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)

New York, été 1942. Peu après la déclaration de la guerre, les Maritain ont quitté la France et se sont réfugiés aux Etats - Unis. Tout en poursuivant son oeuvre littéraire, Jacques donne des cours et des conférences à travers le pays. Raïssa publie Les grandes amitiés et achève la rédaction de ses souvenirs, souvent interrompue par la maladie et les souffrances qui l'accablent. L'arrachement à leur pays, le désastre en Europe et le sort des Juifs ne cessent de (...) peser sur le coeur et les pensées du couple. C'est dans ce contexte troublé que, le 22 août 1942, les Maritain reçoivent la lettre d'une inconnue. Celle qui leur écrit pour la première fois vient de lire Les grandes amitiés. C'est une Américaine de quarante-trois ans, écrivain, poète, dont la vie sera désormais liée à la leur. (shrink)

The following interview took place between Jacques Bouveresse and Hilary Putnam on May 11, 2001 in Paris at the Collège de France. Sandra Laugier was present, preserved the transcription, and proposed that we publish the text here. It was translated into English by Marie Kerguelen Feldblyum LeBlevennec and lightly edited by Jacques Bouveresse, Juliet Floyd, and Sandra Laugier. Themes covered in the interview include the question of Wittgenstein’s importance in contemporary philosophy, Putnam’s development with respect to realism, especially (...) in philosophy of mathematics, and the differences and motivations for realism in mathematics, physics, and ethics. The editors thank Marie Kerguelen Feldblyum LeBlevennec for her translation, and Jacques Bouveresse, Mario De Caro, and Sandra Laugier for permission to publish this transcription. (shrink)

Fruit de l'initiative des Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, le présent ouvrage rend hommage, à l'occasion de son admission à l'éméritat, à Jacques Dabin qui fut titulaire des cours de philosophie morale et de droit naturel depuis 1968 et assura la fonction de Recteur des Facultés de 1973 à 1993. Reflétant à la fois ses préoccupations majeures, ainsi que la diversité des approches correspondant aux différentes composantes des Facultés, cet ouvrage réunit les actes du colloque que les Facultés ont consacré à (...) ce thème du 20 au 22 avril 1994 ainsi que d'autres contributions émanant de membres ou amis des Facultés qui ont accepté de se joindre à cet hommage. (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.

"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)

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

Ces Entretiens sont à la fois l'autobiographie intellectuelle d'un des philosophes les plus au fait de quelques-uns des grands débats contemporains et un plaidoyer pour un style de pensée modeste, rigoureux et ironique. Jacques Bouveresse appartient à cette génération des jeunes assistants qui, dans les années 1960 montèrent à l'assaut d'une Sorbonne un peu poussiéreuse et à dominante spiritualiste. La véritable nouveauté pour lui ne fut cependant ni la linguistique, ni le marxisme, ni la psychanalyse, mais la logique " (...) moderne " qu'on tenait alors pour exotique et marginale. Adversaire-né de tous les conformismes, introducteur en France des philosophes logiciens Frege, Russell, Carnap contenté de plaider pour la philosophie analytique ; il a tracé d'emblée la voie d'une certaine résistance intellectuelle, qui s'alimente autant à l'ironie viennoise d'un Kraus ou d'un Musil, qu'à une relecture très personnelle de Nietzsche. (shrink)

“For what tomorrow will be, no one knows,” writes Victor Hugo. This dialogue, proposed to Jacques Derrida by the historian Elisabeth Roudinesco, brings together two longtime friends who share a common history and an intellectual heritage. While their perspectives are often different, they have many common reference points: psychoanalysis, above all, but also the authors and works that have come to be known outside France as “post-structuralist.” Beginning with a revealing glance back at the French intellectual scene over the (...) past forty years, Derrida and Roudinesco go on to address a number of major social and political issues. Their extraordinarily wide-ranging discussion covers topics such as immigration, hospitality, gender equality, and “political correctness”; the disordering of the traditional family, same-sex unions, and reproductive technologies; the freedom of the “subject” over and against “scientism”; violence against animals; the haunting specter of communism and revolution; the present and future of anti-Semitism (as well as that which marked Derrida’s own history) and the hazardous politics of criticizing the state of Israel; the principled abolition of the death penalty; and, to conclude, a chapter “in praise of psychoanalysis.” These exchanges not only help to situate Derrida's thought within the milieu out of which it grew, they also show more clearly than ever how this thought, impelled by a deep concern for justice, can be brought to bear on the social and political issues of our day. What emerges here above all, far from an abstract, apolitical discourse, is a call to take responsibility—for the inheritance of a past, for the singularities of the present, and for the unforeseeable tasks of the future. (shrink)

t. 1. Les années françaises, 1927-1940 -- t. 2. Les années américaines, 1941-1961.

