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This collection of essays introduces the ideas of philosopher Jacques Derrida who exerts a huge influence on literary criticism.
List of contents
Introduction; Part I. Frames: 1. The instant of their debt: Derrida with Freud and Heidegger in Greece Vassiliki Kolocotroni; 2. Derrida and the psychoanalysis of culture Andrea Hurst; 3. Derrida and sexual difference Ginette Michaud; 4. Derrida queries De Man: a note on the materiality of the letter vs the violence of the letter Martin Mcquillan; Part II. Focus: 5. Derrida as literary reader Derek Attridge; 6. Broken singularities (Derrida and Celan) Joshua Schuster; 7. Derrida and the essence of poetry Yue Zhuo; 8. From Mallarmé to the event: Badiou after Derrida Laurent Milesi; Part III. Futures: 9. Ecce Animot: animal turns Jane Goldman; 10. Deconstruction, collectivity, and world literature Jen Hui Bon Hoa; 11. Literature calls justice: deconstruction's 'coming-to-terms' with literature Elisabeth Weber; 12. The documental revolution and the archives of the future Maurizio Ferraris.
About the author
Jean-Michel Rabaté was a student of Jacques Derrida at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, and defended his dissertation under the supervision of Helene Cixous. Since 1992, he has been Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the managing editors of the Journal of Modern Literature and a co-founder and senior curator of the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia. Since 2008, he has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of more than 35 books and collections of essays on modernism (Pound, Joyce, Beckett), the arts, and philosophy.
Summary
This collection of essays by specialists introduces the main ideas of Jacques Derrida who invented 'deconstruction', a very particular and philosophical way of reading literary texts. After a backlash against his theories, there is now a return to his methods.
