Derrida: A Biography
Author(s): Benoit Peeters
This biography of Jacques Derrida (1930--2004) tells the story of a Jewish boy from Algiers, excluded from school at the age of twelve, who went on to become the most widely translated French philosopher in the world -- a vulnerable, tormented man who, throughout his life, continued to see himself as unwelcome in the French university system. We are plunged into the different worlds in which Derrida lived and worked: pre-independence Algeria, the microcosm of the Ecole Normale Superieure, the cluster of structuralist thinkers, and the turbulent events of 1968 and after. We meet the remarkable series of leading writers and philosophers with whom Derrida struck up a friendship: Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Genet, and Helene Cixous, among others. We also witness an equally long series of often brutal polemics fought over crucial issues with thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, John R. Searle, and Jurgen Habermas, as well as several controversies that went far beyond academia, the best known of which concerned Heidegger and Paul de Man.
We follow a series of courageous political commitments in support of Nelson Mandela, illegal immigrants, and gay marriage. And we watch as a concept -- deconstruction -- takes wing and exerts an extraordinary influence way beyond the philosophical world, on literary studies, architecture, law, theology, feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies. In writing this compelling and authoritative biography, Benoit Peeters talked to over a hundred individuals who knew and worked with Derrida. He is also the first person to make use of the huge personal archive built up by Derrida throughout his life and of his extensive correspondence. Peeters' book gives us a new and deeper understanding of the man who will perhaps be seen as the major philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century.
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'A real tour de force. Assimilating a vast amount of material -- Derrida's own voluminous publications, unpublished documents and correspondence, and conversations with a host of acquaintances -- Benoit Peeters has produced a compelling narrative that sheds light on all aspects of Derrida's remarkable career.' Jonathan Culler, Cornell University 'In addressing a philosopher of the importance of Jacques Derrida, whose massive output -- about 60 volumes, not including his as yet unpublished seminars -- has been translated and debated the world over, Benoit Peeters has quite rightly chosen not the origins or content of the work itself, but the life of the man behind it. In short, he has written an excellent biography entirely in keeping with Anglo-Saxon traditions.' Elisabeth Roudinesco, The Guardian
Benoit Peeters was born in Paris in 1956. Following a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne (Paris I), he went on to study for his Masters at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes under the direction of Roland Barthes. He has since published over forty works on a wide variety of subjects and has written essays and biographies on Herge, Alfred Hitchcock, and Paul Valery.
Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: JACKIE 1930-1962 CHAPTER 1 The Negus 1930-1942 CHAPTER 2 Under the sun of Algiers 1942-1949 CHAPTER 3 The walls of Louis-le-Grand 1949-1952 CHAPTER 4 The Ecole normale superieure 1952-1956 CHAPTER 5 A year in America 1956-1957 CHAPTER 6 The soldier of Kolea 1957-1959 CHAPTER 7 Melancholia in Le Mans 1959-1960 CHAPTER 8 Towards independence 1960-1962 PART II: DERRIDA 1963-1983 CHAPTER 1 From Husserl to Artaud 1963-1964 CHAPTER 2 In the shadow of Althusser 1963-1966 CHAPTER 3 Writing itself 1965-1966 CHAPTER 4 A lucky year 1967 CHAPTER 5 A period of withdrawal 1968 CHAPTER 6 Uncomfortable positions 1969-1971 CHAPTER 7 Severed ties 1972-1973 CHAPTER 8 Glas 1973-1975 CHAPTER 9 In support of philosophy 1973-1976 CHAPTER 10 Another life 1976-1977 CHAPTER 11 From the 'nouveaux philosophes' to the Estates general 1977-1979 CHAPTER 12 Envois and proofs 1979-1981 CHAPTER 13 Night in Prague 1981-1982 CHAPTER 14 A new set of circumstances 1982-1983 PART III: JACQUES DERRIDA 1984-2004 CHAPTER 1 The territories of deconstruction 1984-1986 CHAPTER 2 From the Heidegger affair to the Paul de Man affair 1987-1988 CHAPTER 3 Living memory 1988-1990 CHAPTER 4 Portrait of the philosopher at sixty CHAPTER 5 At the frontiers of the institution 1991-1992 CHAPTER 6 Of deconstruction in America CHAPTER 7 Spectres of Marx 1993-1995 CHAPTER 8 The Derrida International 1996-1999 CHAPTER 9 The time of dialogue 2000-2002 CHAPTER 10 Till death us do part 2003-2004 Notes Sources Bibliography
General Fields
- :
- : John Wiley and Sons Ltd
- : Polity Press
- : 31 October 2012
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 December 2012
- : books
Special Fields
- : Benoit Peeters
- : Hardback
- : 1
- : 194
- : 700