Olivia C. Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804794213
- eISBN:
- 9780804796859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804794213.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later ...
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Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later writings, and in particular, his exchanges with the Jewish Egyptian psychoanalyst Jacques Hassoun and the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida on the topic of “the Abrahamic,” the tie that binds Jews and Muslims in spite of colonial/Zionist efforts to separate them. Revisiting Khatibi’s fiction in light of his Abrahamic reflections, this chapter argues that he deploys bi-langue—the in-between language he is compelled to practice as a result of the imposition of French—to resist not only assimilation, but also the separation between Jews and Arabs. The crossed reading of Khatibi and Derrida further reveals that the latter’s little known writings on Palestine and Israel are rooted in his experience of French colonialism in Algeria.Less
Chapter Five begins by examining Abdelkebir Khatibi’s 1974 pamphlet, Vomito blanco. A violent polemic against Zionism, this treatise is markedly different in tone and genre from Khatibi’s later writings, and in particular, his exchanges with the Jewish Egyptian psychoanalyst Jacques Hassoun and the French-Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida on the topic of “the Abrahamic,” the tie that binds Jews and Muslims in spite of colonial/Zionist efforts to separate them. Revisiting Khatibi’s fiction in light of his Abrahamic reflections, this chapter argues that he deploys bi-langue—the in-between language he is compelled to practice as a result of the imposition of French—to resist not only assimilation, but also the separation between Jews and Arabs. The crossed reading of Khatibi and Derrida further reveals that the latter’s little known writings on Palestine and Israel are rooted in his experience of French colonialism in Algeria.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226315119
- eISBN:
- 9780226315133
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226315133.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
Referring to Judaism, Jacques Derrida once remarked that he always finds himself confronted with a problem of figure. Derrida called himself by several names that attest to this confrontation, such ...
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Referring to Judaism, Jacques Derrida once remarked that he always finds himself confronted with a problem of figure. Derrida called himself by several names that attest to this confrontation, such as “the Marrano” and “the last and the least of the Jews.” In 1990, Maurice Blanchot suggested another name: Moses. This chapter shows that a theory and a practice of troping the Jew can be found in Derrida's own engagement with and ambivalent statements about his Jewish identity. It examines Derrida's analysis of being Jewish from the perspectives of both particularism and universalism, and also argues that being Jewish represents for Derrida an exemplary case of the very structure of exemplarity, and that the claim of being Jewish is the claim to exemplify the condition of uprootedness. Derrida suggests that a just political and moral thinking can begin only with an aporia. The chapter also demonstrates how Derrida deploys the tensions within discourses of or about being Jewish in order to challenge a particularist politics of identity as well as a discourse of political universalism or humanism.Less
Referring to Judaism, Jacques Derrida once remarked that he always finds himself confronted with a problem of figure. Derrida called himself by several names that attest to this confrontation, such as “the Marrano” and “the last and the least of the Jews.” In 1990, Maurice Blanchot suggested another name: Moses. This chapter shows that a theory and a practice of troping the Jew can be found in Derrida's own engagement with and ambivalent statements about his Jewish identity. It examines Derrida's analysis of being Jewish from the perspectives of both particularism and universalism, and also argues that being Jewish represents for Derrida an exemplary case of the very structure of exemplarity, and that the claim of being Jewish is the claim to exemplify the condition of uprootedness. Derrida suggests that a just political and moral thinking can begin only with an aporia. The chapter also demonstrates how Derrida deploys the tensions within discourses of or about being Jewish in order to challenge a particularist politics of identity as well as a discourse of political universalism or humanism.
Michael P. Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195333527
- eISBN:
- 9780199868896
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195333527.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of ...
