurs between the concepts of authenticity and inauthenticity: authenticity is impossible without the possibility of inauthenticity. Much like all 'counterfeit money' (which is also the title of Baudelaire's story) you can't tell whether the coin is or isn't truly money that you can buy a commodity with and truly possess something. Is it or isn't it fake? It's a split decision that Derrida patiently explores the 'logic' of. (By the way, art historian Georges Didi-Huberman has written a wonderful book, "Phasmes" (1990), partially translated as "The Phasmid," on deception and pretending; search for it on the net.) This important concept, which also runs throughout Deleuze's work, is a term he calls "the power of the false." But to give credit where it is due, it comes first of all in Heidegger's critique of his own project of a fundamental ontology (very arguably, to my mind) in Section 72 of "The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics," where he speaks of the assertive logos as "false," "deceptive," and "pretending," and discusses the as-structure that will be so crucial for all of Derrida's work - in fact his explication of the true/false pair in "Given Time" explains this operative concept of 'relation' without naming it. 'Relation' is one of the most important concepts in Derrida's thought, and he explicates it at length in "Given Time." Derrida shows how there is indeed a beyond to the binary couple of truth and falsity, authenticity and inauthenticity, by exploring a catachresis that simultaneously surpasses each of them (suggesting that they are impossibly pure concepts, as each implies the other as its limit) but that also makes their 'false' opposition possible (and that they must therefore mix or contaminate each other). Derrida has given many strategic names to this notion, such as originary difference or différance (which Leonard Lawlor has suggested is Derrida's reinscription of Husserl's notion of intention). This relation of possibility to impossibility is very clearly laid out in "Given Time" ("on one hand"..."on the other hand"), and gives the reader a penetrating insight into the importance that Derrida ascribes here and throughout his work - especially his more recent works "Aporias" (another very clear book of his, and highly recommended), "The Politics of Friendship" and "Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness" - to the counter-intuitive and non-oppositional relationship between impossibility and possibility (which is an important redrawing of Kant's condition of possibility and the notion of 'limit' and critique).

Also, one can read the entire book as a long commentary on capitalism, one which places Marxian thinkers in an uncomfortable position and that tries to think through capitalism a little bit further from within 'deconstruction': Derrida's most overt attempts at this are 'From restrictive to general economy' of 1966 (a superb essay with a very pretentious title that plays on Einstein's 1905 and 1916 Nobel-prize earning work "Special [aka "Restricted"] and General Theory of Relativity" - although his 1921 Nobel was technically awarded for his "contribution to photoelectrics") and "Specters of Marx," from 1994, with a title that's cribbed from his mentor and colleague Louis Althusser's book "Specters of Hegel" as an homage. One also has to remember that this book was originally a lecture course from c. 1979. Derrida is of course using transcendental phenomenology as the guiding thread to discuss literature and sociology, and makes something really interesting occur in each, along with modifying our concept of capitalism. From anywhere you stand you can see Derrida's French qualities: literature, anthropology, the belief that philosophy has to engage with capitalism if it is to be considered at all relevant. All are relevant to deconstruction, and are considered game for being folded into it, so long as they take you somewhere else, produce different thoughts regarding the world we inhabit, and permit these thoughts to be formalized.

There is no other book written by Derrida that lays out the material and the method so clearly and patiently (although again, "Aporias" is highly recommended). It does assume familiarity with his earliest programmatic works. If one looks at pp. 71-75 of Derrida's brief and incisive "Introduction to Husserl's Origin of Geometry," for example, one glimpses the thematic affinity between that earlier, more programmatic work, and how Derrida's conclusions there are extended in multiple and different directions in "Given Time" (those pages discuss the troubled constitution of ideal objects and how they can always be false and inauthentic in their expression. If Derrida chooses a work of fiction by Baudelaire on counterfeit money, it is in part because all truth must pass through fiction, or to put it differently, the necessary possibility of inauthenticity).

