
Derrida and the Time of the Political
Duke University Press
Will be published approx. on 16. January 2009
Book
Hardback
277 pages
978-0-8223-4350-9 (ISBN)
Description
An intellectual event, Derrida and the Time of the Political marks the first time since Jacques Derrida's death in 2004 that leading scholars have come together to critically assess the philosopher's political and ethical writings. Skepticism about the import of deconstruction for political thought has been widespread among American critics since Derrida's work became widely available in English in the late 1970s. While Derrida expounded political and ethical themes from the late 1980s on, there has been relatively little Anglo-American analysis of that later work or its relation to the philosopher's entire corpus. Filling a critical gap, this volume provides multiple perspectives on the political turn in Derrida's work, showing how deconstruction bears on political theory and real-world politics. The contributors include distinguished scholars of deconstruction whose thinking developed in close proximity to Derrida's, as well as leading political theorists and philosophers who engage Derrida's thought from further afield.The volume opens with a substantial introduction in which Pheng Cheah and Suzanne Guerlac survey Derrida's entire corpus and position his later work in relation to it. The remaining essays address the concerns that arise out of Derrida's analysis of politics and the conditions of the political, such as the meaning and scope of democracy, the limits of sovereignty, the relationship between the ethical and the political, the nature of responsibility, the possibility for committed political action, the implications of deconstructive thought for non-Western politics, and the future of nationalism in an era of globalization and declining state sovereignty. The collection is framed by original contributions from HElEne Cixous and Judith Butler.
Contributors. Etienne Balibar, Geoffrey Bennington, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Pheng Cheah, HElEne Cixous, Rodolphe GaschE, Suzanne Guerlac, Marcel HEnaff, Martin Jay, Anne Norton, Jacques RanciEre, Soraya Tlatli, Satoshi Ukai
Contributors. Etienne Balibar, Geoffrey Bennington, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Pheng Cheah, HElEne Cixous, Rodolphe GaschE, Suzanne Guerlac, Marcel HEnaff, Martin Jay, Anne Norton, Jacques RanciEre, Soraya Tlatli, Satoshi Ukai
Reviews / Votes
"[An] indispensable collection. . . What is particularly remarkable about this collection is the fact that its introduction is one of the very finest, most penetrating, reliable, and lucid presentations of Derrida's thought in general to have been published to date. This single fact merits inclusion of this volume in every serious general and academic collection; the introduction by Cheah and Guerlac will guide readers to the appropriate texts in Derrida's oeuvre and to the relevant essays in the volume. Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students and above." - N. Lukacher, Choice "The Introduction provides a thorough, thoughtful overview of the question of the political in Derrida's writings and of the successive ways it was treated or approached in the decades before his death. It also quite convincingly gives an account of the way in which those motifs in his thought that might most obviously be related to political concerns (democracy, sovereignty, justice, law, hospitality and so on) are intimately connected to his more 'philosophical concerns'. . . . [T]his is a provocative volume that deserves recognition as a major milestone in the longstanding debate about the political dimension of deconstructive thought." - Ian James, French Studies "Derrida and the Time of the Political is the best edited volume available on Derrida and politics." - Lasse Thomassen, Radical Philosophy Review "Derrida and the Time of the Political undoes once and for all the unproductive opposition between deconstruction and politics that has dominated the United States academy. This is a stellar collection. The pieces are diversified, not a commemorative gesture but a critical engagement. Careful theoretical parsing combines with detailed political awareness to make this book an authoritative document for understanding not only the later Derrida and political deconstruction but the problems and engagements of our time."-Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, University Professor and Director of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University "Derrida and the Time of the Political is the best edited volume available on Derrida and politics." - Lasse Thomassen (Radical Philosophy Review) "[An] indispensable collection. . . What is particularly remarkable about this collection is the fact that its introduction is one of the very finest, most penetrating, reliable, and lucid presentations of Derrida's thought in general to have been published to date. This single fact merits inclusion of this volume in every serious general and academic collection; the introduction by Cheah and Guerlac will guide readers to the appropriate texts in Derrida's oeuvre and to the relevant essays in the volume. Highly recommended. General readers, upper-division undergraduate students and above." - N. Lukacher (Choice)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-4350-9 (9780822343509)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Suzanne Guerlac | Pheng Cheah
Derrida and the Time of the Political
E-Book
01/2009
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€208.99
Available for download
Persons
Pheng Cheah is Professor of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Inhuman Conditions: On Cosmopolitanism and Human Rights and Spectral Nationality: Passages of Freedom from Kant to Postcolonial Literatures of Liberation and co-editor of Cosmopolitics: Thinking and Feeling Beyond the Nation.