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The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of aesthetics, lacks thematic and theological coherence. More often, the idea of a Catholic imagination functions at this time as a deeply felt intuition about the organic connections that exist among theological insights, cultural background, and literary expression. The book explores the many ways that the theological work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) provides the model, content, and optic for demonstrating the credibility and range of a Catholic imagination. Since Balthasar views arts and literatures precisely as theologies, the book surveys a broad array of poetry, drama, fiction, and film and sets these readings against the central aspects of Balthasar's theological program. A major consequence of this study is the recovery of the legitimate place of a distinct “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. The book also argues that Balthasar's voice both complements and challenges contemporary critical theory and contends that postmodern interpretive methodology, with its careful critique of entrenched philosophical assumptions and reiterated codes of meaning, is not the threat to theological meaning that many fear. On the contrary, postmodernism can provide both literary critics and theologians alike with the tools that assess, challenge, and celebrate the theological imagination as it is depicted in literary art today.Less
The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of aesthetics, lacks thematic and theological coherence. More often, the idea of a Catholic imagination functions at this time as a deeply felt intuition about the organic connections that exist among theological insights, cultural background, and literary expression. The book explores the many ways that the theological work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) provides the model, content, and optic for demonstrating the credibility and range of a Catholic imagination. Since Balthasar views arts and literatures precisely as theologies, the book surveys a broad array of poetry, drama, fiction, and film and sets these readings against the central aspects of Balthasar's theological program. A major consequence of this study is the recovery of the legitimate place of a distinct “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. The book also argues that Balthasar's voice both complements and challenges contemporary critical theory and contends that postmodern interpretive methodology, with its careful critique of entrenched philosophical assumptions and reiterated codes of meaning, is not the threat to theological meaning that many fear. On the contrary, postmodernism can provide both literary critics and theologians alike with the tools that assess, challenge, and celebrate the theological imagination as it is depicted in literary art today.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632954
- eISBN:
- 9780748671625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632954.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the reasons for forgetting. Mourning is necessary but impossible, necessary and impossible. For Elisabeth Roudinesco, a successful work of mourning is not an act of infidelity. ...
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This chapter discusses the reasons for forgetting. Mourning is necessary but impossible, necessary and impossible. For Elisabeth Roudinesco, a successful work of mourning is not an act of infidelity. The book with Roudinesco is rich and strange not least for its elisions, crossed wires and missed connections. It also considers the nature of reason and forgetting. In Shakespeare's ‘The Time Is Out of Joint’, it is argued that the question not just of mourning but of ‘the time of mourning’ is ‘finally the true subject of the play’. It is a provocatively political reading of Shakespeare's play. Forgetting is the very mise en scène of Shakespeare's play. Hamlet's suffering memory indicates a dismantling of the priority of the logos or ‘discourse of reason’. The memory of Jacques Derrida will be placed in the heart.Less
This chapter discusses the reasons for forgetting. Mourning is necessary but impossible, necessary and impossible. For Elisabeth Roudinesco, a successful work of mourning is not an act of infidelity. The book with Roudinesco is rich and strange not least for its elisions, crossed wires and missed connections. It also considers the nature of reason and forgetting. In Shakespeare's ‘The Time Is Out of Joint’, it is argued that the question not just of mourning but of ‘the time of mourning’ is ‘finally the true subject of the play’. It is a provocatively political reading of Shakespeare's play. Forgetting is the very mise en scène of Shakespeare's play. Hamlet's suffering memory indicates a dismantling of the priority of the logos or ‘discourse of reason’. The memory of Jacques Derrida will be placed in the heart.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632954
- eISBN:
- 9780748671625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632954.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter describes the way Jacques Derrida writes as compared with certain other contemporaries. The title of this chapter alludes to a brief text called ‘Language (Le Monde on the Telephone)’. ...
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This chapter describes the way Jacques Derrida writes as compared with certain other contemporaries. The title of this chapter alludes to a brief text called ‘Language (Le Monde on the Telephone)’. This chapter also was presented as the transcription of a telephone conversation between Derrida and the editor, but actually it is a hoax. Derrida concludes his counter-hoax call by advocating a ‘pragmatics’ of language. It is inconceivable to interpret ‘Jacques Derrida's language’ without considering the place of the so-called unconscious. He told his colleagues that Bin Laden may have a nuclear device. He had heard about it through his mobile phone from Paris. Moreover, an evocation of Derrida, which is the alleged transcription of what he says on the phone to a stranger, is presented.Less
This chapter describes the way Jacques Derrida writes as compared with certain other contemporaries. The title of this chapter alludes to a brief text called ‘Language (Le Monde on the Telephone)’. This chapter also was presented as the transcription of a telephone conversation between Derrida and the editor, but actually it is a hoax. Derrida concludes his counter-hoax call by advocating a ‘pragmatics’ of language. It is inconceivable to interpret ‘Jacques Derrida's language’ without considering the place of the so-called unconscious. He told his colleagues that Bin Laden may have a nuclear device. He had heard about it through his mobile phone from Paris. Moreover, an evocation of Derrida, which is the alleged transcription of what he says on the phone to a stranger, is presented.
