Author: Michael Naas
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823229602
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, Derrida From Now On attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the continuing significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. If Derrida's thought is to remain relevant for us today, it must be at once understood in its original context and uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Michael Naas thus begins with an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought, before turning to Derrida's long engagement with the American context and to the ways in which deconstruction allows us to rethink the history, identity, and promise of post-9/11 America. Taking as its point of departure several of Derrida's later works (from "Faith and Knowledge" and The Work of Mourning to Rogues and Learning to Live Finally), the book demonstrates how Derrida's analyses of the phantasms of sovereignty, the essential autoimmunity of democracy or religion, or the impossible mourning of the nation-state can help us to understand what is happening today in American culture, literature, and politics. Though Derrida's thought has always lived on only by being translated elsewhere, his disappearance will have driven home this necessity with a new force and an unprecedented urgency. Derrida From Now On is an effect of this force and an attempt to respond to this urgency.
Derrida From Now On
Author: Michael Naas
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823229602
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, Derrida From Now On attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the continuing significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. If Derrida's thought is to remain relevant for us today, it must be at once understood in its original context and uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Michael Naas thus begins with an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought, before turning to Derrida's long engagement with the American context and to the ways in which deconstruction allows us to rethink the history, identity, and promise of post-9/11 America. Taking as its point of departure several of Derrida's later works (from "Faith and Knowledge" and The Work of Mourning to Rogues and Learning to Live Finally), the book demonstrates how Derrida's analyses of the phantasms of sovereignty, the essential autoimmunity of democracy or religion, or the impossible mourning of the nation-state can help us to understand what is happening today in American culture, literature, and politics. Though Derrida's thought has always lived on only by being translated elsewhere, his disappearance will have driven home this necessity with a new force and an unprecedented urgency. Derrida From Now On is an effect of this force and an attempt to respond to this urgency.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823229602
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 300
Book Description
Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, Derrida From Now On attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the continuing significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. If Derrida's thought is to remain relevant for us today, it must be at once understood in its original context and uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Michael Naas thus begins with an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought, before turning to Derrida's long engagement with the American context and to the ways in which deconstruction allows us to rethink the history, identity, and promise of post-9/11 America. Taking as its point of departure several of Derrida's later works (from "Faith and Knowledge" and The Work of Mourning to Rogues and Learning to Live Finally), the book demonstrates how Derrida's analyses of the phantasms of sovereignty, the essential autoimmunity of democracy or religion, or the impossible mourning of the nation-state can help us to understand what is happening today in American culture, literature, and politics. Though Derrida's thought has always lived on only by being translated elsewhere, his disappearance will have driven home this necessity with a new force and an unprecedented urgency. Derrida From Now On is an effect of this force and an attempt to respond to this urgency.
Derrida from Now on
Author: Michael Naas
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 9780823229598
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, Derrida From Now On attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the continuing significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. If Derrida's thought is to remain relevant for us today, it must be at once understood in its original context and uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Michael Naas thus begins with an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought, before turning to Derrida's long engagement with the American context and to the ways in which deconstruction allows us to rethink the history, identity, and promise of post-9/11 America. Taking as its point of departure several of Derrida's later works (from "Faith and Knowledge" and The Work of Mourning to Rogues and Learning to Live Finally), the book demonstrates how Derrida's analyses of the phantasms of sovereignty, the essential autoimmunity of democracy or religion, or the impossible mourning of the nation-state can help us to understand what is happening today in American culture, literature, and politics. Though Derrida's thought has always lived on only by being translated elsewhere, his disappearance will have driven home this necessity with a new force and an unprecedented urgency. Derrida From Now On is an effect of this force and an attempt to respond to this urgency.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 9780823229598
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, Derrida From Now On attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the continuing significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. If Derrida's thought is to remain relevant for us today, it must be at once understood in its original context and uprooted and transplanted elsewhere. Michael Naas thus begins with an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought, before turning to Derrida's long engagement with the American context and to the ways in which deconstruction allows us to rethink the history, identity, and promise of post-9/11 America. Taking as its point of departure several of Derrida's later works (from "Faith and Knowledge" and The Work of Mourning to Rogues and Learning to Live Finally), the book demonstrates how Derrida's analyses of the phantasms of sovereignty, the essential autoimmunity of democracy or religion, or the impossible mourning of the nation-state can help us to understand what is happening today in American culture, literature, and politics. Though Derrida's thought has always lived on only by being translated elsewhere, his disappearance will have driven home this necessity with a new force and an unprecedented urgency. Derrida From Now On is an effect of this force and an attempt to respond to this urgency.
