Abstract

This dissertation argues that, contrary to what many hold, Derrida has been engaged in writing ethics throughout his work. It further argues that an examination of key tropes in Derrida's work reveals a profound ethical dimension. Finally, Derrida's work, and its engagement with the thought of Levinas and Heidegger, provide powerful tools for an active recognition of and response to empirical ethical demands such as racism. ;Derrida's deconstruction of the concept of system challenges any attempt to establish a position from which to offer critique, from which to make ethical and political decisions. To respond to this challenge in a manner that seeks to remain faithful to Derrida's work requires that a writing be performative--recognizing that any performance is also always taken up in a determinable context and involved in a contextual, or textual--and thus unstable--system. ;Thus, the work does not present a full-blown system of ethics after Derrida and then show how one might apply its principles to a particular situation. Instead, it offers a performance that enacts a response not only to the breadth and depth of Derrida's work , but also to a particular situation that haunts contemporary academies and political arenas: racism. It does not make present a completed work that one might take as a foundational document. Instead, it offers a working out of seminal figures in Derrida's work and ventures a crossing of them. Finally, it does not make present a politics, not even a politics of, for example, race. Instead--taking up Derrida's recent turn to religious concerns--it offers a liturgy, perhaps a prayer for a politics always to come