Amit Chaudhuri and Tom Paulin
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199260522
- eISBN:
- 9780191698668
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199260522.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This study explores D. H. Lawrence's position as a ‘foreigner’ in the English canon. Focussing on poetry, the book examines how Lawrence's works, and Lawrence himself, have been read, and misread, in ...
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This study explores D. H. Lawrence's position as a ‘foreigner’ in the English canon. Focussing on poetry, the book examines how Lawrence's works, and Lawrence himself, have been read, and misread, in terms of their ‘difference.’ In contrast to the Leavisite project of placing Lawrence in the English ‘great tradition,’ this study demonstrates how Lawrence's writing brings into question the notion of ‘Englishness’ itself. It also shows how Lawrence's aesthetic set him apart radically from both his Modernist contemporaries and his Romantic forbears. The starting-point of this enquiry into Lawrentian ‘difference’ is, for the purposes of this study, the poetry, its stylistic features, the ways in which it has been read, and, importantly, it involves a search for a critical language by which the poetry, and its ‘difference’, might be addressed. In doing so, this book takes recourse to Jacques Derrida's notions of ‘grammatology’ and ‘ecriture’, and Michel Foucault's notion of ‘discourse’. Referring to Lawrence's travel writings about Mexico and Italy, his essays on European and Etruscan art, on Mexican marketplaces and rituals, and American literature, and especially to his poetic manifesto, ‘The Poetry of the Present,’ this book shows how Lawrence was working towards both a theory and a practice that critiqued the post-Enlightenment unitary European self. The book also, radically, allows a post-colonial identity to inform the reading of the poetry, and to let the poems enter into a conversation with that identity.Less
This study explores D. H. Lawrence's position as a ‘foreigner’ in the English canon. Focussing on poetry, the book examines how Lawrence's works, and Lawrence himself, have been read, and misread, in terms of their ‘difference.’ In contrast to the Leavisite project of placing Lawrence in the English ‘great tradition,’ this study demonstrates how Lawrence's writing brings into question the notion of ‘Englishness’ itself. It also shows how Lawrence's aesthetic set him apart radically from both his Modernist contemporaries and his Romantic forbears. The starting-point of this enquiry into Lawrentian ‘difference’ is, for the purposes of this study, the poetry, its stylistic features, the ways in which it has been read, and, importantly, it involves a search for a critical language by which the poetry, and its ‘difference’, might be addressed. In doing so, this book takes recourse to Jacques Derrida's notions of ‘grammatology’ and ‘ecriture’, and Michel Foucault's notion of ‘discourse’. Referring to Lawrence's travel writings about Mexico and Italy, his essays on European and Etruscan art, on Mexican marketplaces and rituals, and American literature, and especially to his poetic manifesto, ‘The Poetry of the Present,’ this book shows how Lawrence was working towards both a theory and a practice that critiqued the post-Enlightenment unitary European self. The book also, radically, allows a post-colonial identity to inform the reading of the poetry, and to let the poems enter into a conversation with that identity.
Michael Naas
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823229581
- eISBN:
- 9780823235162
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823229581.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This concluding chapter recalls the last moments of Derrida with the author. It talks about some of Derrida's final works, including Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde ...
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This concluding chapter recalls the last moments of Derrida with the author. It talks about some of Derrida's final works, including Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (each time unique, the end of the world). It also discusses Derrida's sentiments about death, and how one should face it.Less
This concluding chapter recalls the last moments of Derrida with the author. It talks about some of Derrida's final works, including Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde (each time unique, the end of the world). It also discusses Derrida's sentiments about death, and how one should face it.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636549
- eISBN:
- 9780748652303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636549.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, ...
