Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida Author(s): Emily Apter, Houston A. Baker, Jr., Seyla Benhabib, Geoffrey Bennington, Eduardo Cadava, Jonathan Culler, Patricia Dailey, Alessia Ricciardi, Carla Freccero, Geoffrey Hartman, Peggy Kamuf, Christie McDonald, J. Hillis Miller, Andrew Parker, Jean-Michel Rabaté, Marc Redfield, Avital Ronell, Matthew Rowlinson, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Reviewed work(s): Source: PMLA, Vol. 120, No. 2 (Mar., 2005), pp. 464-494 Published by: Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25486172 . Accessed: 30/11/2011 17:55
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Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida
the world many have said 464 Emily Apter Jacques derrida's departure from is,as in conversation and other an unthinkable event. The unthink 466 Houston A. Baker, Jr. exchanges, even as one was occurrence able has happened, and knew it coming, its be 468 Seyla Benhabib queaths a practical problem: how will we carry on theoreticallywithout his 470 Geoffrey Bennington presence, his steadfast appearance in the ongoing international seminar 471 Eduardo Cadava thatwas his life?Surely one way to carry on without him will be to adhere Culler 472 Jonathan to the conviction that theorymatters, that it is not dead, that ithas a fu a 473 Patricia Dailey and ture?indeed, vital future?which Derrida himself theorized brilliantly. a Alessia Ricciardi Derrida's work was formation in literary studies formy cohort, trained in literature in the 1970s and 1980s. He us to 476 Carla Freccero departments taught appreciate the intermediation of literaryreading and philosophy, thevalue 478 Geoffrey Hartman of the "live" lecture in thedouble sense of speaking out and performing the 479 Kamuf Peggy ritual of the reading on itsway to becoming a diagnosis of the event. He Christie McDonald 481 helped explicate the violent, combustive process bywhich the future,or its into word much 482 J.Hillis Miller yet-to-be-cognized Idea, breaks discourse, transgressing (a loved in the intellectual of and 484 Andrew Parker 1980s) protocols logic naming, traducing humanist pieties held sacrosanct in mainstream belles lettres, and philo 485 Jean-Michel Rabat? sophically delegitimating apartheid, inhospitality,and exclusion. 487 Marc Redfield The outpouring of hundreds of signatures to a letter in theNew York 488 Avital Ronell Times by SamuelWeber and Kenneth Reinhard thatprotested the crude and Matthew Rowlinson attests to the of 490 dishonoring rhetoric of the newspaper's obituary presence a bound a commitment to 492 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak very large community together by theory.1 Many whose names did not appear on the letterstill characterize theirwork and as a of cause?not as sectarian but as teaching perpetuation theory's dogma dissemi interpretive practices and critical paradigms of erasure, gramme, de-construction. nation, brisure, diff?rance, pharmakon, supplementarity, In committing themselves to the future of theory,and specifically to the and will the sur-vie of Derridean thought, many have engaged engage prob lem of how radical alterity enters the domain of thought. For Derrida, this was often a matter of tracingdeath in language. Beginning inAporias with va It involves a certain he the phrase "Il y d'un certain pas" step/not, goes
464 2005 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida465
at a certain associates the of "an along pace,' Derrida pas Derrida discerned theworkings implacable or law: the one that with a "recumbent corpse" limit condition be regulates every autoimmunitary tween is to itself: As we an language and that which other process. know, autoimmunitary process is that strange behavior where a living being, in This border of translation does not var to pass among quasi-swicidal fashion, 'itself works destroy ious It translation from itself, own to languages. separates its protection, immunize itself against its it within one and the same separates translatability 'own' immunity" (94). The idea of a suicide drive language. A certain pragmatics thus inscribes this programmed within the living organism was of border in the very inside the so-called French lan of course in the immediate after a particularly potent guage_Condition of the self, such difference math of global disaster. Even ifwe choose not to from and with itselfwould thenbe itsvery thing, interpretthis model of the body's catastrophic at the pragma of its pragmatics: the stranger at home, tack on its own defense as a al the invited or the one who is called. (10) system transparent an or as legory of empire's suicidal foreign policies an indirect reference to the breakdown of immu Derrida's identification of aporia with infinite in the own translatabilitywithin language itselfsuggests that nity taking place philosopher's body, Derrida's of self-destruction the radically other?death, the idea, intractable concept programmed the and difference?enters theworld through linguistic undergirds guiding metaphors paradigms of the viral and the pragmatics, a programmed code of lifeand nonlife age: bacteriological spread; of connected dots and vanished front lines decipherable in the grammatology of language. logic common to warfare, and Looking back over the inaugural chapter ofOf paranoia, computerized one encounters and and the Grammatology, with astonishment conspiracy world-systems theory; trauma of the event as ithas to be theorized: Derrida's prescient understanding of the relevance yet of the cybernetic program to theory.Published in X will have been traumatized (X? Who or what 1967 during the high era of cybernetics and bio isX? less than the "world," well that Nothing beyond genetic research,Of Grammatology predicts or the United States, in any case, the possibil ity of the "world"), but traumatized not in the the entire field covered by the cybernetic pro present or from the memory of what will have gramwill be the fieldof writing. If the theoryof been a past present. No, traumatized from the cybernetics is by itself to oust all metaphysical unpresentable future, from the open threat of the of soul, of life, concepts?including concepts an one aggression capable day of striking?for of value, of choice, of until re memory?which never you know?the head of the sovereign cently served to separate the machine from man, nation-state par excellence. (98) conserve itmust the notion of writing, trace, or until its gramme [written mark], grapheme, Derrida combined the of the own character is also ex power soothsayer historico-metaphysical with the of the of as lucidity philosopher eschatology posed. Even before being determined human in a suicidal drive from the (with all the distinctive characteristics that have adducing repressive man of civilization. "What will never let it always been attributed to and the entire sys apparatus tem or self be is thus the effect of the of significations that they imply) nonhu forgotten perverse itself. For we now know that re man, the gramme?or the grapheme?would thus autoimmunitary name its sense the element. (9; interpolation in orig.) pression in both psychoanalytical and its it political sense?whether be through the police, If on, Derrida the or here, relatively early imagined military, the economy?ends up produc as a of language beyond metaphysics language ing, reproducing, and regenerating the very thing of information and it seeks to program capable translating disarm" (99). The autoimmune complex acu genie code, late in his career, with similar describes the kind of attack against oneself that he seized on of remains an men, the relevance biotechnology inexplicable, irrational drama unless to in the futureof one the of as a metaphysics directing theoryaf accepts logic death preprogrammed ter to 9/11 the problem of autoimmunity. In "Auto call for the life cycle of a body to end. The end of Real and a the is not immunity: Symbolic Suicides," dialogue program unforeseen, but the philosophi in a a published Philosophy in Time ofTerror (2003), cal definition of its afterlife remains major task 466 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
a a from a hat. He wrinkled for the futureof theory, task rendered intelligible like rabbit magician's by JacquesDerrida. his brow in anguished dismay. I had only asked, are Did "So, what you working on?" he, would he, EmilyApter answer a could he after such masterly "French" New York University orange-peeling performance? "Deconstruction. Derridean deconstruction. Jacques Derrida's, uh, Note an new projet?project. It's entirely thing. Not 1 much is translated here." He a slice of See Kandell. The additional signatures to the letter popped on a into his I am self appear Web site of the University of California, Ir orange mouth, feeling, certain, vine: Remembering Jacques Derrida. satisfied.He then somberly toldme the basics of a revolutionary, antimetaphysical "reading prac Works Cited tice" thathe had absorbed during the same period in Paris when he became competent in the art of Derrida, Jacques. Aporias. Trans. Thomas Dutoit. Stan A con ford: Stanford UP, 1993. the unbroken orange peel. very Derridean -. I later was to learn. the or "Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides?A juncture, indeed, (On with Derrida." With Giovanna Bor "I Dialogue Jacques der of have forgotten my umbrella.") radori. in a Time Terror: with to an Philosophy of Dialogues Learning peel orange with European Habermas and Derrida. U of J?rgen Jacques Chicago: aplomb, I decided, would be farmore useful tome Chicago P, 2003. 85-136. inmy youthful bid for tenure than attempting to -. Trans. Of Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty even understand the vocabulary of deconstruc Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1974. tion, as Joe Graham articulated it. Kandell, Jonathan. "Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies in Paris at 74." New York Times 10Oct. 2004: A1+. Second Chances Remembering Jacques Derrida. School of Humanities, U of God Sends California, Irvine. 9Mar. 2005
acquainted with "Jacques." They had known each First Encounter other in France. One afternoon Mark approached me: we a in common. The NAMEJACQUES DERRIDA first came to me in "People here say have lot Why main secu don't come to office later for a chat." my cramped office tucked behind the you my Truth? I had not read two-thirdsof the books ritydesk of Yale University's Branford College in was a re Mark invoked in his two-hour mara 1969. The tiny space actually spatial and passionately first at thon that afternoon. He was lational promotion?during my year Yale, soliloquy religiously with the most my officehad been located in one of thebedrooms enamored and fully acquainted to the studios of of the college apartment I shared with my wife, antimetaphysical celebrity grace in for Charlotte Pierce Baker. (Often, after her work French television years. "Jacques," Mark, was en the "truth that day, shewould return "home" to find six students paradoxically {mise abyme) on to see me does not exist." the sofa of her living room, waiting new mate was I read three times and committed at my office hours.) My office Jo Erring my He self to a of in seph Graham, of Yale's French department. rigorous low-metaphysics regimen was in that matters to a I had it. cosmopolitan every way determinacy. gotten So what Graham was while young academic male: dress, ambition, gustatory Joe saying slicing our was that predilection, intellect,foreign language fluency? that orange in cramped Yale quarters and the Book were outr? ... a a vernacular cache that consistently produces God, History, Self, in the United States. was a man scandal. I was, a struc genuflection Joe by implication, retrograde our a black American critic who of European sophistication. At first meeting, turalist, seriously a before me to his new he held single, unbroken orange peel needed livelyup style through reading i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida467
I to to ... no practices. needed commit myself the "post," single stroke but I had ideawhat the fifteen me meant with itsbright, open, difficult, interrogative de enrollees seated before by "pharma I to a constructive ranges. had be cosmopolitan kon," "belatedness," "split subject," "grammatol frontiersman no matter what to was for, well, "theory," ogy"! All I reallywanted to convey them "the race" cast might dictate. the protomodernist of Jean Toomer's Cane, . . . antici (But O, my! Who could have one of the finer narrative texts of the Harlem Re the was to pated sentimental, maudlin, pseudo-racial naissance. I prepared go "spirit of the age" and at In was not allegiance sighing crying my "apostasy"? and "identity politics." But I ready for the the new vernacular, my reading practice provoked vocabulary and sites of my poststructuralist, post I charges that had abandoned the yam-and-chitlin modern, deconstructive "students" that summer. eating black critical simplicity of "my people." Diana Fuss, Valerie Traub, Hal Foster, Mireille an Who knew? You might have thought infusion Rosello, Susan Mizruchi, and others were, as it of thebest thathad been and theoretically thought turned out, what I had signed on for.They were said was a I feltthat Iwas out good thing. lighting not at all interested in a spirit of the age, intellec for deconstructive territories that, in the words of or a menu. tual history, "soul food" Bless them: B. B. were in King, "rockingus America") theyhad read Blues, Ideology. and Litera Blues, Ideology, Afro-American So I once again foundmyself (blessedly) at a ture:A Vernacular the book I Theory, produced New Hampshire opening that promised tomold inNorth Carolina, is me a more during my fellowship year into sophisticated Derridean reader of as and indebted antimetaphysically profoundly what I considered "my" tradition of black literary to Derrida as I have ever written. Some anything and cultural studies. It was "Live free or die," all have it and found it as delectable people sampled the way down, in the sweat-soaked labors ofthat as a a on a summer cool slice of peeled orange SCT moment. Some all credit and to Derrida. most day. give praise My remarkable encounter with Derrida But I have to thankMark and Louis came a Taylor Henry during that time. He presented three-hour Gates, Jr., for me out of the house pulling burning lecture on Zionism and the Jewish state to our of structuralism and off the EMS, on a an fending cranky SCT group Friday afternoon in unair old school "word continue to philosophers" who conditioned auditorium. The attentiveness was believe the of the precipitous edge philosophical breathless. He dazzled; he informed. I have since world ismarked Kant the Immanuel. by read and come to understand the cast of charac ters of his marathon performance. The added joy, The Antifoundational Made Flesh however, was that my wife and I were invited to attend the dinner afterhis lecture. The My wife and Iwere to share the joys of a School company summer included Hartman, Barbara of Criticism and Theory (SCT) at Dart Geoffrey Johnson, a on a Garber, Dominick Sacvan mouth College in 1988.1 signed lease tin Marjorie LaCapra, Marianne An as roof house adjacent to a dysfunctional family Bercovitch, Hirsch. absolutely as were. blessed with five children. I was told therewas tonishing "frontier cast," it no Derrida was as absolutely need for air-conditioning. Wrong. singularly gracious?as gentle It was a an wind at one's back a blistering, droughtlike, all-window encouraging during long summer in summer run. fans-sold-out Hanover, New Hamp shire. The were He was neighboring children always unpretentious, yet scintillating. already engaged in high-decibel feuds. Their pint He talked softly and brilliantly of Algerian at and African matters and shared his own re size, pugnacious dog raucously nipped my heels calm as I our alization that every morning jogged from tin-roof sweat Afro-American literary and cultural lodge into the lush surrounding hills. studiesmight benefit (enormously) from an agon summer I with Western The ar That quickly discovered that I metaphysics. coup de gr?ce more should have listened attentively tomy office rived, however, when Jacques assured my wife that mate Graham. the Joe On first day of my semi he deeply admired JohnColtrane. He chuckled: I was at an a nar, mightily adept peeling orange in "People in France askme, What does Giant Steps 468 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