This volume is a collection of twenty-three interviews given over the last two decades. It illustrates the extraordinary breadth of Derrida's concerns, touching upon such subjects as the teaching of philosophy, sexual difference and feminine identity, the media, AIDS, language and translation, nationalism, politics, and Derrida's early life and the history of his writings. Often, as in the interviews on Heidegger, on drugs, or on the nature of poetry, these interviews offer something available nowhere else in his work. The informality (...) of the interview process frequently leads to the most succinct and lucid explications of many of the most important and influential aspects of Derrida's thought. Sixteen of the interviews appear in English for the first time, including an interview conducted especially for this volume, concerning the recent exchange of letters in the New York Review of Books. (shrink)

One of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the twentieth-century, Jacques Derrida’s ideas on deconstruction have had a lasting impact on philosophy, literature and cultural studies. Jacques Derrida: Basic Writings is the first anthology to present his most important philosophical writings and is an indispensable resource for all students and readers of his work. Barry Stocker’s clear and helpful introductions set each reading in context, making the volume an ideal companion for those coming to Derrida’s writings for (...) the first time. The selections themselves range from his most infamous works including Speech and Phenomena and Writing and Difference to lesser known discussion on aesthetics, ethics and politics. (shrink)

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)

Un ensemble de textes qui ont comme sujet soit Jacques Proust lui-même, spécialiste du siècle des lumières et de Diderot en particulier, soit un domaine que ce professeur universitaire de lettres affectionnait, tel le Japon.

The Politics of Aesthetics rethinks the relation between art and politics, reclaiming 'aesthetics' from its current narrow confines to reveal its significance ...

Ecrits entre 1772 et 1776, les trois dialogues de Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques apparaissent à première lecture comme une extension délirante des derniers livres des Confessions. Cette écriture du cauchemar repose en réalité sur une structure idéologique d'une extrême rigueur et révèle une logique fantasmatique d'une effrayante complexité, que l'on pourra comparer avec cet autre texte au sujet " abominable " qu'est Le Lévite d'Ephraïm, poème en prose composé par Rousseau sur la route de l'exil en juin 1762.

In his psycholinguistic exploration of the relationship between the desire for love and the attainment of knowledge, Jacques Lacan leads into an new way of interpreting the two most fundamental human drives.

In Archive Fever , Jacques Derrida deftly guides us through an extended meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology--fruitfully occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of the notion of archiving. Intrigued by the evocative relationship between technologies of inscription and psychic processes, Derrida offers for the first time a major statement on the pervasive impact of electronic media, particularly e-mail, which threaten to transform the entire public and private space of humanity. Plying this rich material with characteristic virtuosity, Derrida constructs (...) a synergistic reading of archives and archiving, both provocative and compelling. "Judaic mythos, Freudian psychoanalysis, and e-mail all get fused into another staggeringly dense, brilliant slab of scholarship and suggestion."-- The Guardian "[Derrida] convincingly argues that, although the archive is a public entity, it nevertheless is the repository of the private and personal, including even intimate details."-- Choice "Beautifully written and clear."--Jeremy Barris, Philosophy in Review "Translator Prenowitz has managed valiantly to bring into English a difficult but inspiring text that relies on Greek, German, and their translations into French."-- Library Journal. (shrink)

Is there, today," asks Jacques Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has amply testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Religion has made demands on Derrida, and, in turn, the study of (...) religion has benefited greatly from his extensive philosophical contributions to the field. Acts of Religion brings together for the first time Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. These texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological. In these texts, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theologyto the limits of reason and to hospitality. Acts of Religion will serve as an excellent introduction to Derrida's remarkable contribution to religious studies. (shrink)

En hommage à la longévité universitaire du sociologue et philosophe Jacques Leenhardt - professeur à l'École des hautes études en sciences sociales depuis 1966, fondateur des Archives de la critique d'art, créateur et directeur du Centre d'art contemporain de Crestet -, cet ouvrage réunit des contributions de sociologues, philosophes, artistes et écrivains qui retracent plusieurs débats marquants liés aux sciences humaines, à la littérature et aux arts, en France et aux Amériques à partir des années 1970. Le riche parcours (...) du chercheur français, né à Genève, se dessine à travers autant de rencontres intellectuelles et de sensibilités artistiques en partage--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

""My death - is it possible?"" "That is the question asked, explored, and analyzed in Jacques Derrida's new book. "Is my death possible?" How is this question to be understood? How and by whom can it be asked, can it be quoted, can it be an appropriate question, and can it be asked in the appropriate moment, the moment of "my death"? One of the aporetic experiences touched upon in this seminal essay is the impossible, yet unavoidable experience that (...) "my death" can never be subject to an experience that would be properly mine, that I can have and account for, yet that there is, at the same time, nothing closer to me and more properly mine than "my death."" "This book bears a special significance because in it Derrida focuses on an issue that has informed the whole of his work up to the present. For the last thirty years, Derrida has repeatedly, in various contexts and various ways, broached the question of aporia. Making it his central concern here Derrida stakes out a new frontier, at which the debate with his work must take place from now on: the debate about the aporia between singularity and generality, about the national, linguistic, and cultural specificity of experience and the trans-national, trans-cultural law that protects this specificity; the aporia of the necessity to continue working in the tradition of critique and of the idea of critique, yet the corresponding necessity to transcend it without compromising it; the apoetical obligation to host the foreigner and the alien and yet to respect him, her, or it as foreign." "The foreign or the foreigner has always been considered a figure of death, and death a figure of the foreign. How this figure has been treated in the analytic of death in Heidegger's Being and Time is explored by Derrida in an analytical tour de force that will not fail to set new standards for the discussion of Heidegger and for dealing with philosophical texts, with their limits and their aporias. The detailed discussion of the theoretical presuppositions of recent cultural histories of death (Aries, for example) and of psychological theorizations of death (including Freud's) broaden the scope of Derrida's investigation and indicate the impact of the aporia of "my death" for any possible theory."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)