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This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, non-reductive book about the contemporary value and importance of literature, in which Jacques Derrida has apparently been airbrushed out of the picture and out of history. The literary turn would be at once about the ‘literary in theory’ and more specifically about new ways of registering the place of literature in the light of Derrida's work. The literary turn can be tracked according to three interrelated modes or registers. Two words for Henry James, two words from Henry James, in place of a conclusion apropos the literary turn. The Turn of the Screw might seem very much a land-text, a novel told in a house, about a house, and about what haunts so-called home-territory.Less
This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, non-reductive book about the contemporary value and importance of literature, in which Jacques Derrida has apparently been airbrushed out of the picture and out of history. The literary turn would be at once about the ‘literary in theory’ and more specifically about new ways of registering the place of literature in the light of Derrida's work. The literary turn can be tracked according to three interrelated modes or registers. Two words for Henry James, two words from Henry James, in place of a conclusion apropos the literary turn. The Turn of the Screw might seem very much a land-text, a novel told in a house, about a house, and about what haunts so-called home-territory.
Irving Goh
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262687
- eISBN:
- 9780823266371
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262687.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book proposes a theory of the reject, a more adequate figure than the subject for thinking friendship, love, community, democracy, the postsecular, and the posthuman. Through close readings of ...
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This book proposes a theory of the reject, a more adequate figure than the subject for thinking friendship, love, community, democracy, the postsecular, and the posthuman. Through close readings of Nancy, Deleuze, Derrida, Cixous, Clément, Bataille, Balibar, Rancière, and Badiou, it shows how the reject has always been nascent in contemporary French thought. The recent turn to animals and bare life, as well as the rise of the Occupy movement, also present a special urgency to think the reject today. Thinking the reject most importantly helps to advance our commitment to affirm others without acculturating their differences, but the reject also offers, finally, a response commensurate with the radical horizon of Nancy’s question of who comes after the subject.Less
This book proposes a theory of the reject, a more adequate figure than the subject for thinking friendship, love, community, democracy, the postsecular, and the posthuman. Through close readings of Nancy, Deleuze, Derrida, Cixous, Clément, Bataille, Balibar, Rancière, and Badiou, it shows how the reject has always been nascent in contemporary French thought. The recent turn to animals and bare life, as well as the rise of the Occupy movement, also present a special urgency to think the reject today. Thinking the reject most importantly helps to advance our commitment to affirm others without acculturating their differences, but the reject also offers, finally, a response commensurate with the radical horizon of Nancy’s question of who comes after the subject.
Anne Norton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157047
- eISBN:
- 9781400846351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157047.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter examines how the Muslim question is tied to the question of democracy. In his book Voyous (translated as Rogues), Jacques Derrida referred to the United States and Islam as the enemies ...
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This chapter examines how the Muslim question is tied to the question of democracy. In his book Voyous (translated as Rogues), Jacques Derrida referred to the United States and Islam as the enemies of democracy. In particular, he called Islam “the other of democracy.” Only Islam, Derrida insisted, refuses democracy. Derrida was not the only scholar to have made that claim. His account echoes Samuel Huntington. John Rawls thought Islam so alien that he was obliged to treat it separately. There are countless scholars, left and right, Anglo-American and Continental, who have insisted that Islam is the other of democracy. The chapter suggests that political philosophy in the Muslim (but not simply Muslim) tradition offers visions of democracy, cosmopolitanism, immigration, and integration that are remarkably familiar.Less
This chapter examines how the Muslim question is tied to the question of democracy. In his book Voyous (translated as Rogues), Jacques Derrida referred to the United States and Islam as the enemies of democracy. In particular, he called Islam “the other of democracy.” Only Islam, Derrida insisted, refuses democracy. Derrida was not the only scholar to have made that claim. His account echoes Samuel Huntington. John Rawls thought Islam so alien that he was obliged to treat it separately. There are countless scholars, left and right, Anglo-American and Continental, who have insisted that Islam is the other of democracy. The chapter suggests that political philosophy in the Muslim (but not simply Muslim) tradition offers visions of democracy, cosmopolitanism, immigration, and integration that are remarkably familiar.
Edward Baring and Peter E. Gordon (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823262090
- eISBN:
- 9780823266388
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823262090.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The question of religion was a major preoccupation for Jacques Derrida especially during the last years of his life. His writings on this theme have continued to inspire and provoke, and they have ...