mean? I tell them it is like everythingelse: Tt don't philosophy, made me think that somehow mean a I want to assert at was too an thing!'" Arguably, that Derrida frivolous, much of aesthete thatmoment he pulled out his pipe (which was in his impeccable suit.What philosopher dressed not, of course, a pipe) and quietly relaxed intohis thatwell? own joyous cosmopolitan sagacity. But Derrida was not to be dismissed that We our easily. heard from best undergraduates? Coda among them Judith Butler?that his courses were that new was afoot, a new are spectacular, something The loss is unspeakable. We emptied. The last teacher, a new method of had amaz reading emerged. word has been spoken. Denigrations of the Margins of Philosophy was the first text of ing openings created by Derrida come frommen Derrida's that I seriously grappled with. These and women who do not?they really, really do brilliant on Ar nor disquisitions commodification, not?appreciate Coltrane, do they love the awe. came istotle, and Marx inspired Then the all-inclusive spectral black light of multiplicity translation or to savor on a Of Grammatology by Gayatri Spivak. have any capacity bright oranges Derrida's discourse about the the summer Suddenly, sign, day. and the text had a face, one Derrida's fellow travelers were sometimes signature, political that leftus breathless. What had seemed at best to unsavory. That had nothing do with his words. a version of Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotics, are for Geniuses not ultimately responsible their a as a all of sudden appeared philosophical meth disciples or their legacies. In 2004 we surelyknow or Destruktion?situ can us. can re odology?deconstruction that the electorate surprise Peter ated at the to reason and the most can epochal challenge ceive the ballots for bravery, and Judas the non executor. est-ce Enlightenment posed by non-Western, handily be appointed literary Qu Eurocentric the "Other." Deconstruc qu onfait? world?by tion was not frivolous but serious. The just and honorable course for thosewho deadly I remained unconvinced: the anti live afterDerrida is to take him at his word, relish first, was Eurocentrism of this discourse politically his provocations, and freely acknowledge that life naive I it was or and dangerous, thought; second, after his "transition" will not be easy... nearly unclear whether Derrida's of as much intellectual fun as it used to be. philosophy language went beyond the best insights of Peirce and John Houston A. Baker, Jr. Searle. The concept of the "performative" made Duke University utterances almost linguistic magically responsible for their own communicative effects. How in fact could we do thingswith words? What made a lis of I FIRSTLAID EYES ON JACQUESDERRIDA AROUND tener accept the illocutionary force utterances? as a in Yale Univer The of the made 1976, when, graduate student indeterminacy performative any of the conditions of acts sity'sphilosophy department, I foundmyself one critique validity speech irrelevant. And this was erroneous. day waiting in line for lunch at Naples Pizza be became com hind Derrida and Paul de Man. I recall Derrida's Ironically, Derrida's work really and his forme as of his erstwhile admir stunning suit, made of gray-purple velvet, pelling just many hair. He seemed out ers abandoned him after the scandal over Paul de shock of gray-silver totally Man's fascist and Derrida's for his of place in a fast-food joint, known for itsgreasy past apologia Yet was at friend. confronted with the calzones and pizza slices. Derrida quite Increasingly ques to students tion of ethics and deconstruction, and the ethics home, talking the graduate hovering around the two masters. o/deconstruction, in the late 1980sDerrida wrote a texts: of a Although studying Hegel, I had decided to number of illuminating "Force Law," Derrida's courses at Yale. subtle of and Walter keep my distance from reading Montaigne Benja him to dwell on deconstruc Partly the snobbery of philosophers against lit min that permitted own sense the book into erature motivated this. Partly my tion and justice; translated English as addressed of gravitas, ofwanting to save theworld through Politics ofFriendship, which finally i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 469
Carl Schmitt and the political implications of de me. The reference to prostheses in this title is still construction; last, a short but marvelous essay, obscure, but the agony of not being able to reach ear to "The Declarations of Independence," which Der the of the other, the inability communicate, or rida delivered on thebicentennial of theAmerican the surfeit of communication created by the in confidence in com Revolution. The pluralization the title?"Decla all-too-easy accomplished me rations"?heralded the strategy with which Der munication made understand Derrida better. not in sense of ridawould approach this foundational text. Certainly, any essentialist seeing Derrida deconstructs the famous lines "We the "true Derrida" revealed. Nonetheless, this au hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men tobiographical text throws light on the preoccu are created equal, that they are endowed by their pation with the treachery as well as the beauty of He recounts Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that language that haunts Derrida. how, are as a was among these Life, Liberty and the pursuit of growing up middle-class Algerian Jew, he Are with to the existential lan Happiness." these truths really "self-evident"? "tongueless" respect What evidence do we have that all men are created guages most important forhim: he did not know so to equal, when many facts attest the contrary? Hebrew, beyond liturgical generalities, and he did Or are these truths self-evident because we posit not know Arabic?the language of the country in them, we declare them to be so? But, then, men which he grew up. Equally removed fromboth, he are one masters not created equal; they become equal because became of the of the French language, they create a political order inwhich they guar that language which he loved and appropriated so antee one as a another's equality through promises brilliantly to become worldwide philosopher at same sense and covenants. But if the equality proclaimed by through it. Yet, the time, the of fra is a human con the Declaration of Independence gility, equivocation, multivocity, and indetermi to as it in a was was not own struction, why appeal God guaranteeing nacy language that and his our never in virtue of being "Creator"? Or, perish the left him. Like Albert Camus, another Al we create our own thought, do also God through gerian-born French intellectual, Jacques Derrida a own this declaration? was stranger in his land. He translated that is "we" who holds sense into Furthermore, who the of estrangement the seminal discovery these truths to be self-evident? Is it the signatories of the instability and creative playfulness of all we one of thedeclaration alone? The representativesof the language. Maybe understand another be thirteen colonies? Or Thomas Jefferson?Maybe cause so often we fail to do so. does not declare in the name of a moment in the declaration At world history when intoler an already constituted people but constitutes this ance toward, as well as violent confrontation with, re people in the very process of acting in its name? "otherness" ranges rampantly, Derrida's work The which can never be stabi us "floating signifier," minds of the fragmentation of all identity. The lized the act of now reveals through signification, interior is what it is in virtue of excluding from its subversive force: in the constitu questioning itself the constitutive exterior. Being is always and tion of the we can also the exclu we, question fundamentally broken from within. This is not sions that this act of creation Who an or posits. belongs just epistemological metaphysical proposi the and who does not? And an en among people, why tion but also ethico-political one, which is constituted its exclusions us to every people through joins embrace heterogeneity and plurality as as much through inclusion? Deconstruction through playful, ironic, and at times frustratingly shares the ethos of radical democracy. ambiguous exercises of deconstruction. It is the Derrida of these later years that I Benhabib have most come to Even before Der Seyla appreciate. Yale to University rida turned cosmopolitanism and the predica ment of in "les sans-papiers" Europe, pleading for the revival of the old Judeo-Christian tradition of Note "cities of a text with the title refuge," impossible A shorter version of this text appeared in "Philosophie "Prostheses; or, The Ear of the Other" stunned des Zerbrechlichen," Die Zeit 14Oct. 2004. 470 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
DERRIDA'S EARLYWORK ISOFTEN QUITE PLAUSIBLY and however ideal their status, also end, close off, we to a thought to be about origins. Indeed, if wanted terminate, put death. In Derridean perspec to identifyan origin fordeconstruction itself,we tive, the best chance for ends is that theybecome might say that itcomes toDerrida with the thought interminable or endless and that endlessness en that the origin is irreduciblycomplex. "Originary tails rethinkingnot just the end (an endless end is as the work on Husserl was inclined no an as a synthesis," longer quite end, just nonsimple origin to and soon What an say, enough "originary trace." is not quite origin) but the implied direction Derrida calls "metaphysics" tries to lead things ality or "progress" toward it.Once getting to the back to an origin point thatwould be simple (call end is not clearly just a good (because itputs an it deconstruction involves the once "presence"); claim end to things, including the good itself) and a to an even ideal toward it that in the beginning is complexity resistant progress thereby becomes further in the strict sense a analysis and that simple problematic, then number of extraordinarily are after the fact in we origins always only retrojected difficultquestions about what still call politics more or or tune a more the less compelling stories myths that and ethics open up. In with familiar recounts. wants to account metaphysics Derrida deconstructive suspicion of oppositions, this in a for the (undeniable) effectsof presence by devel volves nothing less than rethinking of "good" a or an a oping "prior" trace- text-structure that allows itself and must lead to affirmation of nonop for what looks like presence to emerge while never positional relation between good and evil. The terms least one can is that this an unusual itselfbeing describable in of presence. say places But ifDerrida's thinking in thebeginning was weight of responsibility on the ethico-political most was events as us es obviously about beginnings, at the end it appreciation of they befall in their more about ends. so arguably Metaphysics, finding sential unpredictability, but in doing it should a us itself always in themiddle, in complexity ("in also release from the burdens of dogmatism text as not reas already," the Grammatology says), tries and moralism that still encumber, however to most efforts to think about these issues. only track that complexity back and thenderive suringly, a recent on terms as it from simple present origin point but also to The emphasis such culture in seems an put that complexity in the (convergent) perspec and history literary studies unpromis tive of an end point or resolution. Complexity ingway to respond to this legacy thatDerrida has come from meta us. to should something simple, says left The appeal history, especially, often pro a physics, and should be headed toward something vides comforting way of avoiding the hard ques simple; and that final simplicity often enough in tions that the deconstruction of the telos should a volves kind of recovery of the original simplic bring with it. This does not imply that philoso ity. The deconstruction of the origin, the arkh?, phers typicallydo betterwith such questions than a in re entails concomitant deconstruction of the telos students of literature. Philosophy will fact main to to the and thereby of the whole "archeo-teleological" unable respond challenge of decon it can with the structure that metaphysics is.What has been per struction until do better question as a more is one in ceived shift in later Derrida toward ob of reading, which place which Derrida's viously ethico-political concerns might better be legacywill inevitably be played out in the years as an to come. is an issue when we described often subtle change of emphasis Reading already try from deconstruction o? arkh? to deconstruction of to think about legacies in general, and itwill be telos,which was itselfthere from the beginning. the more acute in Derrida's case: if "to be is to in now rea as asserts in if there I think that the origin argument is herit," he Spectres de Marx, some is no inheritance without some effort of sonably well understood, however difficult reading, is as not of its implications remain. The ends argument and ifreading is thought seriously precisely much less so, and one task Derrida has left us is to to do with restoring the arkh? or promoting the seems think it through a littlefurther and to show how it telos, then it probable that reading itself not to to hermeneutic determination whatso is be separated from the origins argument. (prior any some our central as The argument about the telos might go ever) might become problem, just we to thing like this. Ends, however noble they appear struggle read Derrida's legacy. . i 2 o 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 471
seems to no those of the trace or the were There at present be philosophi especially spectral, or to account for linked to "survival" as a structural dimension. cal, theoretical, literary model constitutes the structure of what the complexity of this situation, inwhich reading [Survival] very we call existence. We are survivors, is structurallyendless. And it seems likely that the structurally marked by the structure of the trace, of the tes current organization of the university will be ill tament. I have said about survival to the most fruitful reflection Everything adapted encourage as the complication of the life-death opposition on it. The deconstructive of thinking origins, ends, me an proceeds in from unconditional affirma and should also us to be legacies, readings provoke tion of life. Survival, this is life after life, life more inventive in our academic and institutional more than life, the most intense life possible. we in arrangements than usually have been the Attention to of what we past. the very readability As we continue to learn from his work, we need to to try read, however unreadable that readability remember these words and lessons, and also be must does not in to remain, principle belong any cause one of his most cherished words, one of the academic and one asso particular discipline puts pressure words he thought for us, of the words he on the of itself.The concept discipline quite mys ciated with survival, was memory. In an interview terious fact that I can read what I read (however in 1983, he brought together the threads ofmem that remains and whatever dif were at imperfect reading ory, loss, and survival and claimed they the ficulties it disci presents) precedes any particular heart of his work and thought.There he says: plinary grasp and indeed is intrinsically quite ill disciplined and institutionally troublesome, but it If there were an experience of loss at the heart is reason I of all the loss for which I could never the only for doing what do. this, only be consoled and that brings together all the oth I GeoffreyBennington ers, would call it loss of memory. The suffering at me Emory University the origin of writing for is the suffering not or from the loss of memory, only forgetting amnesia, but the effacement of traces. I would not need to write is not IWOULD LIKE TO BEGIN BY REMEMBERING A FEW OF otherwise; my writing a or in the first place philosophical writing that Derrida's since, for so Jacques words, many years, an even in of artist, if, certain cases, itmight his words have been the ones that have made so look like that or take over from these other of ours In an interview he to many possible. gave kinds of writing. My first desire is not to pro Le monde in he asserted thathe had a August 2004, duce philosophical work or a work of art: it is never learned to live, because this would have re to preserve memory. quired that he also learn to die?to take mortal as us ity into account and to experience life survival. Let preserve the memory of Jacques Der us in same wrote Even though he reminds the interview rida, the memory of which he but also the to we that, after Plato, philosophize has meant to memory have of him and his work. It is here, learn to die, he claims to have remained "unedu in our memory of themultiple legacies he has left in to axiom. we we can cable" regard this Nevertheless, for us, that remember several of his other know lessons. that?although there are, of course, many These lessons?about philosophy, litera others?he to teach us to read the words sought ture, art, architecture, history, politics, religion, and survival. This is death, mourning, finitude, economics, ideology, law, rights, nationalism, in a certain we not to why, sense, did need wait for racism, colonialism, genocide, torture, media to us his death learnwhat itcould teach about his technologies, university institutions, capitalist and our mortality. imperialisms of all kinds, rogue states, the war As he so often reminded even we live on us, though terror, justice, responsibility, language, life, in relation to ends and life and survival are in more loss, death, and, again, mourning?are urgent scribed within them. In the same he notes and than ever interview, necessary before. Together they that "life is survival." To survive means to continue remain the most resources we significant have to to live,but also to live afterdeath. "All of the con address what is rapidly becoming the signature of on cepts that have helped my work," he goes to say, our time: the acceleration of violence, economic 472 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida P M L A