In sum, this is one of Derrida's most elegant and accessible treatises on his own philosophy and how its relations extend to other modes of thought that on the one hand he himself is influenced by, and on the other hand he radicalizes as he engages them. It is a book that thoroughly transforms the interrelated concepts of the gift that exist in separate disciplines - not least of which is philosophy, which is often said to have 'begun' in wonder or amazement at the world and what is supposedly simply presented or given to us. Derrida takes a critical step back (à la Husserl's method of "rückfragen," that attempts to account for the structuring of tradition) to explore how this presencing comes about, and how the 'there is' (es gibt, in German) appears, and then goes a step further to explain how we relate in our everyday, societal lives via an uncanny and counter-intuitive 'structure' or 'logic' (as well as mediated 'experiences') of giving and receiving, and how these open onto the issues of responding responsibly (which is a theme that Derrida explicitly explores in his works on forgiveness and on hospitality).

As to the translation, which is polished and luminous, it is one of the best translations of Derrida's work into English.

Typical Deconstructionist Wool-Gathering
Derrida here engages in his usual word-games and cute metaphores, and the result is pointless and nearly incomprehensible, as usual. How exactly is human knowledge furthered in a positive and valuable way by saying things like "The title of the text is the title (without title) of the text"? Nothing but meaningless verbiage... ... Read more

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Intent on letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading classic authors, the How to Read series will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon.
An idiosyncratic and highly controversial French philosopher, Jacques Derrida inspired profound changes in disciplines as diverse as law, anthropology, literature and architecture. In Derrida’s view, texts and contexts are woven with inconsistencies and blindspots, which provide us with a chance to think in new ways about, among other things, language, community, identity and forgiveness. Derrida’s suggestions for “how to read” lead to a new vision of ethics and a new concept of responsibility.

Penelope Deutscher discusses extracts from the full range of Derrida’s work, including Of Grammatology, Dissemination, Limited Inc, The Other Heading: Reflections on Europe, Monolinguism of the Other, Given Time, and “Force of Law." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Very good introduction.
This book is a great introduction into Derrida's work.It combines his actual writings with easy to read explanations.I am sure to get more of the "How to Read" series.

Good introduction to the pluralistic ideology of deconstruction
This is a very clearly written and confident exposition of Derrida's main ideas. Written by a true believer in deconstruction, so it does avoid tackling inconsistencies in Derrida's thought, and is sometimes gushing in its praise. I found his notion of the 'impossibility' of interpersonal acts such as gift-giving and forgiveness to be especially weak, since these concepts are assumed to imply some kind of Platonic 'purity' of meaning that is then self-cancelling. This exposes the dependence of deconstruction on the very metaphysical certainties it claims to counter. For example, in concepts such as 'democracy-to-come' the myth of some 'original' truth is simply replaced with a 'barely possible' utopian ideal which is then forever delayed.

Good introduction to Derrida
Even though I've a good grasp of other difficult continental philosophers (important influences on Derrida) such as Hegel and Heidegger, I still felt a barrier to 'getting' deconstruction. This book helps to clarify the gist of textual deconstruction and Derrida's implicit political motives. I've come to the conclusion that much of the 'barrier' to understanding Derrida has to do with problems in his (anti-)philosophy, which come to light, for instance, by comparing his work with that of Deleuze who also develops a "philosophy of difference," yet without avoiding the question of substance which contemporary thought must address anew. I had read other 'introducing..' type books, but most of them simplify the material too much. For the dillegent, focused reader, this book yields a good middle way to comprehension between Derrida's daunting original texts and other introductory books.

Useful
A reader is not entirely the same as an introduction or a beginner's guide.It selects key passages from an author, and "brings the reader face-to-face with the writing itself in the company of an expert guide".Thus Penelope Deutscher explains -- or perhaps one should say explicates -- key passages ofDerrida.This she does very well -- and while it is not easy reading, it is not inscrutable if one is prepared to concentrate.

In the main, Deutscher would seem to have chosen crucial extracts of Derrida.These are passages which should be read and understood.She takes little for granted, and explains all that needs to be explained to the reader -- lucidly and intelligently.In fact she effectively communicates the striking de(con)structive power of his work.She further draws comparisons between Derrida's early and late work, and highlights a few issues that were problematic to Derrida himself.