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The question of religion was a major preoccupation for Jacques Derrida especially during the last years of his life. His writings on this theme have continued to inspire and provoke, and they have played a crucial role in the transformation of scholarly debate across the globe. The Trace of God: Derrida and Religion provides a compact introduction to this debate, bringing together contributions by some of the best-known voices in the field, as well as work by younger scholars. It considers Derrida’s fraught relationship to Judaism and his Jewish identity; it broaches the question of Derrida's relation to the Western Christian tradition; and it examines both the points of contact and the silences in Derrida's treatment of Islam. The volume concludes with a debate between John Caputo and Martin Hägglund about the meaning of Derrida's use of religious themes and concepts, and poses the question of whether deconstruction can be valuable resource for religious philosophy or whether it is radically atheistic. The discussion gets to the heart of controversies about deconstruction—its ethical implications and its political ambitions. It shows how religious ideas were both adopted and re-worked by Derrida in ways that had a profound impact on both his own intellectual development and on the history of philosophy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Less
The question of religion was a major preoccupation for Jacques Derrida especially during the last years of his life. His writings on this theme have continued to inspire and provoke, and they have played a crucial role in the transformation of scholarly debate across the globe. The Trace of God: Derrida and Religion provides a compact introduction to this debate, bringing together contributions by some of the best-known voices in the field, as well as work by younger scholars. It considers Derrida’s fraught relationship to Judaism and his Jewish identity; it broaches the question of Derrida's relation to the Western Christian tradition; and it examines both the points of contact and the silences in Derrida's treatment of Islam. The volume concludes with a debate between John Caputo and Martin Hägglund about the meaning of Derrida's use of religious themes and concepts, and poses the question of whether deconstruction can be valuable resource for religious philosophy or whether it is radically atheistic. The discussion gets to the heart of controversies about deconstruction—its ethical implications and its political ambitions. It shows how religious ideas were both adopted and re-worked by Derrida in ways that had a profound impact on both his own intellectual development and on the history of philosophy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Judith Still
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748640270
- eISBN:
- 9780748671786
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748640270.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This introductory chapter first sets out the focus on the book, philosopher Jacques Derrida, and beyond and through him, to another philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. The book also draws attention to a ...
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This introductory chapter first sets out the focus on the book, philosopher Jacques Derrida, and beyond and through him, to another philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. The book also draws attention to a textual or linguistic dimension of hospitality, a question of reading and writing, speaking and listening, calling by name and sometimes remaining silent. The chapter then discusses the following: some definitions of hospitality; the ethics and politics of hospitality; the structure of hospitality; reciprocity and non-reciprocity; cultural difference; sexual difference; and the figure of l'hôte in contemporary French politics. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter first sets out the focus on the book, philosopher Jacques Derrida, and beyond and through him, to another philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas. The book also draws attention to a textual or linguistic dimension of hospitality, a question of reading and writing, speaking and listening, calling by name and sometimes remaining silent. The chapter then discusses the following: some definitions of hospitality; the ethics and politics of hospitality; the structure of hospitality; reciprocity and non-reciprocity; cultural difference; sexual difference; and the figure of l'hôte in contemporary French politics. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Brian Treanor
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823226849
- eISBN:
- 9780823235100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823226849.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental ...
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“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.Less
“Every other is truly other, but no other is wholly other”. This is the claim that this book defends. Taking up the question of otherness that so fascinates contemporary continental philosophy, this book asks what it means for something or someone to be other than the self. Emmanuel Levinas and those influenced by him point out that the philosophical tradition of the West has generally favored the self at the expense of the other. In response, postmodern thought insists on the absolute otherness of the other, epitomized by the deconstructive claim “every other is wholly other”. But absolute otherness generates problems and aporias of its own. This has led some thinkers to reevaluate the notion of relative otherness in light of the postmodern critique, arguing for a chiastic account that does justice to both the alterity and the similitude of the other. These latter two positions—absolute otherness and a rehabilitated account of relative otherness—are the main contenders in the contemporary debate. This book traces the transmission and development of these two conceptions of otherness by examining the philosophies of Emmanuel Levinas and Gabriel Marcel. Levinas's version of otherness can be seen in the work of Jacques Derrida and John D. Caputo, while Marcel's understanding of otherness influences the work of Paul Ricoeur and Richard Kearney. Ultimately, this book makes a case for a hermeneutic account of otherness. Otherness itself is not absolute, but is a chiasm of alterity and similitude.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632954
- eISBN:
- 9780748671625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632954.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter describes the quotation, ‘Not now’ in three different cryptic instances. The first one is David McKee's Not Now, Bernard. It is an example of that impossible genre called ‘children's ...