oppression, inequality, hunger, war, and ethnic, him, without but always afterhim, since to speak religious, and cultural conflict that today de and read inmemory of him is indeed to speak of so the ours but also his. fines many instances of suffering and death future, the world. throughout Eduardo Cadava If he always sought to do several things in Princeton University several ways at once, it is because he believed that nothing ever happens in isolation. All his work seeks to understand the nature of relation, to trace an I FIRSTENCOUNTERED THEWORK OF JACQUESDER the relations preventing the assertion of rida in the summer of 1968 in I had identity thatwould be self-identical to itself,that Dijon. just a on would refuse its relation to others. This insistence begun dissertation structuralism and spent the summer De la on relation belongs to an ethico-political project working through grammatolo the Iwas struck then that seeks to rethink the axiomatics that support gie, published previous year. in by the remarkable combination Derrida?un claims for the agency and responsibilities of sub in a fundamental to in terms precedented my experience?of jects without reference the relations of rethinking of, shall we say, the biggest possible which these subjects are constituted in the first his of the tradition ofWestern can no picture, analysis place. As he often reminded us, there be philosophy and thought in general as a logocen ethics or politics that does not begin with this a texts trism, and close reading of particular that sense and of relation. Indeed, what com question focused on the role of crucial details: the him to read and towrite was the key play pelled possibility of the term for which Rous of the and suppl?ment, example, transforming multiple heterogeneous seau uses in discussing writing and also sexual relations in which we live. We therefore have in desire. This was close that not at herited fromhim the to thinkabout the reading only obligation to structure tended details of language, style, and nature of inheritance. But we know that we cannot but demonstrated the constitutive power of the subscribe to an inheritance that does not invent a is marginal, how textual system made possible inheritance, that does not move it somewhere else. by what is set aside. It differed from previous After Derrida's death, it is our task?our ethical, close readings in that itdid not take for granted political, historical, and philosophical task?to the need to demonstrate the aesthetic unity of us move it carrywhat he has leftfor and toward ev the work being studied, the contribution of a the invention of future. This iswhat Derrida's an ery detail to aesthetically satisfying pattern. mean to us the of a fu writings today: possibility it and Remarkably, gained force resourcefulness ture that us a world different from the promises through its freedom from that presupposition of one we world in which find ourselves?a that, as it to Anglo-American close reading, sought because it would remain open, because it would elucidate instead larger discursive systems that the unconditional to ask critical presume right exceeded the bounds of any particular work. And even about the form and of course to questions, authority of the attention the functioning of what these is still to come. a meta questions, readers would have taken to be particular Let us remember Derrida, armed with the term in a phor, the suppl?ment Rousseau, revealed us: knowledge that he gave that mourning "pro discursive structure, which came to be seen as the vides the first chance and the terrible condition with con logic of supplementarity, far-reaching of all authorizes It and reading." Mourning reading. sequences for thinking about literary, social, us the to read. It iswhat makes texts in their gives right reading political issues. By reading singular now, it is what asks us to continue use a later become central possible, and, ity?to word that would to continue our the reading, mourning through tohis thinking?while also identifyingubiquitous reading that this impossible experience makes logics on which they relied and pervasive systems want to work possible. I believe thatDerrida would these which they contributed, Derrida's gained to a in we an acts of reading open space which might extraordinarily exciting power. work to come to terms with his absence. Let us I got to know Jacques Derrida in the fall of I was a at Yale and continue to read, then, without but always with 1975, when visiting professor i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 473
an he initiated what became annual teaching stint. fois unique, lafin du monde, is "la fin du monde to most senior comme totalit? donc et Everyone from undergraduates the unique, irrempla?able, out course donc infinie." "the end of the world as professors turned for his "La Chose"? Death, on on Wednes thus and therefore Heidegger Mondays, Ponge unique totality, irreplaceable a intellectual nevertheless leaves us this days?which gave Yale communal infinite," gift. excitement unmatched before or since. What was Jonathan Culler particularly striking thenwas his extraordinary Cornell University even mani patience with questioners, those who festlyknew nothing about his work or about the Note philosophical tradition itengaged. This openness, this the 1 accessibility, persisted through years, In addition to the early and very accessible interviews despite his fame, his charisma, and the immense of Positions, see Points... : Interviews, 1974-1994 and Ne on so Interventions and 1971-2001. demands his time of many lectures, colloqui gotiations: Interviews,
ums, classes, and students. Except with journal istswho felt themselves professionally dispensed Works Cited to or from any obligation read inform themselves, Derrida, Jacques. Negotiations: Interventions and Inter he tackle however naive. It is would any question, views, 1971-2001. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Rotten not a preciselywrong and little contemptible that berg. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. in him -. the American media revel labeling obscu Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty so Baltimore: UP, 1976. Trans. rantist, when he patiently answered questions Spivak. Johns Hopkins of De la Paris: Minuit, 1967. after innumerable talks and multiplied, through grammatologie. -. Points ... : Interviews, 1974-1994. Ed. Elisabeth the years, interviews and contributions to newspa Weber. Trans. Peggy Kamuf et al. Stanford: Stanford pers, so as to become far and away the most acces UP, 1995. Trans, o? Points de suspension: Entretiens. sible of major contemporary philosophers.1 Paris: Galil?e, 1992. The intellectual energy that led -. extraordinary Positions. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1976. Trans, of to the publication of threemajor books in 1967 Positions. Paris: Minuit, 1972. did not for as he addressed a vast -. flag fortyyears, The Work ofMourning. Ed. Pascale-Anne Brault panoply of subjects?philosophical, literary,theo and Michael Nass. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001. Trans, o? la du monde. Paris: logical, artistic, political, and ethical. His increas Chaque fois unique, fin Galil?e, 2003. ing attention in recentyears to explicitly political questions?the death penalty, racial discrimina tion, the concept of hospitality and the reception of foreigners in Europe, the spectral legacy of When a field's prescribed limitations become Marxism?was never at the cost of abandoning modes of self-perpetuation separating it from the the and resourceful of texts scrupulous reading world, its relevance becomes lost. Psychoanalysis, or an of the tradition must new interrogation philosophical Derrida argues, keep abreast of social for what it could contribute to our about thinking formations, "to measure up to all the processes of These make his present-day questions. procedures worldwide-ization underway" ("Psychoanalysis" interventions always surprising, complicating, 249).* While Derrida's contributions to the fields of inventive. His incredible intellectual and are energy philosophy, literary criticism, and architecture us an passion for writing have left with extraor acknowledged, his contribution to psychoanalytic all these those of the like the dinary gift: texts, especially theory remains, promise of psychoanaly not or past decade that have yet been fully read sis itself,only partially delivered. Addressing the assimilated. It is our to so great good fortune have StatesGeneral of Psychoanalysis in July2000, Der much Derrida to come, and so much Derrida ad rida a compiles "register of grievances" of which a come. dressing the problems of world to thediscipline "findscause to complain" (247).2His His like those of aims at death, colleagues he gesture simultaneously "condemning and mourned in the collected in as the since the two essays English saving" profession, undertakings as as The Work ofMourning, in French Chaque are, he puts it, "indissociable" (260). 474 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida P M L A
as a For Derrida, psychoanalysis mode of of sublimation, for example?the results tended criticism has not succeeded in to an deconstructing be less than satisfying.5 Itmay be said that the ontotheological phantasm of sovereignty and important limitation of his work is his failure to to the metaphysical axioms of ethics, law, and poli give any sustained consideration the operations as tics. In his judgment, the salvation of this criti of ethics resistance except in Civilization and cal mode proceeds through the identificationof a Its Discontents, where ethics coincides with civili to as double resistance: the resistance psychoanaly zation and is presented tautologically both the sis in theworld and the resistance to theworld origin and the consequence of aggression.6 in in psychoanalysis, which ends up resisting itself Derrida's project "Psychoanalysis Searches in an autoimmune fashion (242). The resistance the States of Its Soul" of redefining psychoanaly of theworld, particularly of theUnited States, to sis in terms of being "without alibi" (240), which can is to without or rationales for its psychoanalysis be traced to the triumph of say justifications a use own in delusional drive for mastery, hence the of involvement cruelty, thus may strike read economic ers as On this pharmacological methods and realpo daunting yet undeniably urgent.7 litik, among other things. By the same token the score, it is interesting to note thathe keeps desire resistance of psychoanalysis to theworld needs completely out of the discussion. In so doing, he to Derrida's more a be carefully examined. Among implicitly raises crucial question: has desire emphatic positions in the essay ishis insistence on over the years been the alibi of theory to explain or excuse scrutinizing the strictlyEuropean premises of the the fact that psychoanalysis, dependent into its as it is on the notion of the discourse, calling question lack of devel subject (however frag Asian or authorizes itself to attention oped interaction with Islamic and cultures.3 mentary split), pay not to to interests? Lacan He also does fail notice social and cultural only preeminently egotistical been slow to even so far as to formulate a phenomena that psychoanalysis has goes psychoanalytic as the in the mimics in acknowledge, such changes makeup theory that often desire being brought as as the to own as of the no-longer-so-nuclear family, well the brink of its impossibility, Malcolm "tele-technical" revolution of contemporary sci Bowie puts it (196).8 to ence (246). Such substantial mutations in these In its kinship deconstruction, psycho a enacts of domains necessitate response by psychoanaly analysis forDerrida the responsibility to mu the world.9 Of this is not to sis; the resistance of psychoanalysis these reaching course, say as a means to the ex tations likewise necessitates timely interrogation. that he views the discipline of To guide his exploration of the psychoanalytic pression ethically superior judgments?the sover of and from a field, he identifies three concepts: cruelty, condemnation cruelty sovereignty above the for to an edi eignty, and resistance. Replete with psychoanalytic position fray, example?or con But he a dimensions, these concepts themselves might fyingpedagogy of the spirit. does identify serious intellectual with stitute the interface between psychoanalysis and crucial and responsibility the of the and the world, between psychoanalysis and justice investigation indirect, potential, on or ethics. Even the briefest reflection on how the discontinuous articulations between analysis, on question of ethics in psychoanalysis has developed the one hand, and ethics, law, and politics, the as one of helps to clarify the enormity of the task thatDer other. Moreover, he regards cruelty the most to the rida sets before the critical community. horizons proper demystifying capac concern a that not In Freud's view, the for ethics aligns ity of psychoanalysis, territory ought to abandoned to and and itself with the forces of repression and resistance, be religion metaphysics as more than needs to be dissoci inasmuch its imperatives constitute the legacy that, today ever, once of and evil and retributive of the Oedipus complex. Freud character ated fromnotions good ized ethics, in a celebrated letter to Oskar Pfister, justice harboring uninterrogated figures of divine as to was and foreign him.4 Freud generally suspicious paternal authority. In his Derrida of any attempt to be reassuring about the moral ruminations, repeatedly poses on he the is there a for the death value of his profession, and when, occasion, question, "beyond" the he made effortsin thatdirection?through his theory drive and cruelty? Whatever response, i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 475
