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

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)

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)

Psyche: Inventions of the Other is the first publication in English of the twenty-eight essay collection Jacques Derrida published in two volumes in 1998 and 2003. Advancing his reflection on many issues, such as sexual difference, architecture, negative theology, politics, war, nationalism, and religion, Volume II also carries on Derrida's engagement with a number of key thinkers and writers: De Certeau, Heidegger, Kant, Lacoue-Labarthe, Mandela, Rosenszweig, and Shakespeare, among others. Included in this volume are new or revised translations of (...) seminal essays (for example, "Geschlecht I: Sexual Difference, Ontological Difference," "Geschlecht II: Heidegger's Hand," "How to Avoid Speaking: Denials," and " Interpretations at War : Kant, the Jew, the German"). (shrink)

"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)

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

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)

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)

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)

Stel dat een inbreker bij jou thuis alleen de lijsten van de kunstwerken zou wegnemen, en niet de werken zelf. Wat zou er veranderen in je omgang met de kunst? Met dat gedachte-experiment opent de Franse filosoof Jacques Derrida het essay Parergon. Parergon betekent bijzaak in het Grieks. Zoals bijvoorbeeld de lijst van het schilderij, of het kader van een opgehangen foto. Ze behoren niet tot het kunstwerk. En toch zijn ze van groot belang voor hoe het werk bekeken (...) wordt. De belangwekkende tekst van Derrida uit 1974 geeft een centrale rol aan de bijzaak van het kader. Met filosofische acrobatie maneuvreert de denker tussen de grote klassiekers van de kunstfilosofie: Plato, Kant, Hegel en Heidegger. Hij gaat op een speelse manier met hun erfenis om. Woorden worden omgedraaid. Passages die op het eerste gezicht bijzaak lijken, maakt hij tot hoofdrolspelers van zijn betoog. Dit boek presenteert Derridas belangrijkste tekst over beeldende kunst voor de eerste keer in Nederlandse vertaling. Het boek is vormgegeven door de spraakmakende ontwerpster Ines Cox. Vertaler Ben Overlaet schreef een nawoord dat de tekst van de nodige filosofische en historische context voorziet. (shrink)

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)

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.

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)

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)

Jacques Derrida is probably the most famous European philosopher alive today. The University of Nebraska Press makes available for the first English translation of his most important work to date, Glas. Its appearance will assist Derrida's readers pro and con in coming to terms with a complex and controversial book. Glas extensively reworks the problems of reading and writing in philosophy and literature; questions the possibility of linear reading and its consequent notions of theme, author, narrative, and discursive demonstration; (...) and ingeniously disrupts the positions of reader and writer in the text. Glas is extraordinary in many ways, most obviously in its typography. Arranged in two columns, with inserted sections within these, the book simultaneously discusses Hegel’s philosophy and Jean Genet’s fiction, and shows how two such seemingly distinct kinds of criticism can reflect and influence one another. The customary segregation of philosophy, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, linguistics, history, and poetics is systematically subverted. In design and content, the books calls into question “types” of literature (history, philosophy, literary criticism), the ownership of ideas and styles, the glorification of literary heroes, and the limits of literary representation. (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)

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)

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)

"I shall speak of ghost, of flame, and of ashes." These are the first words of Jacques Derrida's lecture on Heidegger. It is again a question of Nazism--of what remains to be thought through of Nazism in general and of Heidegger's Nazism in particular. It is also "politics of spirit" which at the time people thought--they still want to today--to oppose to the inhuman. "Derrida's ruminations should intrigue anyone interested in Post-Structuralism. . . . . This study of Heidegger (...) is a fine example of how Derrida can make readers of philosophical texts notice difficult problems in almost imperceptible details of those texts."--David Hoy, London Review of Books "Will a more important book on Heidegger appear in our time? No, not unless Derrida continues to think and write in his spirit. . . . Let there be no mistake: this is not merely a brilliant book on Heidegger, it is thinking in the grand style."--David Farrell Krell, Research in Phenomenology "The analysis of Heidegger is brilliant, provocative, elusive."--Peter C. Hodgson, Religious Studies Review. (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)

One of Rousseau’s later and most puzzling works and never before available in English, this neglected autobiographical piece was the product of the philosopher’s old age and sense of persecution. Long viewed simply as evidence of his growing paranoia, it consists of three dialogues between a character named “Rousseau” and one identified only as “Frenchman” who discuss the bad reputation and works of an author named “Jean-Jacques.” Dialogues offers a fascinating retrospective of his literary career.