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This chapter describes the quotation, ‘Not now’ in three different cryptic instances. The first one is David McKee's Not Now, Bernard. It is an example of that impossible genre called ‘children's literature’, a genre not especially linked with the work of Jacques Derrida, despite the fact that ‘the problem of the child’ is a consistent focus of attention in that work. This book is both funny and appalling. The appeal of McKee's ‘all-time’, ‘not now’ classic would doubtless lie in the name of Bernard, its singularity, but also in its substitutability, its replaceability. Secondly, ‘Not now’ is a quotation from part of the title of a lecture Derrida gave at Cornell University, ‘No Apocalypse, Not Now’. The last cryptic instance is from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet is about forms of deferral, delay or afterwardness to be thought on the basis of the present.Less
This chapter describes the quotation, ‘Not now’ in three different cryptic instances. The first one is David McKee's Not Now, Bernard. It is an example of that impossible genre called ‘children's literature’, a genre not especially linked with the work of Jacques Derrida, despite the fact that ‘the problem of the child’ is a consistent focus of attention in that work. This book is both funny and appalling. The appeal of McKee's ‘all-time’, ‘not now’ classic would doubtless lie in the name of Bernard, its singularity, but also in its substitutability, its replaceability. Secondly, ‘Not now’ is a quotation from part of the title of a lecture Derrida gave at Cornell University, ‘No Apocalypse, Not Now’. The last cryptic instance is from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet is about forms of deferral, delay or afterwardness to be thought on the basis of the present.
Bernard Bergonzi
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112617
- eISBN:
- 9780191670817
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112617.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the nature of Jacques Derrida's reputation. One thing that all readers are most likely to agree upon is that Derrida is a very difficult writer. He is an admired figure in both ...
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This chapter discusses the nature of Jacques Derrida's reputation. One thing that all readers are most likely to agree upon is that Derrida is a very difficult writer. He is an admired figure in both the French and the American academic worlds. The discussions in this chapter show that Derrida is a man whose dominance in critical theory is inescapable.Less
This chapter discusses the nature of Jacques Derrida's reputation. One thing that all readers are most likely to agree upon is that Derrida is a very difficult writer. He is an admired figure in both the French and the American academic worlds. The discussions in this chapter show that Derrida is a man whose dominance in critical theory is inescapable.
David Howarth
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198292371
- eISBN:
- 9780191600159
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198292376.003.0012
- Subject:
- Political Science, Reference
An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is ...
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An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is given to the concepts of signification, antagonisms, political subjectivity, agency, hegemony, the hermeneutical tradition in social science, and how to apply deconstruction methods.Less
An overview of contributions to the development of discourse theoretical approaches in social science from the work of Althusser, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault, Laclau, and Mouffe. Particular attention is given to the concepts of signification, antagonisms, political subjectivity, agency, hegemony, the hermeneutical tradition in social science, and how to apply deconstruction methods.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748632954
- eISBN:
- 9780748671625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748632954.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be ...
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This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be fashionable and the more inclusive and meaningless the term became’. In Jacques Derrida's view, deconstruction inherits something of the condemnation of ‘spontaneism’ in V. I. Lenin. Derrida's ‘crypto-communist legacy’ entails thinking of the ‘crypto-’, of the hidden and secret. ‘Queer theory’ would have to do with deferred effect and the incalculable, with what cannot be ‘anticipated in advance’; and indeed that this can and must include the possibility of the disappearance or obsolescence of the term ‘queer’ itself. It then argues that homosexuality and queerness constitute a crucial aspect of all Jonathan Dollimore's novels. If Derrida's work argues for, while enacting, a queering of being, the same can be said of time: deconstruction queers being and time.Less
This chapter deals with the relationship between deconstruction and queer theory. It is noted that ‘the more fashionable Queer became, the more it was appropriated by those who wanted to be fashionable and the more inclusive and meaningless the term became’. In Jacques Derrida's view, deconstruction inherits something of the condemnation of ‘spontaneism’ in V. I. Lenin. Derrida's ‘crypto-communist legacy’ entails thinking of the ‘crypto-’, of the hidden and secret. ‘Queer theory’ would have to do with deferred effect and the incalculable, with what cannot be ‘anticipated in advance’; and indeed that this can and must include the possibility of the disappearance or obsolescence of the term ‘queer’ itself. It then argues that homosexuality and queerness constitute a crucial aspect of all Jonathan Dollimore's novels. If Derrida's work argues for, while enacting, a queering of being, the same can be said of time: deconstruction queers being and time.