wishes to avoid lapsing into the kind of "sobered the chance or risk of responsible decision is all up progressivism" exhibited in Freud's philosophy opened up, beyond knowledge concerning the Is that to that there is no re of culture (275). Derrida detects a vacillation by possible. say lation between and ethics, law, Freud between the pessimism of his belief in the psychoanalysis or politics? No, there is, there must be in indi ineradicable persistence of the drives, of cruelty, rect and discontinuous to be sure, an consequence: and so on, and his tacit optimism in affirming as such does not any idea of that be achieved psychoanalysis produce progress may through to ethics, any law, any politics, but it belongs the constant and restriction of the displacement to responsibility, in these three domains, take forces of the drives. Derrida that Freud's argues account of psychoanalyticknowledge. (273) emphasis on themediation between the subject a Patricia and the social space ultimately necessitates Dailey into and also and Columbia "leap" the ethical, juridical po University domain. This cannot be assessed either litical, leap Alessia Ricciardi as a act or as of constative of knowledge the result Northwestern University the mastery of the performative, which succeeds only in neutralizing the alterity of the event it Notes produces. It is in the hiatus between knowledge we can 1 and performance that locate what Derrida As Kamuf notes in her introduction toWithout Al as a defines the impossible, dimension with which ibi,Derrida marks a difference between the English term must come to terms it wants and its French mondialisation: psychoanalysis if globalization counterpart not to survive to "In the latter's reference to the world (monde) only but be truly revolutionary. particular, rather than to the retains ties to the Eu to inte globe originally Against Freud's painstaking effort always vision of one world under one God, and above all an ropean grate ethics, law, and politics into economy of the Christian God" (303n2). what is and Derrida insists 2 possible appropriable, an The States General of Psychoanalysis is interna on the importance forpsychoanalysis of thinking tional and historic initiative taken by psychoanalysts, in the and in of impossible particular envisioning cluding Ren? Major, to conjoin analysts from around the what lies the beyond pleasure principle, beyond world, of different schools, to discuss the state of psycho from and South cruelty and sovereignty. analysis worldwide. While analysts North As Derrida made evident in The Post Card, America were invited, the representation of analysts from the United States was noticeably inferior, for reasons that his searching examination of Beyond the Plea or not have to do with the isolation of American sure in is may may Principle, cruelty the Freudian corpus psychoanalysis from its European counterparts. strictly associated with the death drive, which 3 This clearly does not mean that psychoanalysis, as emerges originally coupled to the drive forpower an institution, is not present in these countries. Derrida's (Bem?chtigungstrieb). For Derrida, the critic's task omission of the psychoanalytic communities in countries is to refuse, on either an intellectual or a as even can practi such Japan, India, Korea, and Algeria be read cal to surrender to the awareness as level, cynical in terms of the failure of psychoanalysis an institution to are to do other than itsmost conventional that the drives power and cruelty irreduc anything replicate no ever form of discourse. On the other hand, this does not mean ible, that politics will eradicate them. In our one that exceptions do not exist, which Derrida does not men opinion, this is of Derrida's most decisive tion. For example, since Derrida's lecture, a new psycho contributions to contemporary culture. As he poi institute was founded in 2003 inMorocco (La its analytic gnantly puts it, "Psychoanalysis is ineradicable, Soci?t? Psychanalytique du Maroc). Bennani traces the revolution is irreversible?and yet it is, as a civili development and presence of psychoanalysis in Algeria, zation, mortal" 260). its ("Psychoanalysis" Facing Morocco, and Tunisia to its postcolonial heritage but also mortal to Der destiny, psychoanalysis according formulates ways for psychoanalysis as an institution to dia rida has in the end not only something to say but logue with, adapt to, and intervene in its cultural context. 4 something to do: Freud writes to Pfister: "mir liegt die Ethik ferne." Guyomard comments on this letter (150). 5 cross a To the line of decision, leap that expels Laplanche cogently discusses the questions raised by one as Freud's notion of sublimation. outside of psychoanalytic knowledge 6 more on such is necessary. In this hiatus, I would say, For this topic, see Bersani, Freudian Body. 476 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
7 -. 9 1918. Lacan's position on ethics is even more compli Letter. Oct. Sigmund Freud /Oskar Pfister. an 1909-1939. Frankfurt am Main: 1963.63. cated. His very approach to "ethics of psychoanalysis" Briefe Fischer, in Seminar VII places egotistical desire in the position Guyomard, Patrick. Le d?sir d'?thique. Paris: Aubier, 1998. of a as categorical imperative, which he articulates the Kamuf, Peggy. "Introduction: Event of Resistance." Der provocative question "Have you acted in conformity with rida, Without Alibi 1-27. desire?" As-tu en avec ton d?sir?' your agi conformit? Lacan, Jacques. "Kant avec Sade." ?crits. Paris: Seuil, (Seminar 311; S?minaire 359). More problematic still, he 1966. 765-90. elaborates the in "Kant avec Sade" -. topic by investigating Le s?minaire de Jacques Lacan, livre VIT. L'?thique the sadistic of the in the ethi pleasure superego subject's de la psychanalyse 1959-1960. Paris: Seuil, 1986. cal endeavors. And at the end of his career, Lacan leaves -. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VII: The Ethics us in Television with the of es paradoxical undertaking ofPsychoanalysis, 1959-1960. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. an to use an tablishing ethics of style or, his terminology, Trans. Dennis Porter. New York: Norton, 1992. "ethic of the du bien dire' Well-Spoken" '?thique (Televi -. T?l?vision. Paris: Seuil, 1974. sion 41; T?l?vision 65). -. Television. Trans. Denis Rosalind Krauss, 8 Hollier, In his to the States General of speech Psychoanalysis, and Annette Michelson. New York: Norton, 1990. which addressed Freudian, Lacanian, and post-Freudian Laplanche, Jean. Probl?matiques HI: La sublimation. Derrida makes no sustained reference to psychoanalysts, Paris: PUF, 1980. Lacan's work but instead seems to privilege Freud. This is partially, one imagines, because of Lacan's formulation on the name of the father (the nom-du-p?re) as sovereign, within and outside it. The both psychoanalysis speech Jacques derrida might have appreciated being as an may thus be read oblique critique of Lacan, among invoked in the termsof the French children's song At one even others. point, Derrida jokingly confesses his to "Fr?re Jacques/' It's uncanny me, but appropri a preference for very long analytic sessions, surely taking ately so, thatGustav Mahler should have turned swipe at Lacan's infamously short s?ances (256). 9 the song into a funeralmarch in the thirdmove On the has in difficulty psychoanalysis getting past ment of his no. 1 in D nick see Symphony major, subjectivity, Bersani, "Speaking" 157-58. named Titan. After all, the song warns, "Morning bells are The connection in Works Cited ringing." homophonic the English translationmight have made Jacques Bennani, Jalil. "La au Maroc: most psychanalyse Historique chuckle. This is, simply, something learned et ?tat des lieux." Parole sans fronti?re. 11Nov. 2003. literarily from him: the historical and intertextual, 7 Mar. 2005
s ur name In more So maybe it's Jackie instead, the this time of mourning, of those to one as now return to me: itwas he changed that was, Derek Attridge and words, traces, Jacques more me we not want Thomas Baldwin put it, "a 'correct' French Derrida who best taught that do version." Yet we know, from the United States as to let go of those we love whom we've lost, and as that is is for success much from any other "democracy," that "the why mourning impossible, ful kills our love fratriarchy may include cousins and sisters but mourning again: "Mourning ... come to mean In must be Successful is failed including may neutralizing. impossible. mourning In I cluding may dictate forgetting,for example, with mourning. successful mourning, incorporate 'thebest of all intentions,'that the sisterwill never the one who has died, I assimilate him tomyself, a I reconcile with and I provide docile example for the concept of fra myself death, consequently ... in death and the of the dead other and ternity. What happens when, taking up the deny alterity as I am case of the sister, the woman ismade a sister? And of death other. therefore unfaithful. Where the of a sistera case of thebrother?" (viii). So he spoke of introjection mourning succeeds, mourning annuls the other" (Derrida and Roudinesco pluralism in the nation-state. 160). a a Successful is an act of he tells But "Fr?re Jacques" is song about different mourning infidelity, in the of faithfulness.And kind of brother, a monk, and here iswhere Iwant to us, infidelity spirit yet we For us our must commit that act of or, rather, pause. many of who spent time ponder infidelity, we do. inghis livingwords in the 1970s and 1980s at Yale, was a He me too thatwhen we feel haunted Jacques Derrida like Zen teacher to whom taught those loved and lost, it is not our we brought our foolish studentquestions and from by always by own we answers re private ("the fromwhich the whom received mysterious that ghosts crypt comes back to someone else" our to us in like ghost belongs turned questions estranged form, He us ["Fors"119n21]). The hungry ghosts of koans. taught something about pedagogy. history us we must to haunt too, and speak and with I remember going to his office hours when I them. Their return is also an the re-venant was a arrival, doing year of research in graduate school at an arrivant, in the of the absolute the?cole Normale Sup?rieure inParis. I spenthours unforeseeability future to come This is the future to was (Specters 175). thinking about what say in advance. That Derrida of so It is a fu Iwas Jacques spoke hopefully. when reading Glas, that deeply mysterious and ture our a that impels ethical wishes, future where graphically beautiful book with differentlytypeset we honor unfaithfully the rearrivais his words dual columns of prose. So I thought,OK, Iwill ask continue to make possible. ProfessorDerrida why Glas ends (both columns) in themiddle of a sentence. I didn't notice then that it Carla Freccero also begins that way?or, rather, from my studies of University of California, Santa Cruz Vergil and the early work of Edward Said in Begin is nings (he another whose voice and words haunt Works Cited this occasion), Iwas more familiar with, and readier res. Attridge, Derek, and Thomas Baldwin. Der for, the idea that texts begin inmedias "Jacques rida." Guardian Unlimited 11 Oct. 2004. 10Mar. And so I said, "Monsieur le I have professeur, 2005 a does Glas end in themiddle of a
-. Politics Trans. Collins. Lon sense as an of Friendship. George munity makes economic union and, don: Verso, 1997. perhaps, for the purpose of cooperative educa -. de suivi de l'oreille de Politiques l'amiti?, Heidegger. can a tional ventures, it create common system Paris: Galil?e, 1994. of in the area of human -. judicial authority rights? Specters ofMarx: The State of theDebt, theWork of Derrida, in a moving pamphlet affirming the Mourning, and theNew International. Trans. Peggy Abrahamic law of and Kamuf. New York: Routledge, 1994. Trans, of Spec hospitality elaborating version tres de Marx: L'?tat de la dette, le travail du deuil et la Kant's of that right, which guarantees nouvelle Internationale. Paris: 1993. a on Galil?e, everyone safe dwelling place the surface of and Elisabeth Roudinesco. "Death Pen Derrida, Jacques, the earth (it is also the foundation of perpetual alties." For What A Tomorrow... Dialogue. Trans. Jeff on a new peace), reflects the possibility of localism Fort. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2004. 139-65. Trans, of that validates the ancient institution of "cities of ... "Peines de mort." De quoi demain Dialogue. Paris: Fayard; Galil?e, 2001. 223-67. refuge" (Cosmopolites). Several factors in the for a Said, Edward. Beginnings: Intention and Method. Balti struggle European more: Johns Hopkins UP, 1975. identity have emerged clearly. One is the dan gerous fallout from a religious or parareligious enormous com politics, the losses of lives and munities as ideological imperatives of one kind [J]e n'h?siterai pas ? dire <(nous les Europ?ens." or another,with irreconcilable beliefs, ?Derrida (Le monde, 19 Aug. 2004) apparently their Can now mul impose hegemony. the new, or ticultural alliance called "Europe," Malraux's AN IMPORTANTASPECT OF DERRIDA'S LEGACY IS "Atlantic civilization" (the latter jeopardized by his steadfast meditation on a Europe: post recent overcome American policy), its record of remains Enlightenment Europe that, he insisted, foreign conquest, slave labor, and internal, self characterized a "en by self-critique permanence."1 inflicted This the of persecutions? critique respects necessity defining An old comes to mind: "The victors and the idea of as it reestablishes adage refining Europe create it desolation and call peace." This desolate itself and momentum after a of co gathers history a not peace includes silencing of dissent: only of lonialization, two world wars, and the Holocaust. opposition parties but also of heteroglossia gener Derrida, wishes to think of Europe and clearly, The of a the West as more than a crime scene. ally. fostering genuine multilingualism, of a broad cultural?not conse intensi only officially The importance of defining Europe crated?collective is therefore a counter wars. memory, fies during and after the Napoleonic It plays a in political necessity. significant role Novalis's "Christentum oder A issue for a that an furthermajor thinking Europa" (c. 1800), essay whose nostalgic religi wishes to make a difference is the demise of on s paci osity and attack the Enlightenment "shameless fism and other nonviolent alternatives. light" ("das frecheLicht") upset some of his more political since in The idea Pacifism has practically disappeared the revolutionary friends the Jena circle. of war. sets a to an over second world This fact limit the ef Europe encompasses evangelical struggle fectiveness not of antiwar but also of what unifying civic creed embodies it,or might only writing ideals that do not at first related. do so. Can the creed be secular, or does it involve, appear, glance, as a a return to a which These are form of action and the inevitably, political religion, suffering a meditative force within makes righteous, colonizing claim of universal strange, writing?more ifalso more in themixed ity?Novalis called himself a "mysticalRepublican." obscurely, deeply,present a new intellectual and affectof thenonver Derrida, for his part, talks of cosmopolitan physiological as bal arts. Can the arts, in the run, contribute politics he characterizes "altermondialiste." long Eurocentric is in to a decisive alteration of consciousness? Can Today the perspective they to d?sarm?" Robert An creasingly attacked for its imperialist past and is help achieve the "parole theHolocaust internally fragmented or "balkanized" by both telme called forafter (68)?2 nationalisms and antinationalisms centered on When thinkers like Derrida, with the ut ethnic identitypolitics. Even ifa European Com most consistency and by what might be called i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 479
an distinction to the of consciousness extraordinary-language (in Despite unceasing play a ordinary-language) philosophy, show that lan and despite the absence of transcendental signi can a desire for the guage is not only thevehicle of thoughtbut always fied, language express peace at aware we also its object?that its power of signification is the heart of agitation. Once of this, never its call itfree indefeasibly linked not to transcendence but to should forget jongleur aspect, a return or another name. If there is no transcen its capacity for critical upon itself?the play by is to ob there is also no closure death, and journalistic response label them abstruse, dence, except scure, obscurantist, even nihilist. Or, with Derri this may contribute to the melancholy that hov ers over da's passing, the End of theAge ofGrand Theory Derrida's work. Thinking, writing, and a new seem to in Derrida; with his death is (once more) announced and Age of Mod grieving merge we in that Yet an ex est Thought predicted (see Eakin). participate merging. though lifehas the as The misleading implication in this is that ceptionally generous closed, Book, in sciences aims not to he himself us, the Livre ? venir he theory the human open taught ongoing was remains up fields of knowledge but to demystify them and creating, open. a this way reputation for intellectual mastery. gain GeoffreyHartman But inDerrida (hence the sense that he is theory Yale University no ambition of poststructuralist) has triumphal this kind. He displays its textdependence, its in a texture Notes extricable involvement with linguistic 1 us that makes question totality claims because The Le monde interview of 19 August 2004 contains an statement on not as it we cannot tellwith certaintywhat iswithin the eloquent the idea of Europe, now ? et se or its exists but "une Europe venir, qui cherche" "work" (ergon) outside borders (parergon). an exten ("Jacques Derrida"). Every text has indefinite intertextual 2 Cf. Blanchot: words cease to be arms, means of new "May sion, and any discourse is necessarily grafted action, means of salvation" (11). on an older, many-layered palimpsest of formula tions. To liberate or disseminate a verbal words, Works Cited means to artifacts cultural capital, first recognize a massive and intricate historical debt and then to Antelme, Robert. Textes in?dits I Sur l'esp?ce humaine / et as Essais t?moignages. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. acknowledge, Foucault also does, that all dis Maurice. The the Disaster. Trans. course Blanchot, Writing of systems achieve closure by exclusions. This Ann Smock. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1986. must in seems fact be kept mind lest what natural Derrida, Jacques. Cosmopolites de tous lespays, encore un or to definitive proves be arbitrary. effort! Paris: Galil?e, 1997. In the present situation a resilient thinking -."Jacques Derrida: 'Je suis en guerre contre moi about the and art, language, interpretation, play m?me.'" Interview with Jean Birnbaum. Le monde free exchange of ideas?all apparently superstruc 19 Aug. 2004. 10Mar. 2005
