Theory after Derrida: Essays in Critical Praxis

390 Pages·2018·5.452 MB·English

by  Kailash C. Baral and R. Radhakrishnan

Theory after Derrida
Ac ritical anthology that re-e xamines Jacques Derrida’s thought
by way of theory and praxis, this volume reflects on his striking
legacy and the future of theory. Among contemporary thinkers,
Derrida challenges not only our ways of thinking but also hitherto
methods of inquiry. This book captures how Derrida renovates
and re- energises philosophy by questioning the fundamental
assumptions of Western philosophical thought. By doing so, he
exposes the intricate lie behind binaries, such as speech/writing,
nature/culture, male/female, black/white, literature/criticism, etc.,
which have continued to shape our worldview, where a hegemonic
centre is always already in place dominating or marginalising
the ‘other’.
A significant contribution to literary theory, this book explores
not only the status of Derrida’s contribution as a critical thinker
but also the status of critical theory as such in the contemporary
milieu. The central question that it asks is whether we should
dismiss Derrida as a thinker who espoused an extreme form of
relativism, bordering on nihilism, or has he something fundamental
to contribute to the future of theory. Could it be that deconstruction
is not destruction but a possibility that casts doubts on whether the
present can have faith in future?
This second edition includes a new Postscript and addresses some
important concerns of our times, such as religious practice, art and
aesthetics, translation, sociology of philosophy, and democracy.
Scholars and researchers of English literature, philosophy, sociology
and cultural studies will find this work particularly interesting.
Kailash C. Baral is currently Professor of India Studies in the
Department of Comparative Literature and India Studies at the
English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India. Prior
to this, he was Professor of English and Director at the English and
Foreign Languages University, Shillong, Meghalaya. He has authored
Sigmund Freud: A Study of His Theory of Art and Literature (1994),
and edited J. M. Coetzee: Critical Perspectives (2008); Humanities
and Pedagogy: What is Needed Now? (2002); and Interpretations
of Texts: Text, Meaning and Interpretation (2002). Some of his
co- edited volumes include U. R. Anantha Murthy’s Samskar:
A Critical Reader (2005); Reflections on Literature, Criticism
and Theory (2004); Theory and Praxis: Curriculum, Culture and
English Studies (2003); and Identities: Local and Global (2003).
His edited anthology Earth Songs: Stories from Northeast India
(2006) has been translated into Kannada, Hindi and Bengali and
is a prescribed text at Sikkim and other universities. His articles
have appeared in international journals such as Pedagogy, South
Asian Review and International Journal of Baudrillard Studies
among others.
R. Radhakrishnan is Chancellor’s Professor of English and
Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
He is also affiliated with its Department of Gender and Sexuality
Studies, and is a core member of the Department of African
American Studies and the PhD programme in Culture and Theory.
Along with more than a hundred essays in academic journals and
edited collections, he is the author of Diasporic Mediations (1996),
Theory in an Uneven World (2003), Between Home and Location:
The Cultural Politics of Theory (2007), History, The Human and
the World Between (2008), and Edward Said: A Dictionary (2012).
He is the editor of Theory as Variation (2007) and coeditor (with
Susan Koshy) of Transnational South Asians: The Making of a
Neo- Diaspora (2008). Winner of numerous awards including the
Fulbright, he is a published poet both in English and Tamil with a
book of poems in Tamil and is a translator of contemporary Tamil
fiction into English. He is currently working on a series of essays on
humanism and post- humanism.