There were two things that I missed in this book.Firstly, I would have welcomed a more thorough comparison between Derrida's post-structuralism and the structuralism or (more broadly) modernism that went before.Secondly, Derrida's ideas were highly controversial, and there was little hint of this in Deutscher's commentary.However, for what it is worth, this is a book well written, and it does much to deepen one's insight into Derrida. ... Read more

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The Animal That Therefore I Am is the long-awaited translation of the complete text of Jacques Derrida's ten-hour address to the 1997 Cérisy conference entitled "The Autobiographical Animal," the third of four such colloquia on his work. The book was assembled posthumously on the basis of two published sections, one written and recorded session, and one informal recorded session.The book is at once an affectionate look back over the multiple roles played by animals in Derrida's work and a profound philosophical investigation and critique of the relegation of animal life that takes place as a result of the distinction--dating from Descartes--between man as thinking animal and every other living species. That starts with the very fact of the line of separation drawn between the human and the millions of other species that are reduced to a single "the animal." Derrida finds that distinction, or versions of it, surfacing in thinkers as far apart as Descartes, Kant, Heidegger, Lacan, and Levinas, and he dedicates extended analyses tothe question in the work of each of them.The book's autobiographical theme intersects with its philosophical analysis through the figures of looking and nakedness, staged in terms of Derrida's experience when his cat follows him into the bathroom in the morning. In a classic deconstructive reversal, Derrida asks what this animal sees and thinks when it sees this naked man. Yet the experiences of nakedness and shame also lead all the way back into the mythologies of "man's dominion over the beasts" and trace a history of how man has systematically displaced onto the animal his own failings or bêtises. The Animal That Therefore I Am is at times a militant plea and indictment regarding, especially, the modern industrialized treatment of animals. However, Derrida cannot subscribe to a simplistic version of animal rights that fails to follow through, in all its implications, the questions and definitions of "life" to which he returned in much of his later work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A great (unfinished) work
This book assembles the entirety of Derrida's 1997 Cerisy address on the topic of that conference (dedicated to discussing his work) "The Autobiographical Animal." That said, it still remains an unbelievable unfinished work. While humorously (and seriously) talking about a cat seeing him naked in the morning in the bathroom, or watching a TV show on a cat, or entering the bedroom while Derrida is with a woman, Derrida outlines the paths along which he might problematize the philosophical (and common-sense) regard for the animal--paths that one can plainly see would have been followed (or, at least, outlined) more extensively in a fuller, lengthier discussion (especially with respect to Heidegger). Nevertheless, Derrida here accomplishes almost too much, giving one a feel for the immensity of the problem of animality within our discourses while at the same time actually modifying elements of those discourses along immensely interesting lines. Those familiar with Derrida's corpus will find many issues or half-thoughts made elsewhere elucidated here--most notably those regarding mechanization or technology, autobiography, sex (both in terms of the erotic act and sexual difference) and life (all somewhat intertwined through a discussion of Descartes' animal-machine)--while one can imagine those more unfamiliar (or those only familiar with *either* the "early" Derrida or the "late" "ethical" Derrida) would find much of interest: keeping with the autobiographical theme of the conference, Derrida recalls much of his corpus and relates what is going on here quite explicitly to all of it. Those also interested in Descartes, Levinas, Heidegger and Lacan (there is an amazing discussion of the mirror stage and the odd "pigeon gonad" passage, and the entire text can be said to be a reading of Lacan's "Subversion of the Subject and Dialectic of Desire") will find this volume really worthwhile.
Two portions of this work have appeared before, but the crucial middle section has not been published. Also included is the wonderful semi-impromptu follow-up, which alone is worth the price of the book. After about nine hours, the address was not able to get to all the issues related to Heidegger. After he was begged for more, Derrida again took the stage at the end of the conference and outlined (though it is extensive in its detail) a reading of Heidegger's (extremely interesting) seminar, *The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics.* Again, this alone is worth the price of the book: engaged, entertaining, somewhat off the cuff, with even more of the surprising and wonderful vitality that pervades the rest of his written out address, what is said here is as pertinent as it is profound.
David Wills', it should be said, also makes an excellent translation--even better than his rendering of *The Gift of Death.* All in all, a great troubler for the set of stagnant interpretations of Derrida here in America: like *On Touching,* Derrida returns to odd issues somewhat more at home in the old phenomenological tradition, but with many twists gained from his extensive forays into issues of writing and his more recent work on ethics or religion. A major work, which should sit alongside some of his more famous volumes: one that--and that this is not at all a fault or even something to regret testifies to the achievement of Derrida and the tenacity of his thought here--would have been (and, in a way, will be) enriched even further with time. ... Read more