testation. The real battleground remains language Onedaysomeonemaymakeaninventoryofthe or, more discourses even when itself, precisely, that, conferences, symposia, and colloquiums, through a they require specialized terms of art, should find out the world, that were concerned with Derrida's of received statement. was as an way examining every They work and at which he present interlocu can then return to the without tor. events in colloquial pander Such would probably number the or ing dumbing down. Language, with its deceptive hundreds. Countless, then, would be all those is a presentational powers, crucial part of every is present who had the chance to receive the gener sue and whatever our sustained reflection of as so remains, osity his thought when, frequently hap touches a was on to on, morally exigent partner. pened, he called engage others in public 48o Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
discourse. I heard such in the seen or at an many exchanges merely looked of object of percep last in the summer of are twenty-five years, beginning tion. Wordlessly his eyes said, You another, 1980 with a at now at me. ten-day colloquium Cerisy-la-Salle, altogether other, looking This quality in France. were more was nor Normandy, There three of the gaze neither transfixing piercing, "d?cades at once Derrida" Cerisy?in 1992, 1997, and but again expansive and moving. It moved a one one s own 2002?which remain series unprecedented in the into the open space where look does center. return can never see history of this legendary conference I also not to itself and itself. In the or in numerous events text attended participated other extraordinary Derrida wrote for the Louvre with him and can now reflect on reasons Derrida in 1990,Memoirs of theBlind: The Self-Portrait was out in a a repeatedly sought public forum. and Other Ruins, his analysis, which is also self I have mentioned an his generosity, attribute portrait, pursues the hypothesis that the central to to invariably cited characterize his response traitof every self-portrait is blindness. The blind interlocutors. But I this arises man or woman believe recognition would thus be the supreme figure from un to see the experience of something altogether of the artist. Derrida, whose gaze seemed was saw man in or as like ordinary ideas of generosity. It certainly without end, also the blind him not the in the the so experience vicinity of "great self.And that is perhaps what made his gaze man" whose is can to a or greatness such he bestow touching, quality that remains visible sensible on even in I mean kens lessermortals without diminishing his many photographs of him. touch own not in sense in store, indeed while adding to his reputation ing the weak, sentimental but the or in sense sense one for generosity. As the greatest thinker today, of the of touch, eyes that touched as were His text on sense any age, of the paradoxes of the gift,and pitilessly if they fingers. great the own lucid as he was about his or anyone else's of touch at the heart of the work of his friend was not an "greatness," Derrida surely easily deluded Jean-LucNancy begins with just such image, ruses a about the endless of the self's calculation. in the form of phrase that, he writes, invaded He showed why a gift, if it is possible, must be and touched him before he saw it coming: "When as of our are or impossible the experience any subject, giver eyes touching, is itday is itnight?" (Le or is an givee. This impossibility, however, that toucher 11). This astonishingly beautiful book, as is an immense he thought affirmatively?generously?for, which deconstructive retouching of name on sets he wrote, "if the gift is another of the im the tradition of discourse the five senses, we we name we possible, still think it, it, desire out from the question this image-phrase provokes one can it.We intend it.... Perhaps there is nomination, in the it has invaded. He asks, "[Ljet's see, or intention ever touch each first of can language, thought, desire, only where eyes other, all, they movement to there is this still for thinking, desir press together like lips?" (12). He who pretends ing, naming thatwhich gives itself to be neither ask that question would surely have known that, nor known, experienced, lived" (Given Time 29). yes, they can?and they did. room I will mention one last trait about the immea His generosity, I would say, expanded the movement surable radius of Derrida's radiance at the for this of thought, desire, and naming; gath ithappened time and again in all those hundreds erings his work made happen and will doubtless rooms was to for a time to of conference when he there listening, continue make happen long come, His this is our enormous loss?with responding, "thinking, desiring, naming." although?and was out or and his presence, in other words, expansive. his voice his gaze, without laughter. Another quality of theman thatmay have led His taste for laughter never seemed to fail him, was many to repeat their encounters with him his except perhaps when he addressed those who in was to see someone a On other gaze. To look him the eyes gathered upon the death of friend. all seeing you see, which sounds a bit dizzying, and occasions, and indeed in all his writings, laugh it I that one ter even the most serious discussions. perhaps was, but would say rather punctuates was a or theme of had then the physical sensation of trembling in Laughter rarely subject analysis awareness more one to see. His itwas more like a tone the of being than for him; sustaining always gaze held yours, did not let itdisappear into the running in the background. All the public events i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 481
with Jacques that I recall, including theweekly Phenomena: Introduction to theProblem of the or most seminars I attended in Paris at the University of Sign in the Phenomenology of Husserl, and, were me at California, Irvine, visited by bursts of laugh important for the time, Of Grammatology. own sense I was on a ter, usually provoked by his exuberant by then working dissertation about or out for ofwonderful absurdities and ironies by his in Rousseau, puzzling why critics?searching to or comparable attention the surprises of language. influences thematic unity?disagreed strongly With each outburst, one sensed his immense joy about Rousseau's work and with respect to The in being alive to and with others. New Heloise (his novel written between the great How fortunate are all those with whom he social works and the autobiography) found a sense we even no shared that joy.How much will miss him from of disorder, incoherence. With adequate now on. model for reading this work, sensing it impor not to tant resolve the contradictions too quickly, Peggy Kamuf I was compelled by Derrida's remarkable way of University of Southern California I reading Rousseau within the Western tradition. had a hunch that this complex work would be im Works Cited portant to the future of literary studies inNorth America. Derrida wrote, "Because we are Derrida, Jacques. Given Time: 1. Counterfeit Money. begin to to we Trans. Peggy Kamuf. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992. ning write, write differently, must reread -. Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other differently'(87; my emphasis). Derrida's question Ruins. Trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Naas. Michael ing of received assumptions throughwriting and U of P, 1993. Chicago: Chicago differenceduring the turbulent times of the 1960s -. Le toucher, Jean-Luc Nancy. Paris: Galil?e, 2000. resonated with those interested in the relation between literature and philosophy. Michel Fou cault wrote toDerrida in 1963 that "the first (or LET ME TAKE YOU BACK TO 1966, WHEN IWAS A fundamental) act of philosophy is undoubtedly at for us?and for a time?the act of graduate student in French Yale University. A long reading" and Mallet charismatic assistant professor, Jacques Ehrmann (Michaud 111). In a 1979 I (who tragically died very young), returned with Montreal conference coorganized great excitement from the JohnsHopkins Uni with Claude L?vesque around Derrida's work, on versity,where he had just attended the conference Derrida reflected the term deconstruction. At The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of first theword appeared little in his writing: from one word out of within Man. He recounted the extraordinary encounter many (trace, diff?rance), a with Roland Barthes, Jacques Lacan, JeanHyp system itdid not command, deconstruction had a polite, Claude L?vi-Strauss, and brilliant and become the much disputed catchword (already as for a series of yet unknown young thinker, Jacques Derrida, then!) philosophical, literary, and The term to a along with others.1 The conference happened dur pedagogical questions. pointed dis a moment of ing transitional when many people mantling systems for the purpose of analyzing were on structures. Derrida "It so ... reflecting the relation of the individual said, happens that to and within linguistic, philosophical, literary, thisword which I had written only once or twice ... a was psychoanalytic, political, and cultural systems. all of sudden jumped out of the text and The theoretical explosion of the 1960s in France seized by others who have since determined its took off,moving away from the inheritance of fate-For me 'deconstruction' was not at all the exis first or the last and not a nineteenth-century hermeneutics and the word, certainly password tentialist work of Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir in or slogan for everything thatwas to follow" (Ear thewake ofWorld War II, during the "linguistic 86). He explained, "When others got involved in in were ana turn," which language and writing it, I tried to determine this concept inmy own as both a a that is to I was lyzed tool and basis of thought. manner, according what thought Derrida published threemajor works the fol the rightmanner, which I did by insisting on the it was not a a lowing year: Writing and Difference, Voice and fact that question of negative 482 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida PMLA
He then affirmed how much he as con Operation...." especially the Western millennial turn has texts cared about the he deconstructed "with that tinued, widened, and deepened. But those in the impulse of identificationwhich is indispensable humanities will need to forge the conditions of this as for reading" (87). Strong identification well particular epistemological survival and its contin as resistance also ued in a has propelled the deconstruc relevance world impatient with complex tive readings of thosewho have worked with and ityand even disdainful of the intellectual. around However Derrida's writing. controversial Derrida's writing be a on came and as certain While conducting written interview fem remains, articles and obitu inism with Derrida a few years later, I inscribed aries following his death attest, thework inspired others around him to to and to questions from long-standing conversations about think, write, ques feminismwith my friendsAlice Jardine,Nancy K. tion. Long-term influence is difficult to predict but I believe we can texts Miller, and the late Naomi Schor, among others now, say about Derrida's I what he said of those he relished ("Choreographies"). asked?by way of Emma deconstructing: move their "future ... will not be exhausted for a Goldman's famous critique of the feminist long
ment: "If I can't dance I don't want to be part of time" (Ear 87). revolution"?about the in your questioning ways ChristieMcDonald which inequalities forwomen become institution Harvard University alized and whether Derrida saw (withGoldman) a more the need for radical restructuring of soci In on a Note ety. reflecting "'new' concept of woman," Derrida cautioned comfort in the 1 against taking Others who participated included Ren? Girard, notion of progress for the women's movement and Charles Moraz?, Georges Poulet, Eugenio Donato, Lu cien Tzvetan Neville questioned the dualistic thinking thatwould op Goldmann, Todorov, Guy Rosolato, Dyson-Hudson, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Nicolas Ruwet. For pose man to woman; he did not answer the insti a on report the conference, see Macksey and Donato. tutional question directly.Yet he addressed larger questions stillwith us today (despitemuch prog Works Cited resswithin institutions):What is the place of or one for women? How does deal with the tensions Derrida, Jacques. "Choreographies." Interview with and ethical differences between feminists (not Christie McDonald. Diacritics 12.2 (1982): 66-76. Rpt. in Derrida, Ear 163-86. all of a piece) and other political groups to cre -. The Ear the Other: ate change? And Derrida ends with thepossibility of Otobiography, Transference, Translation. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1988. that holds out for a differentkind vigilant analysis -. Trans. one never or Of Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty of future: that lets go fully of the past Spivak. Corrected ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, moves fully outside the categories inscribed in the 1997. tradition, remains to yet open change. Macksey, Richard, and Eugenio Donato, eds. The Struc Literature remained a force for strong many turalist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences Man. Baltimore: thinkers of the 1960s generation, who for all their of Johns Hopkins UP, an on 1972. differences made impact many disciplines areas in France ar Michaud, Ginette, and Marie-Louise Mallet, eds. Der and of thought. What began rida. Paris: L'Herne 83, 2004. rived in theUnited States first at JohnsHopkins, then within French, humanities, and comparative literature departments in the 1960s and 1970s, spreading in translation toEnglish and other fields Oneofthestrongestderrideaninfluenceson rest as in the 1980s. The is history, they say, with my thinking has been his notion of the "wholly controversies names as the changes and many that attended other" (tout autre). What Derrida these transfers. The intellectual history of what has "other" is different from what cultural studies come to as means the word. In the "other" widely be known "French poststruc usually by latter, names turalism" shows how deeply ithas affectedmany the otherness of the racial, ethnic, gender, or other. For one's disciplines?even reaching the "hard sciences"? class Derrida, neighbor, friend, , 1 2 O Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 483