Theory after Derrida
Essays in Critical Praxis
Second Edition
With a New Postscript
Edited by
Kailash C. Baral and R. Radhakrishnan
Second edition published 2018
by Routledge
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First edition published in India by Routledge 2009
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Contents
Contents
ANcoktneso ownle Cdgoenmtreibnutst ors vviiii
AAcckknnoowwlleeddggeemmeennttss vxiii
Introduction 1
KInatriloadshu cCti.o Bn aral 1
Kailash C. Baral
1
J1acques Derrida’s Legacy: Democracy to Come 24
FJarceqdu Desa lDlmeraryidra’s Legacy: Democracy to Come 24
Fred Dallmayr
2
Q2uoting Time: Notes on Derrida’s ‘Ousia et Grammè’ 47
BQeurontairndg SThimarer:a tNtotes on Derrida’s ‘Ousia et Grammè’ 47
Bernard Sharratt
3
P3latonism, Spinoza and the History of Deconstruction 74
GPloatrodnoinsm H, uSlplinoza and the History of Deconstruction 74
Gordon Hull
4
‘4Sociology over Philosophy’? ‘Artifi cial Paradoxes’? 100
D‘Seorcriiodlao gayn do vBeor uPrhdiileous,o Epthhyi’c?a ‘lA Srutbifij ecciatilv Pitayr aadnodx tehse’? G ift 100
JDoenr rBidaald awnidn Bourdieu, Ethical Subjectivity and the Gift
Jon Baldwin
5
B5efore and After Glas: Approximations to the 129
CBeofgonreit iaon Vd eAspfteerrt iGnala s: Approximations to the 129
SCiolvgannioti oF aVceisopneirtina
Silvano Facioni
6
P6erhaps the Impossible, therefore, Will have been 151
NPeercheaspsas rtyh:e R Iemfl peoctsisoibnlse b, ethfoerree fForriee,n Wdsihlli phave been 151
PNeetceers Zsaeriyll:i nRgeeflr ections before Friendship
Peter Zeillinger
7
C7osmopolitanism after Derrida: City, Signature and 174
SCoovsemreoipgnotliytanism after Derrida: City, Signature and 174
PSouvsperae iDgnatmyai
Puspa Damai
vvii (cid:63) CTohneteonrtys after Derrida
8
The Generation of the I 200
Gianfranco Dalmasso
9
Derrida and Religious Refl ection in the Continental 220
Tradition
Eric Boynton
10
On Following without Following: Deconstructing a 236
Notion of Faithfulness in Church Practice
Natalie Roberts
11
Derrida’s Deconstruction of Logocentrism: Implications 264
for Trauma Studies
Julie Elaine Goodspeed-Chadwick
12
Is Translation a Mode? 280
R. Radhakrishnan
13
Derrida Elsewhere: A Mnemocultural Dispersal 302
D. Venkat Rao
ENdoittoesr so’ nN Cooten ttori bthueto Sresc ond Edition 333322
Index 336
Postscript: The Philosopher That Therefore He Has to Be 333
R. Radhakrishnan
Index 352
vi (cid:63) Theory after Derrida
8
Contributors
The Generation of the I 200
Gianfranco Dalmasso
9 Jon Baldwin teaches at the London Metropolitan University. He has
Derrida and Religious Refl ection in the Continental 220 published on the works of Alain Badiou, Jean Baudrillard, Pierre
Tradition Bourdieu, and Jacques Derrida, as well as on political economy, gift
Eric Boynton exchange, the anthropology of religion, ethics, and science fi ction
cinema. He is Co- editor of Film- philosophy and Subject Matters.
10
On Following without Following: Deconstructing a 236
Eric Boynton is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious
Notion of Faithfulness in Church Practice
Studies at Allegheny College in Western Pennsylvania, USA. His
Natalie Roberts
interests include the intersection of the philosophies of art and reli-
gion as well as the question of evil. He has published articles on the
11
Continental philosophy of religion and aesthetics, and has served as
Derrida’s Deconstruction of Logocentrism: Implications 264
guest editor for an issue on evil for the journal Janus Head. He has
for Trauma Studies
co- edited two books: Saintly Influence: Texts for Edith Wyscho-
Julie Elaine Goodspeed-Chadwick
grod (2008) and The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifi ce (2002).
12
Is Translation a Mode? 280 Fred Dallmayr is Packey J. Dee Professor in the Departments of
R. Radhakrishnan Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Notre Dame,
USA. He holds a doctoral degree in law from the University of
13 Munich and a PhD in political science from Duke University. His
Derrida Elsewhere: A Mnemocultural Dispersal 302 main research fields are modern and contemporary political philos-
D. Venkat Rao ophy, Continental philosophy, and comparative philosophy. Among
his recent publications are: In Search of the Good Life (2007);
Notes on Contributors 332 Small Wonder: Global Power And Its Discontents (2005); Dia-
Index 336 logue among Civilizations (2002); Achieving Our World: Toward a
Global and Plural Democracy (2001); Alternative Visions (1998);
Beyond Orientalism (1996); and The Other Heidegger (1993).