Suzanne Guerlac is Professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson and Literary Polemics: Bataille, Sartre, ValEry, Breton, co-winner of the Modern Language Association's Scaglione Prize.
Suzanne Guerlac is Professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Thinking in Time: An Introduction to Henri Bergson and Literary Polemics: Bataille, Sartre, ValEry, Breton, co-winner of the Modern Language Association's Scaglione Prize.
Content
Acknowledgments vii
1. Introduction: Derrida and the Time of the Political / Pheng Cheah and Suzanne Guerlac 1
Part I. Openings
Jacques Derrida: Co-Responding Voix You / Helene Cixous 41
Part II. The a-venir: Undoing Sovereignty and Teleology
Eschatology versus Teleology: The Suspended Dialogue between Derrida and Althusser / Etienne Balibar 57
The Untimely Secret of Democracy / Pheng Cheah 74
Sovereign Stupidity and Autoimmunity / Geoffrey Bennington 97
Sovereign Hesitations / Wendy Brown 114
Part III. Responsibilities within and without Europe
European Memories: Jan Patocka and Jacques Derrida on Responsibility / Rodolphe Gasche 135
"Call Me Ishmael" / Anne Norton 158
Algeria as an Archive / Soraya Tlatli 177
Fine Risks, or, The Spirit of a Pacifism and Its Destiny / Satoshi Ukai 196
Part IV. Between Ethics and Politics
The Aporia of Pure Giving and the Aim of Reciprocity: On Derrida's Given Time / Marcel Henaff 215
Pseudology: Derrida on Arendt and Lying in Politics / Martin Jay 235
The Fragility of the Pardon (Derrida and Ricouer) / Suzanne Guerlac 255
Should Democracy Come? Ethics and Politics in Derrida / Jacques Ranciere 274
Part V. Afterword
Finishing, Starting / Judith Butler 291
Bibliography 307
Contributors 323
Index 327
1. Introduction: Derrida and the Time of the Political / Pheng Cheah and Suzanne Guerlac 1
Part I. Openings
Jacques Derrida: Co-Responding Voix You / Helene Cixous 41
Part II. The a-venir: Undoing Sovereignty and Teleology
Eschatology versus Teleology: The Suspended Dialogue between Derrida and Althusser / Etienne Balibar 57
The Untimely Secret of Democracy / Pheng Cheah 74
Sovereign Stupidity and Autoimmunity / Geoffrey Bennington 97
Sovereign Hesitations / Wendy Brown 114
Part III. Responsibilities within and without Europe
European Memories: Jan Patocka and Jacques Derrida on Responsibility / Rodolphe Gasche 135
"Call Me Ishmael" / Anne Norton 158
Algeria as an Archive / Soraya Tlatli 177
Fine Risks, or, The Spirit of a Pacifism and Its Destiny / Satoshi Ukai 196
Part IV. Between Ethics and Politics
The Aporia of Pure Giving and the Aim of Reciprocity: On Derrida's Given Time / Marcel Henaff 215
Pseudology: Derrida on Arendt and Lying in Politics / Martin Jay 235
The Fragility of the Pardon (Derrida and Ricouer) / Suzanne Guerlac 255
Should Democracy Come? Ethics and Politics in Derrida / Jacques Ranciere 274
Part V. Afterword
Finishing, Starting / Judith Butler 291
Bibliography 307
Contributors 323
Index 327