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The Early Derrida : Down the Play

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EN

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.

How this course works

The participants and the instructor meet each Monday evening, 6:30-8:00 PM in a group Skype, for a session of textual analysis of a few selected passages from the chapters covered that week. Through this method, the guide offers at once the keys to participants to enter and further explore the texts on their own, and a personal reading rich with originality and creative potential. As Samuel is a French native, the excerpts analysed will also be read in the French original, with considerations on language particularities and translation. Participative responses are encouraged across the session, during the exercise of textual analysis by the instructor and through the open discussion.

On the Fridays 27 January and 24 March, the study of Derrida’s early texts is complemented with CineWords, our participative exchanges of movie interpretation, based on the two films, F For Fake (Orson Welles, 1973) (more details here) and  (Federico Fellini, 1963) (more details here), selected by the guide in relation to the course. Each of these participative sessions takes place through a group Skype.

Finally, on the Saturdays 21 January, 18 February and 25 February, the group meets physically in the studio of IST Delhi, for a live Questions & Anwers sessions with the instructor. The room is located in Noida, 30 minutes from Connaught Place by metro, and walking distance from the station. The exact address will be shared with each participant after registration. This session is also broadcasted on Skype for participants unable to join us physically.

Term Course

This page describes the 12-week Derrida Term Course offered in Jan-March 2017. The Of Grammatology portion of this course is now offered in a 8-week course : visit here.

Term : 1 – Jan-Mar 2017
Interactive Textual Analysis Sessions :
Mondays · 6:30-8:00 PM · Group Skype
Q/A Sessions :
1 Saturday/month · 4:00-5:30 PM · IST Delhi
Group Size : 10 Participants
Open to : All · No prerequisites

TEXTS COVERED

Writing and Difference

1967 (French Edition)
1978 (English Translation)

Of Grammatology

1967 (French Edition)
1974 (English Translation)

Speech and Phenomena

1967 (French Edition)
1973 (English Translation)

Derrida : A Biography

By Benoit Peeters
2010 (French Edition)
2013 (English Translation)

Who Was Jacques Derrida ? An Intellectual Biography

By David Mikics
2009

Jacques Derrida and the Development of Deconstruction

By Joshua Kates
2005

TIMELINE

Session 1 - Mon 2 Jan

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Writing and Difference
“Force and Signification” (35)
“Cogito and the History of Madness” (40)

Session 2 - Mon 9 Jan

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Writing and Difference
“Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book” (19)
“Violence and Metaphysics” (95)

Session 3 - Mon 16 Jan

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Writing and Difference
“‘Genesis and Structure’ and Phenomenology” (18)
“La parole soufflée” (33)

Questions & Anwers 1 - Sat 21 Jan

Questions & Anwers session at IST Delhi · 4:00-5:30 PM.
The discussion is livestreamed on Skype simultaneously for participants unable to join physically.

The group discusses remaining points of analysis and interpretation from the essays of Writing and Difference studied so far. The topics and themes of discussion are flexible and spring from the questions and comments of the participants.

Session 4 - Mon 23 Jan

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Writing and Difference
“Freud and the Scene of Writing” (45)
“The Theatre of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation” (24)

CineWords 1 - Fri 27 Jan

Participative discussion on the movie
F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1976) (details)
in a Group Skype · 6:30-8:00 PM.

Open interpretations and cross-analyses with the texts of the course.

The participants will be shared a link to watch the movie online. They are expected to join the discussion after having watched the movie on their own.

Session 5 - Mon 30 Jan

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Writing and Difference
“From Restricted to General Economy” (33)
“Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences” (19)
“Ellipsis” (6)

Session 6 - Mon 6 Feb

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Of Grammatology
Gayatri Spivak’s Translator’s Preface (79)
Preface (1)
Part I : Writing Before the Letter
Ch. 1 : The End of the Book and the Beginning of Writing (26)

Session 7 - Mon 13 Feb

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Of Grammatology
Part I : Writing Before the Letter
Ch. 2 : Linguistics and Grammatology (48)
Ch. 3 : Of Grammatology as a Positive Science (20)

Questions & Anwers 2 - Sat 18 Feb

Questions & Anwers session at IST Delhi · 4:00-5:30 PM.
The discussion is livestreamed on Skype simultaneously for participants unable to join physically.