or as sans or beloved is as much other any stranger from if" in L'Universit? condition. Literature, or can re another country another culture. The wholly what Derrida here calls "fiction," always other became more and more a salient motif in spond (or refuse to respond) by saying, That was Derrida's work. I speaking not as myself but as an imaginary per One way to approach theDerridean wholly sonage speaking in a work of fiction, by way of a sover si." You cannot hold me for other is by way of his distinction between "comme responsible eignty and (theword is a neologism in English) my "as ifs." for Der How can a to a "unconditionally." Unconditionality is, refusal take responsibility, a name to state rida, for the research university's hy refusal addressed sovereign powers, be as pothetical freedom from outside interference. defined "perhaps the highest form of respon or to can a Derrida defines the university's unconditionality sibility"? To whom what else it have as to Derrida's answer to this the privilege without penalty put everything higher obligation? ques in even to in to tion of new question, put question the right goes by way the concept of performa tive in put everything in question. In the interviewwith language he proposes "Psych?: L'invention as Derek Attridge that forms the first essay in the de l'autre" and again the climax of L'Universit? on sans seem volume of Derrida's essays literature that At condition. It might that literature, conceived Derrida as an "as a uncon tridgegathered and called Acts ofLiterature, Der by if," free, in same as rida defines literature much the way ditioned fiction, consists of unconditioned perfor more recent on he defines the university in lectures mative speech acts, speech acts based neither nor (Inconditionnalit?; L'Universit?). Those lectures previously existing institutionalized sanctions are on a on I utters based fundamental distinction between the authority of the who the speech act. sovereignty and unconditionality. This unconditionality, itmight seem, is especially What is the difference? Sovereignty, says manifested in literarystudy. is a It Matters not so In Derrida, theologically based "phantasm." are, however, quite simple. is something that looks like it is there but is not the last section o? L'Universit? sans condition, in sov there. Sovereignty has three features: (1) The the seventh summarizing proposition, Derrida is He or to one ereign above the law. she is free subvert makes furthermove that undoes all he has as said so the the law, in the act of pardon. (2) The concept of far about university's unconditionality. cannot a not sovereignty be dissociated from the idea of He poses "hypothesis" that he admits may be the nation-state. (3) The sovereign is God's vicar, "intelligible" to his Stanford audience (79).What appointed by God, authorized by God. Even in is this strangehypothesis? It is the presupposition a a country like the United States, country that that the unconditional independence of think was on on a founded the principle of the separation of ing in the university depends strange and church and the to act state, Pledge of Allegiance the anomalous speech that brings about what Der now as an or flag defines the United States "one Nation rida calls "event" "the eventful" (l'?ventuel are a a under God." Such assumptions phantasm, [76]).This speech act is anomalous both because it in no does not on ghost broad daylight, since verifiable data depend preexisting rules, authorities, exist on which to base them. as a and contexts, felicitous Austinian speech act no such and because it not au Unconditionality has, apparently, does, also does posit freely, fraudulent basis. Literature is de theological tonomously, lawlessly, outside all such preexisting in its modern form on the rise of con pendent contexts, as, for example, de Manian speech acts stitutional democracies in the West from the seem to or as in do, judges do Austin's surprising on on seventeenth century and the unconditional and even scandalous formula "As official acts, the democratic to to freedom say anything?that is, judge's ruling makes law" (154). in Such a is act a put everything question. democracy No, the speech Derrida has in mind is of course never is wholly established. It always "to response to the call of what Derrida calls "le tout come" Acts the to some (Derrida, 37). autre," wholly other. This response is This definition of literature allows one to un or It a or degree passive submissive. obeys call derstand better the role of the "comme si" or "as command. All we can do is profess faith in the 484 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
call or pledge allegiance to it.Only such a speech able philosophical injunction: to philosophize is a act constitutes genuine "event" that breaks the to learn how to die" ("Jacques Derrida"). But if, course an event is predetermined of history. Such from thePhaedo onward, preparing for the future It an "impossible." is always uncertain matter of event of one's death has been philosophy's call Derrida Nietzsche calls "this dan us a what, recalls, ing, Derrida would recall to different under gerous perhaps" (VUniversit? 75). Nevertheless, standing of finitude, to a thinking of death less as says Derrida, "seul l'impossible peut arriver," something that comes "after" life (as if these terms the can arrive only impossible (or, translating could ever be discrete) than as an immanent com can make it to shore That an etymologically, [74]). ponent of life?as otherness whose structural is Derrida of "le ?v?nement why speaks possible inherencebecomes legible in and as thepredicates de l'inconditionnel le tout the impossible, autre," ofwriting: "The trace that I leave signifies tome of the uncondi to come or possible happening impossible both my death, either already past, and tional, the other (76). Derrida is me. an wholly playing the hope that itwill survive It's not ambi here on the root sense o? event as that something tion ofmortality, it's structural. I leave behind a comes, that arrives. It appears of its own accord es piece of paper, I leave, I die. It's impossible to and in its own time. We can yes or, good only say cape from this structure; it's the constant form of no to it.We cannot call the other. perhaps, wholly my life.Every time I allow something to go forth, It calls us. I see in my death the writing." Part of Derrida's is this al permanent legacy not Death, in other words, does simply wait ternative notion of otherness. for life to end but, as a structural effectof writing's divides the liv J.H illis Miller complex temporality,primordially from itself. in one of his ear University of California, Irvine ing present Already liest books, Derrida suggested that "my death is to the of the I" Works Cited structurally necessary pronouncing ("Supplement" 96). IfPoe's infamous "I am dead" Austin, J.L. How toDo with Words. Ed. J.O. Urm on a Things could become this basis necessarily possible son and Marina Sbis?. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, utterance, this is because it exemplifies, however 1980. weirdly, the "normal situation" of writing. Derrida's Derrida, Jacques. Acts Literature. Ed. Derek Attridge. of more recent on works Marx, Heidegger, and others New York: Routledge, 1992. what he called its -. Inconditionnalit? ou souverainet?: L'universit? aux explored writing's spectrality, of the limit lifeand death fronti?res de l'Europe. Allocutions by Dimitris Dimi haunting keeping apart. roulis and Georges Veltsos. Annotations by Vanghelis Between these earlier and later volumes (adjec Bitsoris. Athens: Patakis, 2002. seem to to someone whose tives that scarcely apply -. L'Universit? sans condition. Paris: Galil?e, 2001. not over Derrida's im thought did "develop" time), mense corpus has been shadowed by this thought of death and writing, of death inwriting. Whether as in ABSENT FROMTHE AVALANCHEOF OBITUARIESAs manifest physical absence, absence of mind, was as unconsciousness, or death's sessing Derrida's legacy the realization that, sincerity, repetition, a on unassimilable entails that, even part of career-long meditation writing and death, non-self-presence while still the author must have Derrida had made theobituary intoa philosophical writing, already even "To write is to a mark... which genre. Perhaps the philosophical genre. departed: produce in hin In what was to become his final interview, my future disappearance will not, principle, der in its Derrida in Derrida admitted to a preoccupation with death functioning," argued "Signa ture a to be a that defined the entirety of his life: "No, I have Event Context." "For writing writing never learned to live.Not at all! To learn to live itmust continue to 'act' and to be readable even no means to learn to die, to take into account, to ac when what is called the author of the writing res answers for what he has written" cept complete mortality (without salvation, longer (8). or nor Roland in urrection, redemption?neither for oneself Following the death of Barthes, vener Derrida over the next for any other person). Since Plato, that's the 1980, composed twenty i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 485
a memorial tributes a or a series years series of extraordinary school, will itbe library, the huge of a to an that we need to to friends and colleagues towhom he felt special his works leading archive as a a closeness thinker. Collected recently in The explore? For while, the second option should more a Work ofMourning (the French title is far dominate, personality providing "way" of writ was so evocative: Chaque fois unique, lafin du monde ing quite compatible with the "aporias" he 'Each Time Unique, the End of theWorld'), these adept atmultiplying. Derrida's impact on scholars moving pieces address publicly what itmeans to disseminated all over theworld cannot be taken mourn to to do so and acknowledge debt when lightly: the echo his writings found in domains risks the of the dead in the as as betraying singularity diverse architecture, legal studies, political of memorial conventions. even is repetitive generality theory, and clothing fashion impressive. Derrida assumes that risk ex Characteristically, He did more than the typical French intellectual the to new plicitly throughout series, bringing who discusses glibly everything under the sun. levels of his reflectionson the of or intensity writing When Derrida broached European American death. For even some of the were though pieces politics, homelessness and refugees, hospitality firstdelivered all of them are in rise orally, writing and the of racism, computerized technology their essence, that death constitutes at once given and ghosts in the machine, nationalism and the their and their condition. In each act of to subject death penalty, cruelty animals and justice, fun commemoration in the volume, Derrida attends was a damentalism and mourning, it always with to the ways that, in and rep writing, singularity recognizable mixture of prudence and incisive etition shear each other as death temporally just ness that had few equals. One might object that life. To choose such a for Der splits open subject, these interestsadhere too closely or fashionably to not to a rida, is only make the obituary into philo our are Zeitgeist and that fashion's tenuous fabrics more sophical genre, this alone would be soon more though ripped open by cutting edges than to define a It is also, enough legacy. perhaps, Will the legacybe deconstruction, then?Der tomake the the if the obituary only genre possible wished to even rida preserve this word, though he of life and death is to be pursued with thinking paid attention to the danger of pigeonholing or the discretion, power, and inventiveness that Der imposing boundaries on a style of thinking that rida to it. brought at on move. was aimed being constantly the He Andrew Parker wary of anymethod thatwould repeat strategies identified with an Amherst College author's signature. This may have come from the ease with which he could don the mask and become "Derrida" himself. One sees Works Cited a scene this in of the eponymous film Derrida, Derrida, Derrida: suis en contre Jacques. "Jacques 'Je guerre when the young woman who interviews him asks moi-m?me.'" Interview with Birnbaum. Le monde Jean to him talk about love?Derrida refuses, pleads 19 2004. 18Mar. 2005
entire ex the fact that deconstruction had turned into the corpus of his philosophy, Derrida a rules, procedures, and techniques. He parodied hibited his body, paraded his circumcision, and method that could boil down to systematic rever called himself a "little black and very Arab Jew" a Derrida became an alter of sals of hierarchies: "Afterhaving reversed binary (58). ego Augustine, whatever it one an opposition, may be?speech/writing, of the church's founding fathers but Af rican man/woman, spirit/matter, signifier/signified, before being Christian. Here, perhaps, lies and so Derrida's true in signified/signifier, master/slave, on?and legacy, the subtleway which he having liberated the subjugated and submissive complicated the religious question by suggest one then to a between and Muslims. term, proceeded the generalization ing deep fraternity Jews a of this latter in new traits,producing a different This works by refusal of the apparentlyHegelian of the modern our concept, for example another concept of writing destiny world, globalized post as so via the such trace, diff?rance, gramme, text, and on." Christianity spreading "globalatinization" was not so domination of American and technosci Derrida much deriding wooden appli English as ences Here is how Derrida came to a cations of his concepts asserting that decon (Acts 51). trucewith instead of as he did struction could only remain deconstructive if it Levinas; stressing in "Violence and that no resisted thedrift of itsown methodology. Refusing Metaphysics" "Jewish" of otherness could its the idea ofmethod and instrumentality, decon thinking forget inscription struction could not be "offeredfor didactic trans in the "Greek" language of philosophy, he called for a new of for mission, susceptible of acquiring the academic concept justice, upholding hope status a a without messianism or the Mes and dignity of quasi-interdisciplinary dis "messianicity" siah Not that he wanted to the cipline" ("Deconstructions" 19). If the issue is to (Acts 56). bypass a one to of dead texts, and writers that make let the chance of future open, has gamble weight signs, on an a tradition itwith a "impossible" that destroys any standardized up by canceling simple prom ise of Derrida's is contained in a method. Can this desire be part of his legacy?Can futurity. legacy movement of that forms a thewish to keep the edge of futurityand impos reading deliberately vicious circle, from the misconstrued sibility traversedeath, itswills, bequests, codicils, regularly statement that there is "no outside of the text" rectifications, translations, commentaries, with (Of 58) to the accent laid on a out leaving successors in a double bind, having Grammatology critique to be unfaithful in order to remain faithful?This generalized to all aspects of life, so that ethical leads me to surmise that deconstruction will not and political questions disrupt the boundaries of His globalized economies of meaning. subsequent be Derrida's legacy. will be the with which this funda What will his legacy be, then? Perhaps, first, legacy rigor ethical criticism avoided moral sancti the need to meditate on his evolution, a progres mentally to to moniousness by taking heart the need speak sion from Husserl to Levinas and from Heidegger or write in several at once. to languages Marx (e.g., Specters) that dramatized "hauntol an undermined less and ogy," ontology by writing Jean-Michel Rabat? its differences than the of hid specific by specter University of Pennsylvania den ethical issues. This was not a belated reconcili
ation with Marxism but rather the assertion that a Works Cited concern with social justice had always been at the heart of deconstruction. The confrontation with Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Religion. Ed. Gil Anidjar. New Marx initiated themost insistent themes of the York: Routledge, 2002. -. "Circumfession." Jacques Derrida. By Geoffrey later writings, like mourning, justice, ethics, reli and Derrida. Chicago: U of Chicago P, Derrida's last decade saw a turn Bennington gion. spectacular 1993. 3-315. to the the and the This ethical, political, religious. -. "Deconstructions: The Im-possible." French The turn was not, however, a return to but ac religion ory inAmerica. Ed. Sylv?re Lotringer and Sande Co an tone ushered in companied autobiographical hen. New York: Routledge, 2001. 13-32. "Circumfession." to Geof -. by There, counterpoint Of Grammatology. Trans. Gayatri Chakravorty freyBennington's wonderfully pithy exposition of Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 487