Re-reading Derrida
Author: Tony Thwaites
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739177265
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Re-reading Derrida: Perspectives on Mourning and its Hospitalities, edited by Tony Thwaites and Judith Seaboyer, is a unique collaborative exploration of the legacies of the late philosopher, Jacques Derrida, across a wide variety of fields. Anchoring the book are two major essays on mourning by two of the best-known Derridean thinkers today, who were close friends of Derrida: J. Hillis Miller and Derek Attridge. Each of the other essays has been written to respond to these, and—in a novel move—to at least two of the other contributions. As a result, the very form of the book is a way of exploring the thematics of hospitality, and the ways in which disciplines open themselves to one another, extending lines of flight across the archipelagos of knowledge—the politics of the memorial, poetry, trauma, film, neoliberalism, the novel, and psychoanalysis. Throughout the book themes and concerns recur, each time refracted, developed, and questioned under the pressures of new conjunctures. As the editors’ Introduction argues, what the book seeks to show is not that a certain general body of theoretical work can be applied in all sorts of areas, but something more interesting: that from the outset, theoretical work itself takes on its meaning only in its grappling with the specific, the singular, even the unique. Miller’s and Attridge’s essays have at their heart, after all, the loss of a friend.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739177265
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
Re-reading Derrida: Perspectives on Mourning and its Hospitalities, edited by Tony Thwaites and Judith Seaboyer, is a unique collaborative exploration of the legacies of the late philosopher, Jacques Derrida, across a wide variety of fields. Anchoring the book are two major essays on mourning by two of the best-known Derridean thinkers today, who were close friends of Derrida: J. Hillis Miller and Derek Attridge. Each of the other essays has been written to respond to these, and—in a novel move—to at least two of the other contributions. As a result, the very form of the book is a way of exploring the thematics of hospitality, and the ways in which disciplines open themselves to one another, extending lines of flight across the archipelagos of knowledge—the politics of the memorial, poetry, trauma, film, neoliberalism, the novel, and psychoanalysis. Throughout the book themes and concerns recur, each time refracted, developed, and questioned under the pressures of new conjunctures. As the editors’ Introduction argues, what the book seeks to show is not that a certain general body of theoretical work can be applied in all sorts of areas, but something more interesting: that from the outset, theoretical work itself takes on its meaning only in its grappling with the specific, the singular, even the unique. Miller’s and Attridge’s essays have at their heart, after all, the loss of a friend.
The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments
Author: Michael Naas
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823263304
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
A Derrida scholar traces the evolution of the philosopher’s final seminar in Paris as he contemplates the state of the world and his own mortality. For decades, philosopher Jacques Derrida held weekly seminars in Paris, spending years at a time on a single, complex theme. From 2001 to 2003, he delivered the final work in this series, entitled “The Beast and the Sovereign.” As this final seminar progressed, its central theme was diverted by questions of death, mourning, memory, and, especially, the end of the world. Now philosopher and Derrida scholar Michael Naas takes readers through the remarkable itinerary of Derrida’s final seminar in The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments. The book begins with Derrida’s analyses of the question of the animal in the context of his other published works on that subject. It then follows Derrida as a very different tone begins to emerge, one that wavers between melancholy and extraordinary lucidity with regard to the end of life. Focusing the entire second year on Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe and Martin Heidegger’s seminar “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,” Derrida explores questions of the end of the world and of an originary violence that is both creative and destructive. The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments follows Derrida from week to week as he responds to these emerging questions, as well as to important events unfolding around him, both world events—the aftermath of 9/11, the American invasion of Iraq—and more personal ones, from the death of Maurice Blanchot to intimations of his own death less than two years away.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823263304
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
A Derrida scholar traces the evolution of the philosopher’s final seminar in Paris as he contemplates the state of the world and his own mortality. For decades, philosopher Jacques Derrida held weekly seminars in Paris, spending years at a time on a single, complex theme. From 2001 to 2003, he delivered the final work in this series, entitled “The Beast and the Sovereign.” As this final seminar progressed, its central theme was diverted by questions of death, mourning, memory, and, especially, the end of the world. Now philosopher and Derrida scholar Michael Naas takes readers through the remarkable itinerary of Derrida’s final seminar in The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments. The book begins with Derrida’s analyses of the question of the animal in the context of his other published works on that subject. It then follows Derrida as a very different tone begins to emerge, one that wavers between melancholy and extraordinary lucidity with regard to the end of life. Focusing the entire second year on Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe and Martin Heidegger’s seminar “The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics,” Derrida explores questions of the end of the world and of an originary violence that is both creative and destructive. The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments follows Derrida from week to week as he responds to these emerging questions, as well as to important events unfolding around him, both world events—the aftermath of 9/11, the American invasion of Iraq—and more personal ones, from the death of Maurice Blanchot to intimations of his own death less than two years away.
