Penelope Deutchser

How to Read Derrida

Intent upon letting the reader experience the pleasure and intellectual stimulation in reading classic authors, the How to Read series will facilitate and enrich your understanding of texts vital to the canon.

An idiosyncratic and highly controversial French philosopher, Jacques Derrida inspired profound changes in disciplines as diverse as law, anthropology, literature and architecture. In Derrida’s view, texts and contexts are woven with inconsistencies and blindspots, which provide us with a chance to think in new ways about, among other things, language, community, identity and forgiveness. Derrida’s suggestions for “how to read” lead to a new vision of ethics and a new concept of reponsibility.

Penelope Deutscher discusses extracts from the full range of Derrida’s work, including Of Grammatology, Dissemination, Limited Inc, The Other Heading: Reflections on Europe, Monolinguism of the Other, Given Time, and “Force of Law”.

Penelope Deutchser is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Her books include Yielding Gender: Feminism, Deconstruction and the History of Philosophy, and A Politics of Impossible Difference: The Later Work of Luce Irigaray.

Simon Critchley is the series editor and a professor of philosophy at The New School in New York City.

April 2006 / paperback original / ISBN 10: 0-393-32879-1 ISBN 13: 978-0-393-32879-0 / 128 pages / PHILOSOPHY