This collection of essays and interviews, some previously unpublished and almost all of which appear in English for the first time, encompasses the political and ethical thinking of Jacques Derrida over thirty years. Passionate, rigorous, beautifully argued, wide-ranging, the texts shed an entirely new light on his work and will be welcomed by scholars in many disciplines--politics, philosophy, history, cultural studies, literature, and a range of interdisciplinary programs. Derrida's arguments vary in their responsiveness to given political questions--sometimes they are (...) vivid polemics on behalf of a position or figure, sometimes they are reflective analyses of a philosophical problem. They are united by the recurrent question of political decision or responsibility and the insistence that the apparent simplicity or programmatic character of political decision is in fact a profound avoidance of the political. This volume testifies to the possibility and the necessity of a philosophical politics. Negotiations assembles some of the most telling examples of the intrinsic relationship, so often affirmed by Derrida in more abstract philosophical terms, between deconstructive reading practices and what is called the "political"--more precisely, politics in an almost down-to-earth, pragmatic, and commonsense use of the word. Among the many subjects covered in the book are: the death penalty in the United States, the civil war in Algeria, globalization and cosmopolitanism, the American Declaration of Independence, Jean-Paul Sartre, the value of objectivity, politics and friendship, and the relationship between deconstruction and actuality. (shrink)

An edition of three essays by the leading French philosopher and theorist Jacques Derrida on the ethical, political and linguistic issues posed by the act of 'naming'. Passions: An Oblique Offering is a reflection on the question of the response, on the duty and obligation to respond, and on the possibility of not responding - which is to say, on the ethics and politics of responsibility. Sauf le nom (Post Scriptum) considers the problematics of naming and alterity, or transcendence, (...) raised inevitably by a rigorous negative theology. Much of the text is organised around close readings of the poetry of Angelus Silesius. The final essay, Khora, explores the problem of space or spacing, of the word 'khora' in Plato's Timaeus. Even as it places and makes possible nothing less than the whole world, 'khora' opens, dislocates and displaces all the categories that govern the production of that world, from naming to gender. (shrink)

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

YS : Quelles sont, à vos yeux, les tâches d'un philosophe en ce qui concerne les religions? Peut-être que cette question en sous-entend une autre. Quelles sont les "choses" à ne pas faire pour un philosophe, en ce qui concerne l'étude des religions? JB : Pour être tout à fait franc, je ne suis pas certain d’être très bien placé pour répondre à cette question et je n’ai pas non plus essayé de le faire dans le livre dont nous parlons, (...) ne serait-ce que parce que, à la différence de Roger Pouiv... (shrink)

This brings together five pieces written by Jacques Derrida as extended lectures. The most important theme is Derrida's redefinition of speech acts and the 'event' as a particular kind of performative. The effects of globalization and mechanization, along with arising issues, provide a second constellation of themes. The first four essays involve a specific act of speech: the lie, the excuse, perjury and profession. The last two essays continue Derrida's powerful series of meditations on professional and institutional questions. The (...) final essay, 'Psychoanalysis Searches the States of Its Soul', confronts the task facing psychoanalysis today: coming to terms in new ways with worldwide cruelty and accommodating itself to the modern juridical concepts of crime against humanity. The phrase 'without alibi' (alibi, of course, being another speech act) is used throughout the essay as a leitmotif indicating that the responsibility psychoanalysis has to respond to globalization cannot be evaded. (shrink)

Using the philosophy of Jean-Luc Nancy as an anchoring point, Jacques Derrida in this book conducts a profound review of the philosophy of the sense of touch, from Plato and Aristotle to Jean-Luc Nancy, whose ground-breaking book Corpus he discusses in detail. Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Edmund Husserl, Didier Franck, Martin Heidegger, Francoise Dastur, and Jean-Louis Chre;tien are discussed, as are Rene; Descartes, Diderot, Maine de Biran, Fe;lix Ravaisson, Immanuel Kant, Sigmund Freud, and others. The scope of Derrida’s deliberations (...) makes this book a virtual encyclopedia of the philosophy of touch (and the body). Derrida gives special consideration to the thinking of touch in Christianity and, in discussing Jean-Luc Nancy’s essay “Deconstruction of Christianity,” devotes a section of the book to the sense of touch in the Gospels. Another section concentrates on “the flesh,” as treated by Merleau-Ponty and others in his wake. Derrida’s critique of intuitionism, notably in the phenomenological tradition, is one of the guiding threads of the book. On Touching includes a wealth of notes that provide an extremely useful bibliographical resource. Personal and detached all at once, this book, one of the first published in English translation after Jacques Derrida’s death, serves as a useful and poignant retrospective on the work of the philosopher. A tribute by Jean-Luc Nancy, written a day after Jacques Derrida’s death, is an added feature. (shrink)