Miracle and Machine
Author: Michael Naas
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823239977
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
Miracle and Machine is a sort of "reader's guide" to Jacques Derrida's 1994-95 essay "faith and knowledge," his most important work on the nature of religion in general and on the unprecedented forms it is taking today through science and the media. It provides essential background for understanding Derrida's essay, commentary on its unique style and its central figures (e.g., Kant, Hegel, Bergson, and Heidegger), and assessment of its principal philosophical claims about the fundamental duplicity of religion and the ineluctably autoimmune relationship among religion, science, and the media. Along the way it offers in-depth analysis of Derrida's treatment of everything from the nature of religious revelation, faith, prayer, sacrifice, testimony, messianicity, fundamentalism, and secularism to the way religion is today being transformed by globalization, technoscience, and worldwide telecommunications networks. But Miracle and Machine is much more than a commentary on a single Derrida text. Through references to scores of other works by Derrida, both early and late, it also provides a unique introduction to Derrida's work in general. It demonstrates that one of the very best ways to understand the terms, themes, claims, strategies, and motivations of Derridean deconstruction from the early 1960s through 2004 is to read critically and patiently, in its spirit and in its letter, an exemplary text such as "Faith and Knowledge." Finally, Miracle and Machine attempts to put Derrida's ideas about religion to the test by reading alongside "Faith and Knowledge" an already classic work of American fiction that is more or less contemporaneous with it, Don DeLillo's 1997 Underworld, a novel that explores the same relationship between faith and knowledge, religion and science, religious revelation and the World Wide Web, messianicity, and weapons of mass destruction--in a word, in two words, miracles and machines.
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823239977
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
Miracle and Machine is a sort of "reader's guide" to Jacques Derrida's 1994-95 essay "faith and knowledge," his most important work on the nature of religion in general and on the unprecedented forms it is taking today through science and the media. It provides essential background for understanding Derrida's essay, commentary on its unique style and its central figures (e.g., Kant, Hegel, Bergson, and Heidegger), and assessment of its principal philosophical claims about the fundamental duplicity of religion and the ineluctably autoimmune relationship among religion, science, and the media. Along the way it offers in-depth analysis of Derrida's treatment of everything from the nature of religious revelation, faith, prayer, sacrifice, testimony, messianicity, fundamentalism, and secularism to the way religion is today being transformed by globalization, technoscience, and worldwide telecommunications networks. But Miracle and Machine is much more than a commentary on a single Derrida text. Through references to scores of other works by Derrida, both early and late, it also provides a unique introduction to Derrida's work in general. It demonstrates that one of the very best ways to understand the terms, themes, claims, strategies, and motivations of Derridean deconstruction from the early 1960s through 2004 is to read critically and patiently, in its spirit and in its letter, an exemplary text such as "Faith and Knowledge." Finally, Miracle and Machine attempts to put Derrida's ideas about religion to the test by reading alongside "Faith and Knowledge" an already classic work of American fiction that is more or less contemporaneous with it, Don DeLillo's 1997 Underworld, a novel that explores the same relationship between faith and knowledge, religion and science, religious revelation and the World Wide Web, messianicity, and weapons of mass destruction--in a word, in two words, miracles and machines.
The Impossible Mourning of Jacques Derrida
Author: Sean Gaston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441164502
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. But how does one respond to the death of Jacques Derrida? How does one mourn for Derrida, who spent thirty years warning of the dangers of mourning, while insisting that mourning is both unavoidable and impossible? In this original and engaging response to Derrida's death, Sean Gaston re-examines his own relationship with this great thinker and traces his own mourning, while examining the very nature of mourning in Derrida's work. Written in the immediate aftermath of Derrida's death, this insightful and touching account offers a fresh analysis of a vital element of Derrida's thought and a genuine reflection on the implications of Derrida's death for how we will now address his work.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441164502
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161
Book Description
At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. But how does one respond to the death of Jacques Derrida? How does one mourn for Derrida, who spent thirty years warning of the dangers of mourning, while insisting that mourning is both unavoidable and impossible? In this original and engaging response to Derrida's death, Sean Gaston re-examines his own relationship with this great thinker and traces his own mourning, while examining the very nature of mourning in Derrida's work. Written in the immediate aftermath of Derrida's death, this insightful and touching account offers a fresh analysis of a vital element of Derrida's thought and a genuine reflection on the implications of Derrida's death for how we will now address his work.
