To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.
Jacques Derrida
One of the great thinkers of our time has died. On Friday, October 8 2004, Jacques Derrida died at a Paris hospital of pancreatic cancer; he was 74. Read the The Times, Guardian or Washington Post stories. And for more you can always go to Wikipedia.
I have been greatly impacted by his life and writings. Of his many books, The Gift of Death, Of Grammatology, and Writing and Difference are the ones that I think may have had the greatest impact on my life, thinking, and practice. In my own journey with the Christian Scriptures I found Derrida’s writings a surprisingly helpful guide. My reading of him help rescue the Bible from literal and fundamentalist readings of my earlier life. Derrida helps me think about language, meaning, that to listen for the “always already” of any textual encounter… that that a book, a memory, or another person… but what of The Real? Below is the trailer to the documentary film: Derrida.
I am always already absent from my language, or absent from this supposed experience of the new, of singularity, etc. That would mean that in order for my pronunciation of the word je to be an act of language, it must be a signal word, that is, it must be originally repeated. If it were not already constituted by the possibility of repetition, it would not function as an act of language. If the repetition is original, that means that I am not dealing with the new (l’inédit) in language. You were reticent about saying “I am dead”. I believe that the condition for a true act of language is my being able to say “I am dead”.
Jacques Derrida
Rest in Peace, dwight
Did you know that he is 1/3 of a celebrity death trio?
http://paradox.typepad.com/iamparadox/2004/10/celebrity_death.html
Dwight: There is a wonder film now available on DVD–Derrida which ought to be available at any good DVD store or NetFlix.
Also, I haven’t seen it, but read all the reviews there is a wonderful documentary based on Martin Heidegger’s lectures on Friedrich Holderlin’s poetry, delivered in 1942 at Freiburg Univ. The title is: The Ister. Put out by First Run Icarus Films, but sells for just under $500 in DVD! I just don’t have that kind of money, but was wondering if your Graduate School does or could rent it for a showing. If so let me know–I would certainly drive from Tacoma to see it. Okay, I am being a cheap "bastard", but it is a last resort.
Cheerfully, Roger Kuhrt
Not sure you would be interested, but since you live in Seattle. I did a Master’s Thesis on Heidegger’s Construct of Human Communication which is in the Univ. WA lib. I spent a lot of time on it and it is well done–c. 1970. I also taught there (Speech Arts and Human Communication) for a number of years.