Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader

The work of Jacques Derrida has transformed our understanding of a range of disciplines in the humanities through its questioning of some of the basic tenets of western metaphysics. This volume is a trans-disciplinary collection dedicated to his work; the assembled contributions - on law, literature, ethics, history, gender, politics and psychoanalysis, among others - constitute an investigation of the role of Derrida’s work within the field of humanities, present and future. The volume is distinguished by work on some of his most recent writings, and contains Derrida’s own address on ‘the future of the humanities’. In addition to its pedagogic interest, this collection of essays attempts to respond to the question: what might be the relation of Derrida, or ‘deconstruction’ to the future of the humanities? The volume presents the most sustained examples yet of what deconstruction is in its current phase - as well as what its possible future may be.

• A trans-disciplinary address of Derrida’s work in one volume, with contributions by leading scholars in their fields • Examines the place of Derrida’s work in the humanities, present and future • Includes Derrida’s own contribution on ‘the future of the humanities’

Acknowledgments; Preface; Biographical chronology; Introduction; 1. The future of the profession, or the university without condition (thanks to the ‘humanities’, What Could Happen tomorrow) Jacques Derrida; 2. Derrida’s literatures J. Hillis Miller; 3. The other sexual difference Peggy Kamuf; 4. Lemming: re-framing the Abyss David Wills; 5. Mimesis, presentation, and representation Marian Hobson; 6. Acts of engagement (philosophy in the performative) Chris Fynsk; 7. Hospitable thought Hent de Vries; 8. Derrida and politics Geoff Bennington; 9. Legitimate fictions Margaret Davies; 10. Fidelity at the limits of deconstruction and the prosthesis of faith Bernard Stiegler; 11. Wondering about history: some questions Derrida pursues in his early writings Peter Fenves; 12. Desistantial psychoanalysis René Major; Glossary David Wills.