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"For Strasbourg consists of a series of essays and interviews by French philosopher and literary theorist Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) about the city of Strasbourg and the philosophical friendships he developed there over a forty year period. Written justmonths before his death, the opening essay of the collection, "The place name(s): Strasbourg," recounts in great detail, and in very moving terms, Derrida's deep attachment to this French city on the border between France and Germany. More than just a personal narrative, however, it is a profound interrogation of the relationship between philosophy and place, philosophy and language, and philosophy and friendship. As such, it raises a series of philosophical, political, and ethical questions that might all be placed under the aegis of what Derrida once called "philosophical nationalities and nationalism." The other three texts included here are long interviews/conversations between Derrida and his two principal interlocutors in Strasbourg, Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe. These interviews are significant both for the themes they focus on (language, politics, friendship, death, life after death, and so on) and for what they reveal about Derrida's relationships to Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe. Filled with sharp insights into one another's work and peppered with personal anecdotes and humor, they bear witness to the decades-long intellectual friendships of these three important contemporary thinkers. This collection thus stands as a reminder of and testimony to Derrida's relationship to Strasbourg and to the two thinkers most closely associated with that city"--
About the author
Jacques Derrida was the single most influential voice in European philosophy for the last third of the twentieth century. His many books include
Of Grammatology,
Specters of Marx, and
The Animal That Therefore I Am.
Pascale-Anne Brault is Professor of French at DePaul University. She is the co-translator of several works of Jacques Derrida's, most recently
For Strasbourg: Conversations of Friendship and Philosophy (Fordham).
Michael Naas is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. He is the author of
Class Acts: Derrida on the Public Stage (2022),
Apocalyptic Ruin and Everyday Wonder in Don DeLillo's America (2022),
Don DeLillo, American Original: Drugs, Weapons, Erotica, and Other Literary Contraband (2020),
Plato and the Invention of Life (2018),
The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida's Final Seminar (2015),
Miracle and Machine: Jacques Derrida and the Two Sources of Religion, Science, and the Media (2012),
Derrida From Now On (2008),
Taking on the Tradition: Jacques Derrida and the Legacies of Deconstruction (2003), and
Turning: From Persuasion to Philosophy (1994). He is co-translator of a number of books by Jacques Derrida, including
Life Death (2020), and is a member of the Derrida Seminars Editorial Team.