-. New York: Specters ofMarx. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. spond to thequestion, "What should I do?" On the 1994. Routledge, one hand, the response must be "as thoughtful and -. on "Violence and Metaphysics: An Essay the as it a responsible possible"; demands "question of Emmanuel Levinas." and Thought Writing Dif without limit."On the other hand, a decision U of ing ference. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: Chicago P, must be made, an act "with the utmost 1978. 79-153. performed, urgency" (296). Reflection will and must be inter it "itself" as rupted by action?be by reflection an ac reflective inaction (for "inaction is already It ISLIKELY THAT WILLI NEVERAGAIN INMY LIFEBE a an a tion, decision, engagement, responsibility set a more obviously impossible writing assign thathas been taken" [296]). Hence theDerridean ment. To to assess Derrida's is try Jacques legacy on of the emphasis the uninsurability decision, to move into, or, better, find oneself mov already incalculable risk towhich any genuine act of judg an a where the ing within, aporia: place path (po an an ment exposes itself. Ethical action is aporia, own movement ros) becomes its blockage, where impossibility that, impossibly,we experience?a becomes at once and un impossible necesssary, which we are blocked path along always moving. thinkable The hand writes yet ongoing. writing as a We recall that, philosopher, writer, and public must: ismore than the task on?it nothing urgent intellectual, Derrida intervened in any number of multifaceted of assessing this gigantic, legacy? ethical and political contexts?sometimes cagily, but we know in advance how our phantasmatic on occasion sometimes directly, depending the progress will feel. It is not just that Derrida wrote and its demands. Neither in nor in prac or on a theory some seventy books, that he wrote such tice is deconstruction (let us affirmthat embattled or vast array of writers and topics, that his writ an or de word) attitude technology of quiescence, exerted influence the humanities, ings throughout or as so assert. spair, nihilism, its detractors often the visual arts, and some of the social sciences; it Pressed as I am to characterize, almost in is not just that fordecades he was a public figure, a Derrida's let me risk the claim a whose name has phrase, legacy, locus of fantasy and obsession, thathis work has taught us to think and to affirm probably circulated more frequently and widely as constitutive of impossibility experience's pos than that of any other philosopher or critic. If sibilities. "Only the impossible arrives,"he tellsus that were all, a brief assessment of his legacy (374), forwithout the there is no event would be no harder to write than any other nar impossible as such: "when an event... is deemed it a event. But possible, rative summary of large and complex means that we have mastered, how does one begin to speak adequately of the already anticipated, and reduced the eventhood of the a writer work?from the pre-understood, legacy of whose begin on event" (194). Death, the ning, and in any number of ways, and practi unknowability haunting our name on existence, is another for the impossible cally every page?reflects the complications, mourn event; others are the trace, invention, uncertainties, and imperatives of legacy, diff?rance, can assess the hospi ing, survival? Who Derrida's legacy gift, friendship, mourning, democracy, one can no The list could go on and on; in except perhaps Derrida, the who lon tality, forgiveness. one text he Derrida found ger speak?indeed, the who, precisely here, nearly every signed, ways never never to enrich our of the could and will be able to speak? For understanding complexities no can assess or own and of and he did one, by definition, his her imperatives being-in-the-world, so his on where legacy. Legacy is assessed by the other. The other, by putting finger places ordinary one comes to will to re and habits of buckle and crack, the who judge, need have phrases thought mea an excess, a or flected fully upon the Derridean reflection, revealing nonidentity impossibil on which for sured its contours, accounted for its surprises and ity, they covertly depend. What, occur. In is a as in its latencies. Perhaps someday this will the instance, gift?a gift such, hypotheti one as one can. cal an excess all meantime, judges and writes purity?but beyond acknowledg Derrida's work asks us to understand this ment? (Any act of acknowledgment, even that of as the most and predicament characteristic of any genuinely flickering passive gratitude?any act. To be an action must re responsible ethical, knowledge of the gift, for that matter?marks the 488 Forum:The Legacyof JacquesDerrida PMLA
return of an a and on economy, pattern of exchange, from theRepublic of China behalf of the uni no one we thus the beginning of the gift's annulment.) Or: versity. Me? Well, else is around, and what is as ran was forgiveness?once again, forgiveness out of options, I told. Three days? I don't than seems a such?other unconditional forgiveness of the know. It like lot, and I'm not prepared. unforgiveable? (Ifone merely forgives the forgive I'd need to do some research. Besides, I have to able, justificationmingles with forgiveness; ifone finish a book and wash my hair. An hour later the adduces one reintroduces an minister me. He conditions, economy greeted expressed delight, offer of Yet how can one the unfor was restitution.) forgive ing generous expressions of awe, for I owed, as an it giveable? Forgiveness unfolds aporia: must he said, the respect that only a disciple of Con be unconditional, but also limited, calculated, dis fucius could expect. Iwas the student of Jacques care. tributedwith Derrida! At the time, in themid-eighties, Berke Deconstruction is not a and does was not to theology ley itself prepared embrace Derrida, not celebrate it remains after its a or mystery; faithful, much less mutant offspring, what Derrida to the Socratic taskof the fashion, examining ideas himself would come to call his own rogue state or and with which and within which presuppositions territory(he'd link territorywith terrorand terre, we live?and must continue to live. It in proceeds earth, uprooting the concept of nation-state, the the name of or which Der name as justice responsibility, voyou Avi?he translated my saying "for rida affirms as the "undeconstructible" and char life,"as inhe was stuckwith me for life,? vie). For acterizes as a "Must nonimperative imperative. my part, I feltmore like an earlyChristian than a one do the for to arrive as impossible forgiveness disciple of Confucius. such? but this could never be established Perhaps, There was a lotof solitude and theorybashing as a a norm, a or a One law, rule, duty.... forgives, in those days, a lot of intimidation and punish ifone ment. forgives,beyond any categorical imperative, Low salaries and mocking colleagues?as debt and And one should one to in or on beyond obligation. yet suming managed get anyone's A certain "Abrahamic tradition" forgive" (351). payroll. Not only that,but, once inside, Freud was is affirmed, with and itself, as an against aporia: KO'd at least once a month, Lacan was spun out within and which, indeed one or two aporia through perhaps of our orbit, and, with the exception of even thanks to which, we live on. Such even impossibly, troublemakers, the theory girrls hadn't shown now ours. is Derrida's and the pos on scanners. I was the in legacy, "Again up yet the boy fastest pun of the a would be sibility impossible: legacy only theWest, but thatwas nothing to boast about in one where it becomes This is one who some possible impossible. those days. The only had holding of the definitions of was possible deconstruction?pre power Foucault, cleaned up, straightened out, as cisely legacy" (352). and identitarian.So the dispatch, thepostcard and envoi, came to me from China?the news of the Marc Redfield fate of deconstruction. For me the report of its des Claremont Graduate University came an un tiny and destination from altogether who expected horizon, and the minister, became Work Cited scene an my friend, opened the for alternative Derrida, Jacques. Negotiations: Interventions and Inter "Purloined Letter," pointing to its location right views, 1971-2001. Ed. and trans. Elizabeth Rotten nose there, in front of my yet resolutely invisible. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002. berg. As in a Kafka parable, I received the broadcast of as a senti Jacques Derrida's fate philosopher from nel who held the secret of a genuinely possible and It was august in Berkeley, most of my col stronglyinflected future. As Derrida has taughtus, were in or and I was there are futures and even more returns. leagues Europe Hawaii, many It forme to offera wrapping up endless footnotes for The Telephone would be nearly impossible dialectical summation of Derrida's accom Book, the extensive "Yellow Pages." The phone Jacques was on rang. Someone from the president's office plishment and his influence the intellectual asking me if I would host theminister of culture worlds around which he organized his thought, . i 2 o 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 489
woman. first translation his work was "Law always inventively yet responsibly anchored, clas My of sically filtered. Some aspects of his influence or of Genre," where he reworked the grid to the to a or are invention belong subterranean history, rhythmof invaginated punctures. Not all the folks to a at were such yet be placed in narrative of the alien unsaid. the reception desk cheering gender a some areas This may sound bit sci-fi, but in of intrusions into linguistic pieties. Nonetheless, his work, it is as though Jacques were beaming Derrida could be said to have quickly developed signals from another region ofmeaning, speaking a substantial following, especially inAmerica from new intelligibilities, as Schlegel might have Latin and North America. or whose more said, that haven't yet arrived significance The politically based offshootswould has not been cleared for landing. I'm not trying to occasionally disavow him. He regularly got it speak in code. It's just that I assume that his ir from the leftand right,from thosewho owed him on con r?missible bearing legal studies, architecture, and thosewho disowned him (oftenthe same In some art, literature, pedagogy, medical ethics, psycho stituencies). quarters Derrida's thought, Kantian or analysis, philosophy, historical recounting, and whether not, became associated with performance has already been recorded. homos and women, and his poetic sparring with not even a It's matter of debt. Something in paleonymic language got quickly feminized, calculable happened to us, something yet to be seemed somehow too girlie and slippery. Based even on some came I wrote understood. Like any event, the happy event, of the things that up, about itwas traumatic. Derrida: this name marks a cata the historical backslide of paronomasia, its anal an a on strophic incursion, end indistinguishable from zoning ordinances and the returns, all counts, beginning. He was declared dead from themoment to Shakespeare's Bottom. It is interesting how on us. are he walked in In the university there still language play spelled trouble.Derrida's language some traces of the of stages anticipatory bereave usage, exquisite and replenishing, itself became an to more ment?denial, anger, bargaining, periodic punch offense the controlled behaviors and outs. In the few to a statement on his of un pages pledged grammars academic language. Perhaps Iwant to one or two not legacy, say things that may avoidably,Derrida, like all breakthrough thinkers to have been covered by other contributors. and artists, continues provoke rage and attract I'll a meant to sentences even track marginal perspective be death after his announced death. resentment as metonymized into the bigger picture. One cannot The that he stokes he downsizes how the academic corridor a imagine whited-out metaphysical strongholds is clearly also text to was when Derrida arrived on the scene. There be read?a massive to a reactivity that belongs leg was no room for not even a oeuvre. really deviancy, for the acy of hard-hitting The traumatic impact or quaint aberration psychoanalysis. Besides of of his thought?trauma arises from ecstatic open as as fering up the luminous works that bore his sig ing well from catastrophic shutdown?makes Derrida to or nature, cleared spaces that had looked it difficult offer closural solace to pin down like obstacle courses for who did not fit what his work us anyone might "represent" for today. at the professorial profile the time. He practiced, One of the things that I appreciated about whether or a of contami start was consciously not, politics Derrida from the the political punch nation. His refined and he political views, leftist, delivered, often concealed but cannily effec knew few borders and saturated the most pasto tive. Imissed the sixties but inherited theirbeat. ral sites and I'm more on hallowed grounds of higher learning. probably politically anxious, faster color was added to the Suddenly university?color the trigger,than most of the folks around me; in and that would not I sassy women, something easily any case, look for trouble and aporia in the most be In him Kant as a forgiven. reemerged morphed downtrodden neighborhoods of thought.Derrida a and updated historicity, cosmopolitan force that suitedmy mood at once, though his political in on were placed bets and opened discursive formations vestments more lucid and constrained per to women. Derrida blew into our was town-and-gown haps than I looking for,more aligned with with at groves protofeminist energy, often, and H?lderlin's image of Rousseau?on the side of cost to as a great philosophical gravity, passing mediation and sober reflection, able to enact the 490 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida PMLA
re-trait of which Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Derrida's work iswritten; it remains to be write. a Lacoue-Labarthe Still, he packed mighty read. What relations exist between the present tense punch, I thought. He agitated for the poor, the of these propositions and the claims ofmemory? for Nelson Mandela and He was homeless, immigrants, among the greatest of the critical phi with the since against apartheid, Palestinians, Africa, losophers who, Kant, have made philosophy cause. and for every other conceivable "liberal" He begin by analyzing its own procedures, viewing traveled theworld likeno amore other thinker.On them as determined by categories logicallyprior to local station, he went on French TV advocating it,which it is not free to invent from scratch. For sort gay marriage, of?asking for the abolition of Derrida, of course, philosophy is determined not all as a and marriage state-sponsored arrangement by transcendental categories but by the material the implementation of civil unions for everyone and historical situation in which it is carried out. them. he viewed as a seeking Marriage religious The founding premises of his work are that this institution that can be sanctioned in a church or situation is above all textual and thatwhat phi or Years before he tried mosque synagogue. that, losophers do is principally reading and writing. to reform the French educational de system by Such an understanding of philosophy chal that be on, be manding philosophy taught early lenges a philosophical ideal of teaching as an effect in the second or third He instituted ginning grade. of the teacher's speech. This ideal, embodied in the theColl?ge International de Philosophie, which is method we call Socratic, has haunted the schools now the institution in France to only prestigious of theWest throughout theirhistory. In this tradi on welcome foreigners. As with the pressure put tion, the death of themaster is the conclusion of theAmerican he knocked down the to it as university, the teaching, which belongs the teaching's doors and let all sorts of like us in. enactment. work impurities final and privileged Derrida's the time he finished his tour of Der no By duty, allows such consolatory interpretation of his rida was in France as Aristotle must have respected death. Nor does it impose memorialization, tran been among the ancients. A master teacher, he was as scription, and institutionalization responsibili seen also to have historacular Still, he powers. ties of discipleship. The critique of phonocentrism nevermade it to the top of the line?he was denied mounted in his foundational works of the 1960s a at the de France, barred professorship Coll?ge and 1970s implies a philosophical teaching in was from its premises. Even though I think he which these are the forms of thework itselfand such insults, it to or monument. His considerably injured by belongs not merely its aftermath its I the the he the catalog of what love about guy way demonstration that the teaching of, for instance, took institutional assaults, stayed modest and gen was Saussure, Austin, and Lacan always already erous and open, and continued teaching to the end. writing, and concerned with writing, might be atN When he taught YU, his officehours remained a called reading against the spirit of these authors. accessible to who had an idea to bounce. everyone in cases Austin and it Especially the of Lacan, gave Now, this, I realize that the whole lexicon writing rise to a scandalized resistance. Nonetheless, at of his and attitudes was gestures, punts, radically this date it seems impossible to doubt thatDerri democratic. He held doors and welcomed open da's attention to the letter of these authors' works or would be foolish to nearly anything anyone (it to con was generous and that it contributed their make a rigorous distinction between the thing and tinuing productivity in contemporary thought. his he was the one, given work); impeccably polite a re Derrida's writing is characterized by to intruders,hospitable to dissidents of all stripes, sponsibility to the letterof what he reads. This re and he sheltered the intellectually homeless. The sponsibility led him tomodes of study that in the were last years devoted to rethinking democracy, twentiethcentury layfor themost part outside the and it cannot be a mere coincidence that the last field of philosophy: philology, rhetoric, the study elections in theUnited States broke catastrophic of In of textual history, the analysis parapraxes. the hearts, of those who mourn him. again, a or he un reading text, philosophical otherwise, Avital Ronell derstood the borders by which it excludes certain or as to it. The New York University topics modes of reading internal i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 491