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Few thinkers of the latter half of the twentieth century have so profoundly and radically transformed our understanding of writing and literature as Jacques Derrida (1930-2004). Derridian deconstruction remains one of the most powerful intellectual movements of the present century, and Derrida's own innovative writings on literature and philosophy are crucially relevant for any understanding of the future of literature and literary criticism today. Derrida's own manner of writing is complex and challenging and has often been misrepresented or misunderstood. In this book, Leslie Hill provides an accessible introduction to Derrida's writings on literature which presupposes no prior knowledge of Derrida's work. He explores in detail Derrida's relationship to literary theory and criticism, and offers close readings of some of Derrida's best known essays. This introduction will help those coming to Derrida's work for the first time, and suggests further directions to take in studying this hugely influential thinker. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Introduction
This book is an introduction. It has a lot of information regarding Derrida, but you can not expect an introduction to his complex thought.

... Read more

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Derrida explores issues of vision, blindness, self-representation, and their relation to drawing, while offering detailed readings of an extraordinary collection of images he selected from the prints and drawings department of the Louvre. 22 color plates. 49 halftones. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Vision of Blindness

Here Derrida offers a vision of blindness, that is to say a "vision" of "blindness", or even a "vis"ion of "blind"ness.By deconstructing the very "act" of see"ing", he defers to différance, grammatology, and "éperons", that is to say, the "spurs" by which we harry, that is to say hurry, the horse(s) of structuralized condescension.Perception, that is, or "interception", or even "interperception" of vision--or more precisely, visuality, and all that implies.Reading, and re-reading, this book, we can easily understand why Derrida and his thought were so instrumental in the fall of apartheid.

Drawing Conclusions at the the Louvre
This book is both an exhibtion catalogue to a show Derrida curated at the Louvre of drawings on the theme of blindness (complete with many reproductions of works) as well as a brillant investigation into the art of drawing by dealing with blindness as evidence of 'blindness' itself in every act of looking (and of course reproduction).As stated by Derrida, "every drawing of 'the blind' is a drawing 'of' the blind."More than just an example of applied deconstruction, Derrida's reading of these drawings questions the very foudnation of western ideologies of 'looking' and 'seeing' taken for granted as self-evident by artists for centuries.By the end, one wonders who is the author, the artist, the curator?, as Derrida does more with these drawings 'for drawing' than they ever did for drawing themselves.This book is a necessity for any visual artist producing critical work in the 21st century. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

aPOPHATICALLY, by way of naming...
A book like this...a review thereof for whom?
A certain amount of "familiarity" with Jackie's style of writing will probably be necessary to get into these three short essays around (and whatever other prepositions you care to put in) the theme of the name, naming, saving the name, keeping the name safe, and the name's refusal to be called by a name.
The first of the essays is titled "Passions" and is the most fragmented of the three in terms of delivery. A bit taxing, really. By way of introduction, Jack commits an abduction by way of "apophasis" -- a kind of an irony, whereby we deny that we say or do that which we especially say or do (OED) -- to bring about the idea of the passions of secrets: Secrets not by being hidden nor by being shared by a privileged few, but the kind that is open to all, perhaps taking on the form of a non-secret.

The second essay has a little more to sink one's teeth into. The subject is "negative theology" as such, or the (im)possibility thereof. A very penetrating reading of Angelus Silesius' The Cherubinic Wanderer.

The third essay, "Khora" -- non-placeable place, the third genus -- is a reading of Plato's notion of that "mother", "nurse", "the Receiver" that gives place for all that "takes place": A placing, a positing of displacement and differance, a displacement by way of oscillation between two types of oscillation: the double exclusion(neither/nor) and the participation(both this and that).

In short, this collection of essays opens up another (that is to say, the very same) horizon of thinking toward what used to be under the care of religion, and as such can be rewarding reading to those who are already aware of the necessity of reworking the language of absence without resorting to what was once named "mysticism". If Nagarjuna were born into the French language in the 20th century, he'd probably speak like this.

The writing on the back cover says that the last essay will be of particular interest to those in the burgeoning fields of "space studies"(architecture, urbanism, design). Interest? Maybe. Clarity and enlightenment? I wouldn't bet my lunch money on it myself. ... Read more

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