Gianfranco Dalmasso is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at
the University of Bergamo. In 1968, he introduced Jacques Der-
rida’s thought in Italy with the Italian translation of La voix et le
phénomène and in 1970 he translated into Italian De la grammatol-
ogie. His recent publications include Chi dice io: Razionalità e nich-
ilismo (2005) and La verità in effetti: La salvezza dell’esperienza nel
neoplatonismo (1996).
viii  Contributors
Puspa Damai is Lecturer in English at Tribhuvan University, Kath-
mandu, Nepal. Currently he is completing his PhD in English and
American Culture at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA.
He has published a number of articles in journals such as The Atlan-
tic Literary Review, CR: The Centennial Review and Discourse.
Silvano Facioni is Research Fellow of Theoretical Philosophy at the
University of Calabria. He has translated, into Italian, works of
Emmanuel Lévinas, Michel de Certeau and Jacques Derrida. He has
published on French and Jewish Philosophy. His most recent pub-
lications include La cattura dell’origine. Verità e narrazione nella
tradizione ebraica (2005). He is currently completing a volume on
Georges Bataille and has a forthcoming book entitled Derridario
(with F. Vitale and S. Regazzoni).
Julie Elaine Goodspeed- Chadwick is Assistant Professor of English
at Indiana University- Purdue University in Columbus, Indiana,
USA. Her work is published in Semiotica, Atlantic Literary Review,
and Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture among
others.
Gordon Hull is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Univer-
sity of North Carolina, Charlotte, USA. He has published several
papers on contemporary Continental philosophers, early modern
philosophy, and the reception of Spinoza in Continental thought.
D. Venkat Rao is Professor of English at the English and Foreign
Languages University, Hyderabad. His most recent publication
is the English translation of a Telugu intellectual autobiography
entitled The Last Brahmin (2007). He has a full-l ength work on
literary–cultural criticism in Telugu titled, Samskritika Chanakyalu
(2005). In addition to these, he has edited books and published
several articles in national and international journals. He is one of
the editors of U. R. Anantha Murthy’s Samskara: A Critical Reader
(2005) and Reflections on Literature, Criticism and Theory (2004).
His areas of interest include literary and cultural studies, hyperme-
dia, internet research, image studies and mnemocultures. He has
designed several courses interfacing culture, technology and literary
and cultural studies.
Contributors  ix
Natalie Roberts is a Communication graduate from Monash Uni-
versity, Malaysia, where she taught courses including Media Stud-
ies, and Nationality, Ethnicity and Conflict. She currently lives and
works in New Zealand as freelance researcher and writer.
Bernard Sharratt is currently Honorary Senior Research Fellow,
School of English at the University of Kent. He has previously
taught at the Universities of West Indies, Bogazici and Krakow.
During 30 years of teaching at the University of Kent at Canter-
bury, he pioneered several degree programmes in film studies,
drama, psychoanalysis, multimedia computing and images stud-
ies. His publications include The Literary Labyrinth (1984); and
Reading Ralations: A Dialectical Text/Book (1982); and the co-
edited volume Performance & Politics in Popular Drama (1980).
Apart from having published essays on John Skelton, John Milton,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney, Samuel Beck-
ett, Raymond Williams, Robert Tressell, and others, he regularly
reviews for the New York Times.
Peter Zeillinger teaches at the Department of Foundational The-
ology at both University of Vienna and University of Austria. His
research interests include French theory, contemporary political
philosophy, and the new political theology of Johann Baptist Metz.
He has authored Nachtraegliches Denken [Retroactive Thinking:
A Close Reading of Jacques Derrida] (2002); and co- edited (with
D. Portune) Jacques Derrida A Genealogical Bibliography of his
French, German, and English Works (2005); and Nach Derrida:
Dekonstruktion in zeitgenössischen Diskursen [After Derrida:
Deconstruction within Contemporary Discourses] (2006).