Jacques Derrida : A Biography

by Powell, Jason

• ISBN13: 9780826490025
• ISBN10: 0826490026
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-23
• Publisher: Continuum

Summary

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.

Author Biography

Jason Powell is at the University of Liverpool

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(106)
1 Algeria	9	(12)
1.1 The Tradition	9	(1)
1.2 Family	10	(2)
1.3 Culture	12	(3)
1.4 During the War	15	(2)
1.5 The Lycée	17	(2)
1.6 Andre Gide	19	(2)
2 Paris and the ENS	21	(16)
2.1 Boarding School	21	(2)
2.2 Husserl	23	(3)
2.3 Husserl's Development	26	(1)
2.4 'Violence and Metaphysics' [1964]	27	(1)
2.5 Levinas	28	(1)
2.6 Althusser and Marxism	28	(2)
2.7 The Student Generation of the 1950's and 1960's	30	(2)
2.8 Psychoanalysis	32	(2)
2.9 Michel Foucault	34	(3)
3 After ENS	37	(10)
3.1 Harvard	37	(1)
3.2 The War of Algeria	38	(1)
3.3 Cerisy-la-Salle, 1959	39	(4)
3.4 Derrida's Early Critique of the Science of Science	43	(1)
3.5 The Prix Cavailles	44	(3)
4 The First Book	47	(6)
4.1 Husserl's 'Origin of Geometry'	47	(1)
4.2 Husserrs 'Origin of Geometry'• An Introduction [1962]	48	(1)
4.3 Freedom	49	(1)
4.4 Writing: The Linguistic Turn	50	(3)
5 Against Structuralism	53	(10)
5.1 Thoughts on Althusser	53	(1)
5.2 'Force and Signification'	54	(2)
5.3 1963-65	56	(1)
5.4 'Structure, Sign and Play'	57	(3)
5.5 'Freud and the Scene of Writing'	60	(3)
6 Structures in French Thought	63	(8)
6.1 Structuralism	63	(2)
6.2 Post-Structuralism	65	(1)
6.3 Psychoanalysis and Jacques Lacan	66	(5)
7 1967	71	(6)
7.1 Speech and Phenomena [1967]	71	(2)
7.2 Of Grammatology [1967]	73	(4)
8 Avant-garde Philosophy	77	(12)
8.1 May '68	77	(3)
8.2 Margins of Philosophy	80	(3)
8.3 Dissemination	83	(6)
9 America: Derrida as Literary Theory	89	(18)
9.1 The 1970's	89	(1)
9.2 Travel	89	(2)
9.3 Life death and the Other	91	(4)
9.4 America	95	(3)
9.5 De Man's Response to Derrida's Of Grammatology	98	(1)
9.6 Derrida and the Literary	99	(1)
9.7 Tel Quel	100	(1)
9.8 1972	101	(1)
9.9 Spurs, Nietzsche at Cerisy [1972]	102	(5)
10 Glas	107	(6)
10.1 Glas [1974]	107	(3)
10.2 Psychoanalysis in Glas	110	(3)
11 GREPH	113	(6)
11.1 GREPH	113	(2)
11.2 The Estates General for Philosophy	115	(4)
12 Yale	119	(8)
12.1 After Glas	119	(1)
12.2 Yale	120	(2)
12.3 Paul de Man, Memoires	122	(1)
12.4 Limited Inc. [1977]	123	(4)
13 The Post Card	127	(6)
13.1 Derrida and the Post/ Geschick	127	(2)
13.2 The Postal System	129	(4)
14 Nietzsche and Heidegger	133	(12)
14.1 A Late Start	133	(2)
14.2 Given Time	135	(1)
14.3 Living On: Borderlines	136	(2)
14.4 The Truth in Painting	138	(1)
14.5 Otobiographies	139	(6)
15 The 1980's	145	(16)
15.1 Influence and Opposition	145	(1)
15.2 Levinas	146	(2)
15.3 'Of an Apocalyptic Tone' [1980]	148	(1)
15.4 'Psyche: Inventions of the Other'	149	(1)
15.5 The Early 1980's	150	(2)
15.6 Literature, Aesthetics and Politics	152	(3)
15.7 The International College of Philosophy	155	(1)
15.8 The Mid-1980's	156	(2)
15.9 'Khora'	158	(3)
16 1987-90, Deconstruction and National Socialism	161	(14)
16.1 Crisis in the Politics of Deconstruction	161	(3)
16.2 Of Spirit [1987]	164	(3)
16.3 The Assault on de Man and Heidegger	167	(2)
16.4 'Force of Law' [1989]	169	(2)
16.5 The Gulf War	171	(4)
17 Autobiographical Years, 1990-91	175	(8)
17.1 Memoires of the Blind	175	(2)
17.2 Jacques Derrida, [1991]	177	(6)
18 The Future of Democracy and the Very Worst Moment of Capitalism	183	(8)
18.1 The Right to Philosophy from the Cosmopolitan Point of View	183	(1)
18.2 The Other Heading. Europe	184	(4)
18.3 Resistances of Psychoanalysis [1993]	188	(3)
19 Derrida's World: Confronting Marx	191	(8)
19.1 Final Major Works	191	(1)
19.2 Spectres of Marx [1993]	192	(7)
20 The Politics of Friendship	199	(8)
20.1 The Politics of Friendship [1994]	199	(4)
20.2 'Nietzsche and the Machine'	203	(4)
21 Derrida's Religion	207	(8)
21.1 Messianism	207	(1)
21.2 'Faith and Knowledge'	207	(3)
21.3 Late Publications	210	(5)
22 Thoughtful Welcoming of the Other, Death	215	(8)
22.1 'On Cosmopolitanism'	215	(1)
22.2 'Derelictions of the Right to Justice (But what are the sans-papiers lacking?)'	216	(2)
22.3 'On Forgiveness'	218	(1)
22.4 'As If It Were Possible'	219	(4)
23 2000 Onwards	223	(8)
23.1 A Contemporary Philosopher	223	(1)
23.2 Philosophy in a Time of Terror: 9/11	223	(4)
23.3 Life death	227	(4)
Conclusion	231	(6)
Works Cited	237	(7)
Index	244