Sitting here at Coffee Girls, which has on-again-off-again wifi, I learn from Kathleen that Jacques Derrida has died. She links to a number of obits.
I can’t say that my work is heavily influenced by Derrida, or by deconstruction, but I’ve always liked his essay, “…That Dangerous Supplement….”
Update: See also…
- “Jacques Derrida, resquiescat in pace, and may his work trouble us all,” by Michael BÈrubÈ
- “Jacques Derrida,” by Jack M. Balkin
- “Gift of Jacques Derrida,” at Mormon Metaphysics
- “Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74,” by Jonathan Kandell (NY Times)
- “Jacques Derrida Dies; Deconstructionist Philosopher,” by Patricia Sullivan (WaPo)
Amardeep has a few more links.
Another one. Tongue-in-cheek, funny, disturbing and/or cute, depending on how you feel about Derrida.
Another link: “Jacques Derrida, Thinker Who Influenced and Infuriated a Range of Humanistic Fields, Dies at 74,” by Scott McLemee
(What appears below turned out angrier than I intended. I appreciate the link from Vika.) In the essay Vika links to, the author writes
Call me old-fashioned, but is it too much to ask that those who claim this sort of thing about deconstruction provide some actual quotes as evidence to support their (mis)characterization? It gets worse:
As I said in my original post above, I’m not strongly influenced by deconstruction (or by Marxism, or by Post-Colonialism, which any person who decides to spout off about these topics should know are not the same thing), but even I know enough to know that this paragraph is [expletive deleted], and that theorists have long concerned themselves with these apparent contradictions. Take a look at Freedom and Interpretation: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures, edited by Barbara Johnson twelve [expletive deleted] years ago, to name just one example I can come up with off the top of my head. The Publishers Weekly blurb provided by Amazon is a nice summary:
Oh, ho! Here’s a contradiction those theorists have failed to notice in their thinking. Why, they never try to deconstruct their own arguments! Tee-hee! Aren’t they so pretentious!
Yeah, right. I know it’s no longer fashionable in certain circles, but how about reading a damn book every once in awhile, you incurious [expletive deleted].
Here’s a letter with many, many signatures to the NY Times protesting their Derrida obituary. It begins, “Jonathan Kandellís obituary for Jacques Derrida is mean-spirited and uninformed…”
Derrida requiem
Thoughts on the life and passing of Jacques Derrida from the blogosphere and elsewhere: Derrida: Online
University of Chicago Press website for Derrida:
Ernst Breisach, On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath (U of Chicago Press, 2003):