as theorizing of these two responsibilities?to the scribes both constant and primary. In address letterof the text and to the exclusions it incorpo ing the jury at his 1980 thesis defense for the rates in versions a French doctorat he "I have to remind (are they fact of single respon d'?tat, said, sibility?)?founded Derrida's appeal to scholars of you, somewhat bluntly and simply, thatmy most literature. Strikingly, this appeal had most effect constant interest, coming before my philosophi was in the universities of North America, where it has cal interest, I would say, if this is possible, to a trans directed toward literature" given rise continuing series of excellent ("Punctuations" 116). This and constant interest is not one that lations of his work. In France the relation of early primary to was His Derrida his auditors have failed to no Derrida literary study different. writing presumes had little influenceon academic literarycriticism; tice; rather, he supposes that they have forgotten itappeared rather in the field of literatureproper, it and need reminding. Derrida himself forgot to inwhich he belonged with such figures of the late this very citation?or perhaps remembered as it?in an interview less than a decade later. modernist avant-garde Maurice Blanchot and forget When itwas to him Derek in Philippe Sollers. quoted by Attridge a This difference is not an effectof the varying 1989 with request for comment, Derrida replied, a work "What can a interest' be? I would never reception of single work. Rather, Derrida's 'primary to went is divided by generic and geographic borders. To dare say that my primary interest toward cross re literature rather than toward Anam these borders within the work always philosophy. some nesis would be because I'd like to es quires measure of translation, which, like risky here, own Institution'" any translation, risks abuse. There exists a Der cape my stereotypes" ("'Strange ridean work addressed to France, another to Eu 33-34). Derrida's interest in literature is constant but it to what rope, and yet another to America. These are not repeatedly forgotten; corresponds he writes elsewhere of the archive as "that which the same work. They all differ from his work on as can never be reduced to mn?m? or to anamnesis," Judaism, and perhaps from others, such the work on the International. It would be an error being instituted "at the place of originary and structural breakdown of... to overlook the borders between these works, and memory" ("Archive Fever" still more one to understand any of the works as 14). The archive is not the for what we re the original fromwhich the others derive. place as member or for what we It is the Various it is, Derrida's writing is hard to repress. opposite I sure am not in of a memorial site, still more of a sacred one. To remember. feel I alone having the extent that it reads literature as an repeatedly foundmyself searching his pages for a archive, Derrida's work reveals a secular literature, to forgotten citation. Even supposing the possibility as a which it also contributes. It does so even as it di of thinking Derrida's work whole, the appear ance a a the ("mal d'archiv?") of the of given topic in given text would not be agnoses pain forget that such a literature into existence. determined by this work's immanent logic. Many ting brings of the works to historical or explicitly respond Matthew Rowlinson so one sense other contingencies. This is in of the University ofWestern Ontario turn to Marx 1993 Derrida made in with Spectres de Marx, in another sense of the memorials to a Works Cited friends and colleagues that give somber hue to
the later writings, especially after Paul de Man's Derrida, Jacques. "Archive Fever: A Freudian Impres in sion." Trans. Eric Prenowitz. Diacritics 25.2 death, 1983. Perhaps when Derrida's work is (1995): 9-63. collected in a uniform format, the collection will -. a an a "Punctuations: The Time of Thesis." Trans. be given index. Such supplement would be Kathleen McLaughlin. Eyes of the University: Right more than an aid tomemory; itwould itselfbe the to Philosophy 2. Ed. Jan Plug. Stanford: Stanford UP, of a work that not re-membering might previously 2004. 113-28. have had a -. single body. Spectres de Marx: L'?tat de la dette, le travail du In spite of the differences among his works, deuil et la nouvelle Internationale. Paris: Galil?e, Derrida did once assert an interest that he de 1993. Forum:The of Derrida PMLA 492 Legacy Jacques |
-. "'This Institution Called Literature': An Strange The notion of "hauntology" in Specters allows Interview with Jacques Derrida." Trans. a more as Geoffrey for direct "performative interpretation" and Rachel Acts Literature. Bennington Bowlby. of a kind of ghostly legacy (55). Ed. Derek London: 1992. 33-75. Attridge. Routledge, is on in mourn There another spin legacy his ingpiece on Foucault ("'To Do Justice'").?tre juste avec?being fair to, doing justice to?a predeces sor one a 1rs TOO SOON TO TELL.AND THE IDEAOF LEGACYIS with whom has deep yet ambivalent rela too to Foucault could not have written without tied reproductive heteronormativity. When tionship. Freud. He should have been with him. I be "heir" is extended to include impersonal bodies juste lieve this is the Derrida toward such as charities, the norm goes from literal to duty performed in metaphoric. Even themost literal notion of heir Heidegger Of Spirit.1 as a is Derrida cared that followersshould not find in is, however, metaphoric, insofar legacy what in an con deconstruction the ultimate correctness. I heteronormativity promises imaginary political two an often quote exemplary passages: "decenter the tinuity for individual, succession, immortality, is said. denies the axiom transcendence. We have a thousand words, so Iwill subject... easily [It] [prior] atics en bloc and it as a survivor, with mi put itbluntly, and will be misunderstood (Sharp keeps going nor de and are adjustments rigueur daily compromises and expanded arguments also, and necessarily, in So so at misunderstood. That iswhat it is to be understood. lacking rigor. coping, operating top speed, one accounts and becomes accountable for women nothing" Never mind.): may inherit differently. commu ("Mochlos" 11). And the warning against "a of reassured seven nity well-meaning deconstructionists, "Freud's Legacy," dating from the late and reconciled with theworld in ethical certainty, ties, situates efforts to pass on a movement with a conscience, satisfaction of services rendered, name good within performative contradiction. The last and the consciousness of duty accomplished (or sentence of the passage below catches the starkness more still, yet to be ("Pas a in ... heroically accomplished)" of belief one's legacy: "One gives oneself sions" 15).My own feelingof settingdeconstruction one's own movement, one inherits from oneself for an to work I put at the end of appendix: are so all time, the provisions sufficient that the at least can up to the cashier. He on ghost always step [T]he scholarship Derrida's ethical turn will have to a name as as on only pronounce guaranteeing and his relationship to Heidegger well a in signature. One thinks" (305). Derrida is careful, postcolonialism and deconstruction, when the rare case it risks itself to work in this piece, not to make the choice of decon setting by own name its frame, is still not identical with the struction, sign itwith his (304, 308, 317, breaking to work of deconstruction 327). The caution is carried over from the earlier setting altogether aca outside the formalizing calculus of the pronouncement in Of Grammatology: "Thought demic institution. (Critique 431) us a a is here for perfectly neutral name, textual blank, a indeterminate index of an ep necessarily This last is hardly a legacy. It is rather "find och of differance to come." (93; trans, modified). ing proof in unlikely places," proof where the In "Freud's he writes of the silent Legacy" idea of proving is absurd: teleopoiesis?address the who dies at 26, that "the Sophie, daughter ing the distant other: "generation by a joint and battle for the 'exclusive of [this]dead a of possession' simultaneous grafting, without proper body, on all sides" (330). The daughter (mother) rage[d] the performative and the constative."2 obvi This ismatched his word on mothers: "the face ous to by connection is Nietzsche, looking always without face, name without name, of the mother for his companions, philosophers of the future.3 returns, in the end.... The mother buries all her But there is also Kant, writing fromwithin the This on mothers is carried a acad own" (333). thought constraints of theologically hamstrung in Ear the "Cir as "a through critically Glas, of Other, emy, who thought of the enlightened subject criticism of a heri ... cumfession," accompanied by scholar addressing the world of readers" (60 to not tage he is obliged perform. Women may 61). From Glas on, Derrida made this address part texts. inherit at all. of the performance of his i 2 o . 2 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida 493
In Voyous, his last published book, Derrida numbers debate, Kant with war. As Lacan told us, no us turn to pronounced himself "on the rack," being "bro the hero leaves legacy (277). Let litera ken by thewheel" of two preliminary questions ture, less heroic, thank god, than philosophy. he would not pronounce until 105 pages into the Derrida's interview on literature in Derek each turn comments on as a book.4 Being what he was, he noted that Attridge's book literature of him in a to the to thewheel put position contrary double-edged sword: "the freedom say every too was previous. That part of the torture. If he ut thing is a very powerful political weapon, but one tered the not able towrite questions, he would be which might immediately let itselfbe neutralized his book. The firstquestion: as a fiction" (Acts 38). And then he comments on is how literature "suspended" from reference: "to of would speak democratically democracy means "Suspended suspense, but also dependence, on to be the subject of democracy, be speaking condition, conditionally" (48).We are back again in an univocal, and sensible fashion intelligible, in the double bind: we do not have to be verifiable of democracy, to make oneself understood by we on one can or but depend reference. Work that out. whoever understand the word the phrases thatwill have been Derrida's take that one makes with the word." (105)5 Perhaps legacy: infinite care to see both sides, and then take a risk, on too soon to Not just frustrated academics but, literally, just depending what truth? It's tell. anyone. Plato had put the archons above the Gayatri ChakravortySpivak law, Aristotle had not solved the merit-versus Columbia University numbers problem, Kant had built cosmopolitheia on war, and the United States. .. Women. and
rogues were never let in. Notes re The second question "resembles the 11 have offered this reading in "Responsibilities." morse of used and abused the 2 having expres Derrida, Politics 32; trans, modified. sion to come'" (107). He starts to 3 'democracy See Thus Spoke Zarathustra. read himself, himself, the 4 explaining directing 25-39 and passim. Translations from Voyous are mine. after comer, to ending, "Greetings, democracy 51 cannot here read the quotation marks and their And once come!" (161).6 he brings out, again, the function in the text. 6 know performative-constative imperative, tying English cannot render the complexity of the French and in a We can ei which Derrida has connected to the ing doing again, double bind. salut, problematics ther is as as of only say "democracy this," carefully democracy. possible?constative?or, "I believe in it, I make a promise,... I act, I endure at any rate, you do Works Cited it too" (132)?performative promise. He ties the Derrida, Jacques. Acts of Literature. Ed. Derek Attridge. knot with his earlier work?the "a" of "differanee" New York: Routledge, 1992. is the "?" of "?-venir," to come (154). In 1968, the -. "Freud's Legacy." The Post Card: From Socrates to "Differance" was was year published, everything Freud and Beyond. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: U of seen as as itwas identifiable only insofar different Chicago P, 1980. 292-337. from what it was and -. Glas. Trans. P. not, hence differ-ing (dif John Leavey, Jr.,and Richard Rand. was the in Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1986. ferance) (non)name of things; 2003, seen as -. "Mochlos; or, The Conflict of the Faculties." democracy is different from itself itself? The the Faculties. Ed. Richard hence it is always to come. Constative (this is the Logomachia: Conflict of Rand. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1993. 1-34. way things are) grafted to performative (gotta -. Trans. for is not Of Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty keep working, democracy always yet Spivak. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. there). Too soon to tell. As we have seen, this pos -. Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question. Trans. sibility is already there inGrammatology. Derrida Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby. Chicago: U there of a "differance to come." If this is a speaks of Chicago P, 1989. it asks us to face forward. -. legacy, "Passions: 'An Oblique Offering.'" Derrida: A Crit But who can bear to inherit such torture? Plato ical Reader. Ed. David Wood. Cambridge: Blackwell, avoided itwith the archons, Aristotle with the merit 1992. 5-34. 494 Forum: The Legacy of Jacques Derrida PMLA
-. Politics of Friendship. Trans. George Collins. New Ed. James Schmidt. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. York: Verso, 1997. 58-64. -. Marx: The State theDebt, theWork Specters of of of Lacan, Jacques. "Antigone between Two Deaths." The Mourning, and theNew International. Trans. Peggy Ethics of Psychoanalysis: 1959-1960. Trans. Dennis Kamuf. New York: 1994. Routledge, Porter. New York: Norton, 1992. 270-83. -. "'To Do Justice to Freud': The History ofMadness Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for in the Age of Psychoanalysis." The Work ofMourning. All and None. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Ed. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago: Viking, 1966. U of Chicago P, 2001. 77-90. -. ou Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. A Critique of Postcolonial Voyous: la raison de plus fort. Paris: Galil?e, a 2003. Reason: Toward theHistory of Vanishing Present. Harvard UP, 1999. Kant, Immanuel. "An Answer to the Question: What Is Cambridge: -. Other Asias: Occasional Enlightenment?" What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth "Responsibilities." Essays. Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions. Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming.