Derrida

SUR LE PROBLEME DE POESIE OU LA PROBLEMATISATION EN TANT QUE POESIE

by Enis Memisoglu

(2008) article to be published in Monokl Deleuze International Edition

DE LA PHENOMENOLOGIE VERS LA PHENOMENOGRAPHIE « UNE THESE CONCERNANT LES POSSIBILITES DE CONDITIONS DE L’ECRITURE »

by Enis Memisoglu

Unpublished (and unedited) paper (2009)

LES ORIGINES SUPPLEMENTAIRES DE LA PHILOSOPHIE DU DROIT CHEZ HEGEL

by Enis Memisoglu

Unpublished article

INVENTION OF LAW AS EXAMPLE IN THE DERRIDA-EVENT

by Enis Memisoglu

article soon to be published Darkmatter Online Journal

THE POSITION OF THE SUBLIME IN THE DERRIDEAN CONCEPTION OF UNDECONSTRUCTIBLE LAW

by Enis Memisoglu

Paper presented in the 2. Derrida Today Conference

Education as Humanism of the Other

by Aparna Mishra Tarc

Educational philosophy and theory

This paper explores how educators might intervene in canonized texts of the human subject on which a particular and... more This paper explores how educators might intervene in canonized texts of the human subject on which a particular and exclusive kind of humanism rests. In imagining possible interventions educators might make, I turn to and trace Jacques Derrida's on-going deconstruction of the philosophical texts of subjectivity. In his body of work, Derrida destabilizes fixed notions of the human subject and the institutions it founds (like philosophy and education). From Derrida's points of destabilization and through a differing but similar deconstructive stance, I also consider Gayatri Spivak's suggestive question ‘Who is not the subject of humanism?’ to provide another possible trajectory for intervention that educators might take. Departing from knowledge-based conceptions of human subjectivity, Spivak urges educators to respond to their students in meaningful encounter with the ‘Other’ while Derrida suggests human beings might begin the difficult and complex task of re-envisioning an altered humanism, a humanism founded on the call of the Other in institutional sites like education. By an engaged rereading of the texts of human subjectivity upon which human beings are written and by turning to respond to the face of the human beings in and outside their classrooms as a means of encountering the Other's humanity, I suggest that educators be the catalyst for changing what it means to be human and education the means by which we approach a humanism yet to be.

Review: Identity politics in deconstruction: Calculating with the incalculable, Carolyn D’Cruz, Ashgate 2007.

by Ann Deslandes

Research on social movement or activist work will often draw attention to the tensions or contradictions that it... more Research on social movement or activist work will often draw attention to the tensions or contradictions that it entails. But what if activist dilemmas were recast across multiple categories—indeed, if they went definitively beyond categorization and calculability? How might this even be possible? Carolyn D'Cruz's Identity Politics in Deconstruction is a philosophical negotiation with such propositions, towards a renewed paradigm for theorising politics and the question of 'what is to be done' in the face of oppression and injustice.

Holistic redemptive pastoral ministry in the fragmented transit hall of existence

by Johann-Albrecht Meylahn

HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 66 (2010).

The grand narratives have all but gone – what is left are numerous narratives, each addressing a certain aspect of our... more The grand narratives have all but gone – what is left are numerous narratives, each addressing a certain aspect of our lives; there is a different narrative for our professional lives, another for our family lives, for our social lives and yet another for our spiritual lives. We find ourselves in this ‘transit hall’, forever changing flights or trains, depending on which narrative sphere we are entering or leaving. In each narrative we take on a different character, defined and shaped by the specificities of that narrative. Thus, ‘transition’ in the sense of change can no longer be understood as only linear, but as constant and multidimensional. With the use of Lacan’s discourse theory, this
fragmented existence will be unpacked and a redemptive alternative sought.
This paper is an attempt to address this multi-narrative existence without imposing yet another grand narrative. Thus it focuses on offering a narrative space that is, (1) holistic, in the sense that it
addresses all the different narratives, (2) pastoral, in that it addresses the person and (3) redemptive, in that it offers something new, meaningful and hopeful. Such a narrative space moves the church from its ‘ghetto mindset’, where traditions and values are maintained, to being fully open and vulnerable to the present reality, whilst yearning for the Messianic to reveal an alternative future.

Misreading Rousseau: J. Derrida's Deconstructive Reading of J.-J. Rousseau's Essay on the Origin of Languages

by Gerasimos Kakoliris

Jacques Derrida’s engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most... more Jacques Derrida’s engagement with Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the second part of Of Grammatology constitutes the most systematic, extensive example of deconstructive reading. Nevertheless, the problem of whether Derrida reproduces Rousseau’s basic claims adequately has remained a peripheral concern. This has meant that this may constitute a misreading and the consequences that this would have for the deconstructive operation itself have not adequately examined. Hence, this enquiry into Derrida’s reading of Rousseau centers upon the extent to which Derrida distorts Rousseau’s text in order to be able to confirm deconstruction’s radical theoretical positions.

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Beyond categories, proper names, types and norms toward a fragile openness (Offen-barkeit) of différance, but always from within the text

by Johann-Albrecht Meylahn

Published in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 68(1)

Transparency, Interrupted: Secrets of the Left

by Clare Birchall

Though far from new, the rhetoric of transparency is on the ascent in public and political life. It is cited as the... more Though far from new, the rhetoric of transparency is on the ascent in public and political life. It is cited as the answer to a vast array of social, political, financial and corporate problems. With the backing of a ‘movement’, transparency has assumed the position of an unassailable ‘good’. This article asks whether the value ascribed to transparency limits political thinking, particularly for the radical and socialist Left. What forms of politics, ethics, of being-in-common, might it be possible to think if we pay attention to secrecy rather
than transparency?

Unweaving the Program: Stiegler and the Hegemony of Technology

by Andres Vaccari

Transformations #17, 2009: Bernard Stiegler and the Question of Technics

"Technics and Time" has been advertised as a radical breakthrough in the philosophy of technology, a brave... more "Technics and Time" has been advertised as a radical breakthrough in the philosophy of technology, a brave attempt to move beyond the boundaries of the metaphysical tradition in which technology has always been conceptualized. My purpose in this paper is to argue that, although Stiegler’s argument is highly valuable and original, it tends to characterize technology in deterministic, reductionist and essentialist ways, offering a restricted ontology of technology that denies its characteristic heterogeneity, its dynamic multiplicity, contingency and materiality.

Stiegler’s understanding of technology makes more sense if we consider it as an accomplished metaphysical conceptualization of mnenotechnics, a limited aspect of technology, the elucidation of which (as Stiegler rightly argues) carries a certain political urgency. Stiegler reduces all technology to mnemotechnics in its epiphylogenetic character, subsuming the technical universe to the sign of the text, the gramme and the inscription (with its “human” correlatives: memory, anticipation and death). This becomes apparent when we consider the general telos of Technics and Time, which remains concerned with writing, photography, cinema, the archive, and the industrialization of consciousness: technological phenomena more amenable to be subsumed under the textual paradigm.

I also examine Stiegler's reliance on concepts of "program" and the radical break he assumes between "life" and "technics", which buttress his views on culture and individuation. I argue that they depart from rather shaky notions of "program" that are being seriously questioned in their respective fields (genetics, molecular biology, anthropology, etc.). This leads Stiegler into an ontology that continues the history of metaphysics that he sets out to challenge.

Zu einer platonischen Rekurrenzfigur der Medienkritik.

by Florian Sprenger

Lingua Ex Machina: Computer-Mediated Communication and the Tower of Babel

by David Gunkel

Configurations 7(1). Winter 1999, pp. 61-89

The "Tower of Babel" (Genesis 11:1-9) provides an account of the plurality of languages as having issued... more The "Tower of Babel" (Genesis 11:1-9) provides an account of the plurality of languages as having issued from an original and apparently universal tongue. The first line of the fable reads: "And all the earth was one lip and there was one language to all." This mythic loss of an original universality and the subsequent attempts to reestablish it by overcoming the confusio linguarum already constitute a kind of universal
idiom: "The story of the confusion of tongues, and of the attempt to redeem its loss through the rediscovery or invention of a language common to all humanity, can be found in every culture." The computer and the technologies of computer-mediated communication manifest the most recent version of this supposedly universal endeavor. According to numerous popular and technical discourses, the computer promises to
supply a technological solution to the linguistic cacophony that has been the legacy of Babel. In this manner, computer technology participates in an old and apparently universal obsession, one that situates universality as both its origin and its purpose.

In this paper I undertake an examination of the Babelian information that currently circulates through cyberculture and determines the general significance of networked computer systems. I trace the origin and purpose of the desire for universal understandability, locate the computer within this tradition, and ask about the underlying assumptions and consequences of this procedure. My inquiry is directed toward not only computer technology per se, but also the various discourses that have reflected on and informed the meaning of this technology. In short, I attempt to understand the rather cacophonous babble concerning Babel as it has been deployed within the networks of computer-mediated communication.

Gianni Vattimo ante Jacques Derrida: La debilidad por la diferencia

by Miguel Ángel Quintana Paz

Accounterability and the problematics of accountability

by Vassili JOANNIDES

In press Critical Perspectives on Accounting

This paper seeks to contribute to the emerging stream of literature on the problematics of accountability (Messner,... more This paper seeks to contribute to the emerging stream of literature on the problematics of accountability (Messner, 2009; Roberts, 2009; McKernan, 2011) and the possibilities of accounterability (Kamuf, 2007) by questioning whether and how accounterability can appear as a response to the problematics of accountability’s operationalisation. To answer this question, this research considers the problematics of accountability found in the limits inherent to the giving of an account (Messner, 2009), in the ambiguous relationship between accountability and transparency (Roberts, 2009), and in the as yet unresolved contradictions of accountability (McKernan, 2011). Accounterability is seen as a practice of resisting accountability demands whilst giving an account. Alternative practices arising out of such resistance are inductively identified through an ethnographic study of the day-to-day practices of the Salvation Army used as an extreme case. This case shows how an ideal form of accountability raises more questions than it answers in practice, thereby leading individuals to develop their own counter-abilities. Because accountability to a Higher-Stakeholder appears to be an unreachable ideal, identifying to whom one should give an account of oneself becomes problematic. A working response to the problematics of accountability, accounterability emerges as the mechanism whereby the limits and contradictions of account giving are transformed into the conditions of its realisation: unreachable accountability is transformed into tangible day-to-day practices that may differ slightly from expected ideal conduct. It transpires from this study that the main strength of accountability lies in its ability to absorb and to override its limits and contradictions, transforming them into conditions of its possibility. As such, accounterability emerges as the ultimate manifestation of this strength.

Bergson and Derrida: A Question of Writing Time as Philosophy's Other

by Daniel Alipaz

Published in 'The Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy - Revue de la philosophie française et de langue française,' Vol XIX, No 2 (2011) pp 96-120. This article can be viewed and uploaded for free on the journal's website's: http://jffp.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jffp/article/view/471/572

Following the 1988 publication of Bergsonism by Gilles Deleuze, many contemporary critics such as Leonard Lawlor and... more Following the 1988 publication of Bergsonism by Gilles Deleuze, many contemporary critics such as Leonard Lawlor and Paul Douglass have re-contextualized Bergson within poststructuralism. In so doing, Bergsonian theory enables us to readdress questions associated with concepts of temporality and their relation to language. In considering this re-appropriation, Suzanne Guerlac in Thinking in Time: an introduction to Henri Bergson (2006), asks why Bergson has never been considered in relation to Derrida, given that the two philosophers share fundamental concerns about time and writing. Following Derrida’s critique of Husserl in La Voix et le phénomène (1967), it is perhaps the case that many critics categorize Bergson as a phenomenologist. However, I aim to develop the argument that Guerlac instigates and show that Derrida’s critique of Husserl in fact establishes a close proximity with Bergson’s view that Western metaphysics suppresses time as durée. I will show how both Bergson and Derrida operate with the understanding of a particular rupture in the full presence of the present, an expansion of consciousness as a ‘now’ to include a constant deferral to memory. While this overlap establishes an affinity, I conclude by showing that it simultaneously marks a point of diffraction with regard to how both seek to methodologically embody such a concept of time.

Aporetics Ethics In the Zhuangzi

by Dan Lusthaus

Published in _Hiding the World in the World: Essays on Zhuangzi_. Scott Cook, editor, SUNY Press, 2003. Pp. 163-206

Detailed reading of the "Autumn Floods" section of the Zhuangzi, sandwiched between in depth analyses of two... more Detailed reading of the "Autumn Floods" section of the Zhuangzi, sandwiched between in depth analyses of two important sections of Zhuangzi ch. 2: the "Eight Virtues" and the Butterfly Dream. Argues that Zhuangzi proposes two models for enabling an ethics built on facing and accepting our limitations and what we don't know or control, as opposed to attempting to lay illusory foundations or principles; and that he does so embracing rather than rejecting reason -- ethics derived from reason within its aporetic parameters. In short, he is neither a full scale relativist nor a skeptic.

From De-automatization to Undecidability: Jan Mukarovsky's Legacy

by Peter Nesselroth