The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II
Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226144402
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Following on from The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I, this book extends Jacques Derrida’s exploration of the connections between animality and sovereignty. In this second year of the seminar, originally presented in 2002–2003 as the last course he would give before his death, Derrida focuses on two markedly different texts: Heidegger’s 1929–1930 course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. As he moves back and forth between the two works, Derrida pursuesthe relations between solitude, insularity, world, violence, boredom and death as they supposedly affect humans and animals in different ways. Hitherto unnoticed or underappreciated aspects of Robinson Crusoe are brought out in strikingly original readings of questions such as Crusoe’s belief in ghosts, his learning to pray, his parrot Poll, and his reinvention of the wheel. Crusoe’s terror of being buried alive or swallowed alive by beasts or cannibals gives rise to a rich and provocative reflection on death, burial, and cremation, in part provoked by a meditation on the death of Derrida’s friend Maurice Blanchot. Throughout, these readings are juxtaposed with interpretations of Heidegger's concepts of world and finitude to produce a distinctively Derridean account that will continue to surprise his readers.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226144402
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Following on from The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I, this book extends Jacques Derrida’s exploration of the connections between animality and sovereignty. In this second year of the seminar, originally presented in 2002–2003 as the last course he would give before his death, Derrida focuses on two markedly different texts: Heidegger’s 1929–1930 course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. As he moves back and forth between the two works, Derrida pursuesthe relations between solitude, insularity, world, violence, boredom and death as they supposedly affect humans and animals in different ways. Hitherto unnoticed or underappreciated aspects of Robinson Crusoe are brought out in strikingly original readings of questions such as Crusoe’s belief in ghosts, his learning to pray, his parrot Poll, and his reinvention of the wheel. Crusoe’s terror of being buried alive or swallowed alive by beasts or cannibals gives rise to a rich and provocative reflection on death, burial, and cremation, in part provoked by a meditation on the death of Derrida’s friend Maurice Blanchot. Throughout, these readings are juxtaposed with interpretations of Heidegger's concepts of world and finitude to produce a distinctively Derridean account that will continue to surprise his readers.
Life Death
Author: Jacques Derrida
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826449
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
The seventh in our series of Derrida's seminars, Life Death provides interdisciplinary reflections on the relationship of life and death—now in paperback. One of Jacques Derrida’s most provocative works, Life Death deconstructs a deeply rooted dichotomy of Western thought: life and death. In rethinking the relationship between life and death, Derrida undertakes a multi-disciplinary analysis of a range of topics across philosophy, linguistics, and the life sciences. Derrida gave this seminar over fourteen sessions between 1975 and 1976 at the École normale supérieure in Paris to prepare students for the agrégation, a notoriously competitive exam. The theme for the exam that year was “Life and Death,” but Derrida made a critical modification to the title by dropping the coordinating conjunction. The resulting title of Life Death poses a philosophical question about the close relationship between life and death. Through close readings of Freudian psychoanalysis, the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger, French geneticist François Jacob, and epistemologist Georges Canguilhem, Derrida argues that death must be considered neither as the opposite of life nor as the truth or fulfillment of it, but rather as that which both limits life and makes it possible. Derrida thus not only questions traditional understandings of the relationship between life and death but also ultimately develops a new way of thinking about what he calls “life death.”
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226826449
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 323
Book Description
The seventh in our series of Derrida's seminars, Life Death provides interdisciplinary reflections on the relationship of life and death—now in paperback. One of Jacques Derrida’s most provocative works, Life Death deconstructs a deeply rooted dichotomy of Western thought: life and death. In rethinking the relationship between life and death, Derrida undertakes a multi-disciplinary analysis of a range of topics across philosophy, linguistics, and the life sciences. Derrida gave this seminar over fourteen sessions between 1975 and 1976 at the École normale supérieure in Paris to prepare students for the agrégation, a notoriously competitive exam. The theme for the exam that year was “Life and Death,” but Derrida made a critical modification to the title by dropping the coordinating conjunction. The resulting title of Life Death poses a philosophical question about the close relationship between life and death. Through close readings of Freudian psychoanalysis, the philosophy of Nietzsche and Heidegger, French geneticist François Jacob, and epistemologist Georges Canguilhem, Derrida argues that death must be considered neither as the opposite of life nor as the truth or fulfillment of it, but rather as that which both limits life and makes it possible. Derrida thus not only questions traditional understandings of the relationship between life and death but also ultimately develops a new way of thinking about what he calls “life death.”
