Down the Play : Derrida’s 1967

Let us track and trap Derrida right before he went down the rabbit hole. The Algerian-born French Philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), leader of the era of Post-Structuralism and father of the concept-method of deconstruction, marked the history of books with a big bang : 1967. Within one year, he would place himself on the map of philosophy, literary criticism and related fields through three remarked publications. Writing and Difference compiles essays and papers developed and presented from 1962 onwards, where Derrida demonstrates the scope of his models and inspirations across traditions, his mastery and creative re-interpretation of their thoughts, and he suggests subtly the grand lines that will constitute the difference and novelty of his thought. Of Grammatology, his first grand treatise, elaborates a critical reading of de Saussure, Levi-Strauss and Rousseau to formulate what will be no less than a little revolution in the way western culture has considered the written vis-a-vis the spoken, and the underlying metaphysical assumptions behind this relation. Finally, with the short Speech and Phenomena, Derrida looks more closely at Husserl, still one of his closest influences, and further elaborates a central critique that will lead to his formulation of the terms of deconstruction and différance. Through these three foundational texts, we can catch Derrida in the early phase of his thought formation, where his language is still generally theoretical and broadly accessible, before he decides to do his big dive, trusting his literary style to go down the free play.

Biographical elements from Derrida : A Biography by Benoit Peeters and interpretations from Who Was Jacques Derrida ? An Intellectual Biography by David Mikics and Jacques Derrida and the Development of Deconstruction by Joshua Kates, will be discussed alongside the direct study of Derrida’s texts.

This course, The Early Derrida : Down the Play is the first in a longer series, through which I will attempt to provide a close study of the main texts of Jacques Derrida.