The group discusses remaining points of analysis and interpretation from the essays of Writing and Difference studied after Questions & Anwers session 1, and from the sections of Of Grammatology studied so far. The topics and themes of discussion are flexible and spring from the questions and comments of the participants.

Session 8 - Mon 20 Feb

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Of Grammatology
Part II : Nature, Culture, Writing
Introduction to the “Age of Rousseau” (3)
Ch. 1 : The Violence of the Letter : From Lévi-Strauss to Rousseau (39)
Ch. 2 : “… That Dangerous Supplement…” (23)

Questions & Anwers 3 - Sat 25 Feb

Questions & Anwers session at IST Delhi · 4:00-5:30 PM.
The discussion is livestreamed on Skype simultaneously for participants unable to join physically.

The group discusses remaining points of analysis and interpretation from the sections of Of Grammatology studied so far. The topics and themes of discussion are flexible and spring from the questions and comments of the participants.

Session 9 - Mon 27 Feb

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Of Grammatology
Part II : Nature, Culture, Writing
Ch. 3 : Genesis and Structure of the Essay on the Origin of Languages (103)

Session 10 - Mon 6 Mar

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Of Grammatology
Part II : Nature, Culture, Writing
Ch. 4 : From/Of the Supplement to the Source : The Theory of Writing (47)

Session 11 - Mon 13 Mar

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Speech and Phenomena
Introduction (13)
Ch. 1 : Sign and Signs (9)
Ch. 2 : The Reduction of Indication (4)
Ch. 3 : Meaning as Soliloquy (15)

Session 12 - Mon 20 Mar

Textual Analyses and Discussions of excerpts from :

Speech and Phenomena
Ch. 4 : Meaning and Representation (11)
Ch. 5 : Signs and the Blink of an Eye (9)
Ch. 6 : The Voice that Keeps Silence (17)
Ch. 7 : The Supplement of Origin (18)

CineWords 2 - Fri 24 Mar

Participative discussion on the movie
 (Federico Fellini, 1963) (details)
in a Group Skype · 6:30-8:00 PM.

Open interpretations and cross-analyses with the texts of the course.

The participants will be shared a link to watch the movie online. They are expected to join the discussion after having watched the movie on their own.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Samuel Buchoul

Samuel Buchoul

Instructor & Coordinator

Experience with the Texts of this Course : 4 years +

Stumble on a pebble. An uninvited intruder crosses one’s life path. My intellectual quest had been long, before I found my almost-contemporary. Derrida had found the words for my intimate intuition, the permanent gut feeling ; Derrida had nailed it for me : the thinker’s comfort zone. Philosophers and their language, the obsession of Derrida, that special voice of the written which thinkers always claimed only to be a channel for their ethereal ideas. Derrida’s theory would thus become a method to always keep a check on all thinkers, their loud promises and their actual performances on the ground. But Derrida is also an artist of words, a creator of ideas and languages. And the good poet can only challenge his creativity to the best when he internalises the restrictions of the verse. So Derrida, through his many commentaries, would also offer me a new standard for creative writing, where his life-long meditation on the written dimension of philosophy gave rise to an empowered style, the realisation that playing with thoughts is playing with words, languages and their constraints, new enlarged playground for the many duties of philosophy. A wink at 1967 and his early deconstructions of fundamental binaries, Derrida will have finally made his point by setting the example, his oeuvre : philosophy celebrated through its word, thought and formulation pushed towards one another, becoming mutual ideals : the dream of the asymptote, word and idea, finally undistinguishable. 

Samuel Buchoul is the founder and coordinator of IST.
Discover his courses and blogs here.

Memories

Very first session of the IST :