From Life to Survival
Author: Robert Trumbull
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823298752
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Contemporary continental thought is marked by a move away from the “linguistic turn” in twentieth-century European philosophy, as new materialisms and ontologies seek to leave behind the thinking of language central to poststructuralism as it has been traditionally understood. At the same time, biopolitical philosophy has brought critical attention to the question of life, examining new formations of life and death. Within this broader turn, Derridean deconstruction, with its apparent focus on language, writing, and textuality, is generally set aside. This book, by contrast, shows the continued relevance of deconstruction for contemporary thought’s engagement with resolutely material issues and with matters of life and the living. Trumbull elaborates Derrida’s thinking of life across his work, specifically his recasting of life as “life death,” and in turn, survival or living on. Derrida’s activation of Freud, Trumbull shows, is central to this problematic and its consequences, especially deconstruction’s ethical and political possibilities. The book traces how Derrida’s early treatment of Freud and his mobilization of Freud’s death drive allow us to grasp the deconstructive thought of life as constitutively exposed to death, the logic subsequently rearticulated in the notion of survival. Derrida’s recasting of life as survival, Trumbull demonstrates, allows deconstruction to destabilize inherited understandings of life, death, and the political, including the dominant configurations of sovereignty and the death penalty.
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823298752
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224
Book Description
Contemporary continental thought is marked by a move away from the “linguistic turn” in twentieth-century European philosophy, as new materialisms and ontologies seek to leave behind the thinking of language central to poststructuralism as it has been traditionally understood. At the same time, biopolitical philosophy has brought critical attention to the question of life, examining new formations of life and death. Within this broader turn, Derridean deconstruction, with its apparent focus on language, writing, and textuality, is generally set aside. This book, by contrast, shows the continued relevance of deconstruction for contemporary thought’s engagement with resolutely material issues and with matters of life and the living. Trumbull elaborates Derrida’s thinking of life across his work, specifically his recasting of life as “life death,” and in turn, survival or living on. Derrida’s activation of Freud, Trumbull shows, is central to this problematic and its consequences, especially deconstruction’s ethical and political possibilities. The book traces how Derrida’s early treatment of Freud and his mobilization of Freud’s death drive allow us to grasp the deconstructive thought of life as constitutively exposed to death, the logic subsequently rearticulated in the notion of survival. Derrida’s recasting of life as survival, Trumbull demonstrates, allows deconstruction to destabilize inherited understandings of life, death, and the political, including the dominant configurations of sovereignty and the death penalty.
Biodeconstruction
Author: Francesco Vitale
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438468865
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
In Biodeconstruction, Francesco Vitale demonstrates the key role that the question of life plays in Jacques Derrida's work. In the seminar La vie la mort (1975), Derrida engages closely with the life sciences, especially biology and evolution theory. Connecting this line of thought to his analysis of cybernetics in Of Grammatology, Vitale shows how Derrida develops a notion of biological life as itself a sort of text that is necessarily open onto further articulations and grafts. This sets the stage for the deconstruction of the traditional opposition between life and death, conceiving of death as an internal condition of the constitution of the living rather than being the opposite of life. It also provides the basis for the deconstruction of the rigidly deterministic concept of the genetic program, an insight that anticipates recent achievements of biological research in epigenetics and sexual reproduction. Finally, Vitale argues that this framework can enrich our understanding of Derrida's late work devoted to political issues, connecting his use of the autoimmunitarian lexicon to the theory of cellular suicide in biology.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438468865
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
In Biodeconstruction, Francesco Vitale demonstrates the key role that the question of life plays in Jacques Derrida's work. In the seminar La vie la mort (1975), Derrida engages closely with the life sciences, especially biology and evolution theory. Connecting this line of thought to his analysis of cybernetics in Of Grammatology, Vitale shows how Derrida develops a notion of biological life as itself a sort of text that is necessarily open onto further articulations and grafts. This sets the stage for the deconstruction of the traditional opposition between life and death, conceiving of death as an internal condition of the constitution of the living rather than being the opposite of life. It also provides the basis for the deconstruction of the rigidly deterministic concept of the genetic program, an insight that anticipates recent achievements of biological research in epigenetics and sexual reproduction. Finally, Vitale argues that this framework can enrich our understanding of Derrida's late work devoted to political issues, connecting his use of the autoimmunitarian lexicon to the theory of cellular suicide in biology.