J. Hillis Miller
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823230334
- eISBN:
- 9780823235216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823230334.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
This chapter argues that Derrida's Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy is an extremely odd or exceptional work of mourning. It mourns someone who is not yet dead, since Nancy survived ...
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This chapter argues that Derrida's Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy is an extremely odd or exceptional work of mourning. It mourns someone who is not yet dead, since Nancy survived his heart transplant operation to persist in what might be called a posthumous life. Nancy has survived Derrida's death to write more about Derrida. He is having the last word about matters on which they did not quite agree, now that Derrida cannot answer back.Less
This chapter argues that Derrida's Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy is an extremely odd or exceptional work of mourning. It mourns someone who is not yet dead, since Nancy survived his heart transplant operation to persist in what might be called a posthumous life. Nancy has survived Derrida's death to write more about Derrida. He is having the last word about matters on which they did not quite agree, now that Derrida cannot answer back.
Eugene O'Brien
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199559213
- eISBN:
- 9780191594403
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199559213.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses the ethical implications of the choice made by Antigone in terms of loyalty to her family or loyalty to her polis. It does this through the prism of Jacques Derrida's ideas on ...
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This chapter discusses the ethical implications of the choice made by Antigone in terms of loyalty to her family or loyalty to her polis. It does this through the prism of Jacques Derrida's ideas on responsibility and irresponsibility. For Derrida, to be responsible to one is of necessity to be irresponsible to the other, so the choice made by Antigone is a synecdoche of the ethical dilemma of all such choices. Examples are adduced in the chapter to underline this point: the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, the Northern Irish IRA hunger striker Francis Hughes, Robert McCartney, murdered by the IRA in Belfast.Less
This chapter discusses the ethical implications of the choice made by Antigone in terms of loyalty to her family or loyalty to her polis. It does this through the prism of Jacques Derrida's ideas on responsibility and irresponsibility. For Derrida, to be responsible to one is of necessity to be irresponsible to the other, so the choice made by Antigone is a synecdoche of the ethical dilemma of all such choices. Examples are adduced in the chapter to underline this point: the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan, the Northern Irish IRA hunger striker Francis Hughes, Robert McCartney, murdered by the IRA in Belfast.
Michael Naas
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823239979
- eISBN:
- 9780823240012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823239979.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter returns much more closely to “Faith and Knowledge” in order to explain two “‘historical’ names”—messianicity and khōra—for the opening or the promise that is one of the two sources of ...
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This chapter returns much more closely to “Faith and Knowledge” in order to explain two “‘historical’ names”—messianicity and khōra—for the opening or the promise that is one of the two sources of religion as well as science. The chapter asks why Derrida sees the need to supplement a Judeo-Christian notion of messianicity with a thinking of the Greek khōra from Plato’s Timaeus, a text he once called a “Bible avant la letter.” Finally, this chapter tries to explain a few of Derrida’s more elliptical comments in “Faith and Knowledge” on democracy and literature as the right to say everything in light of other texts from around the same time on these same subjects. Such themes are hardly extrinsic, it is argued, to the principal theses of Derrida’s essay since they require a rethinking of what Derrida believes to be the Judeo-Christian origins not only of the concept of religion but of literature, democracy, religious tolerance, even secularism.Less
This chapter returns much more closely to “Faith and Knowledge” in order to explain two “‘historical’ names”—messianicity and khōra—for the opening or the promise that is one of the two sources of religion as well as science. The chapter asks why Derrida sees the need to supplement a Judeo-Christian notion of messianicity with a thinking of the Greek khōra from Plato’s Timaeus, a text he once called a “Bible avant la letter.” Finally, this chapter tries to explain a few of Derrida’s more elliptical comments in “Faith and Knowledge” on democracy and literature as the right to say everything in light of other texts from around the same time on these same subjects. Such themes are hardly extrinsic, it is argued, to the principal theses of Derrida’s essay since they require a rethinking of what Derrida believes to be the Judeo-Christian origins not only of the concept of religion but of literature, democracy, religious tolerance, even secularism.
