As an upshot of debates between Harman and Gratton on their blogs recently, I now have sitting on my desk Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern, and Harman’s Guerrilla Metaphysics. One thing that strikes me is that Speculative Realism could be incredibly useful for a philosophy of history, but not simply wanting to jump on board the bandwagon, this will have to wait.
First impressions of Latour, however, suggest to me that Gratton is right – Latour doesn’t seem all that far from Derrida in many ways. He just simply shifts focus from the conditions of the network, to the network and its functioning, instead. And incidently, Derrida does use ‘network’ occasionally. But hey, I’m only a little way in, and this is one book among many.
However, I am in the middle of a slow read through Of Grammatology (which, by the way, is not about texts at all [or not in the way that is usually understood]. Rousseau’s cat has made a notable appearance recently), so I should at least be in a position to put down a few constructive notes on the Derrida/Latour comparison. The common interest in anthropology is interesting, as is the approach to the modern. And, given my reading of the reception of Derrida, I like the title, too… We have never been Derrida either.
I was in the US in November, and on my way through, I picked up David Mikics’ new book, Who Was Jacques Derrida?. The book intrigues me for several reasons. Firstly, because I am researching the strange reception afforded Derrida’s work, but secondly, I’m also working on the intersection of questions of history, what is called deconstruction, and the possibility of recounting anything like a history of deconstruction.
So, in more than one register, this book is of interest to me. In what it says about who Derrida was – because it is an attempt at revising the public archive on his identity – and in how it executes this task.
I’ll deal with the second one here.
Even from the reserved and restricted viewpoint of an ‘intellectual biography’. There are repeated points where this book fails to satisfy. Irrespective of one’s judgement of Derrida, the format and method of narrating such a biography leaves much to be desired. How so? The selection of significant events to narrate, the silly game of pointscoring against Derrida in adjudicating whether his readings of this or that author are ‘correct’ or not, and, above all, the manner of characterising the man himself.
Firstly, the book is ridiculously short. A small format, and a bare 250 pages of text seem ludicrously insufficient to allow a decent – even if popularising – overview of 70 odd years of life and 40 years of mature philosophical work. Works selected according to those that were most contentious for an American audience dominate the itinerary, rather than any penetration to the ‘program’ that dictated the production and timing of these works. There doesn’t seem to be any consultation of the wealth of archival sources available at UCI which would give further insight into Derrida’s teaching seminar, in which he tested much of the material that appeared in his books. There is little or no consideration of why a French scholar should be of such interest to an American audience, nor of what sort of environment into which Derrida’s work landed. From a strictly historical point of view – which is no friend of Derrida’s work – the book is simply light on research.
This is indicated by the readings that are engaged in: Husserl, Levi Strauss, Austin, others. In just about every reading, the author compares Derrida’s explication to the original, and finds it wanting in its portrait. Derrida is “exposed” as one who twists the work of others to what he wants it to say. Could not this accusation be produced against every philosopher who utilises the work of others’ in pursuit of an argument? Is originality not otherwise impossible? But even conceding that this is not the case, there is no mention of the length (and JD is indeed lengthy in writing, if anything) to which Derrida frequently goes to justify his readings. Acknowledging when he takes something as exemplary, seeking to justify such liberties, and ground it in solid scholarship. I don’t think the man was ever guilty of a hasty portrayal that wasn’t common to his era, and the rigour of his work is often in contrast to much of the contemporary work in France at the time.
Finally, with nauseating freuqency, Derrida is simply presented as angry. He charges this or that, he attacks, he condemns, he denounces. The action of Derrida reading and writing is overwhelmingly portrayed as violent. Now, I never knew Derrida. Had hardly started to read him before he died. But I’ve listened to others that have met, knew him, talked with him, sat in his seminars. These anecdotes most usually portray him as being gentle, humble, eager to listen and engage in conversation. Sure, he was touchy when people took liberties with his work or asked stupid questions – who wouldn’t be if they were frequently portrayed as the anti-christ? But never have I read one of his books and had the impression of angry denunciation. The works that he engages in reading often are served many, many compliments. He engages with them precisely because he enjoys them, senses them as being exemplary, of the highest order. And so, my experience of reading Mikics’ book has been profoundly jarring.
From the point of view of the intellectual biographer, this book has been very disappointing for me. It seems to be light on the research, and also sometimes seems that it compromises the vital sympathy for its subject that is required in order to produce a good portrait. It reads all to much like an overly quick attempt, as if, knowing a tide of memoirs are in the offing, it wanted to get in first, however inadequately. And it didn’t even succeed in that. Yale University Press, in its blurb, called the book the first intellectual biography. I don’t see how it could – Jason Powell had already published one with Continuum in 2006, and, indeed, Geoff Bennington had published one with Derrida – one of the few sources of personal information that Mikics had available to him.
Martin McQuillan reviews the book here for the Times Higher Ed. He forgoes any analysis of the book. He’s interested in the book like he is in a zoo exhibit – it is not of his natural environ. But, I think revealingly, he’s interested in it, and applauds it, for the attempt that it is of having some reasonably sympathetic portrait of Derrida available for the general reader. I don’t disagree.
I’m reading through Of Grammatology. On a previous reading I had underlined, in pencil, rather a lot. It’s actually quite distracting, as one begins to question why this or that was underlined. So, as I go, I am now diligently erasing the traces of my previous reading.
I always like the to and fro between Peter Gratton and Graham Harman. They riff off one another’s posts in a way that is very productive. It’s encouraging to see such a complementary practice. Digging through their archives, I happened across this relatively recent exchange on Derrida.
I liked this:
it’s also the case that Derrida genuinely seemed to love the texts he was writing about. Most Derrideans often spend their time chastising something called “the metaphysics of presence” and thus a whole swath of the philosophical tradition without knowing what this means; Derrida was never so irresponsible. The “Comp Lit” Derrida is unbearable. The “Levinasian” Derrida is a moralistic schmuck. But Derrida read Kant closely, he read Hegel’s entire oeuvre closely, he read Plato with a real feel for his cadences, sided early and often with Husserl over Heidegger, and on and on. And his attunement to European ethnocentrism as central to his overall project—it’s right there in Of Grammatology
I’ve never sat in an institutional course on Derrida. Never had his books or essays set as readings. (Actually, once I think, the very first. Couldn’t make sense of it at all). So perhaps this contributes to enjoying reading Derrida – or perhaps it means that I’ll not know who my audience is. But both Gratton and Harman mention elements of reading Derrida that I also enjoy or struggle with. Derrida studies seems to disappear into its own rabbit holes. Other philosophers are read one-eyed. Fidelity is distinctly problematic.
Perhaps this is why Martin McQuillan extends an olive branch, despite Mikics’ book having problems that aren’t necessarily to do with his reading of Derrida. McQuillan is diplomatic. He mostly appreciates the gesture of Mikics’ book, more than its content – though this is lightly touched on.
So what do I like about Derrida? The rigour of his early stuff. His sense of humour. His attempts to thread empirical situations, explicitly or covertly, into philosophical texts. But above all, that he loves to read, that he will turn over a text again and again. But I don’t feel wedded to following him. I’ll defend texts that seem to me to be justified in their originality, but I’ll leave it there.
I’m intrigued to get my hands on Harman’s Guerilla Metaphysics, now, to see his reading of White Mythology, too.
Started reading Of Grammatology. Have read most of it before, but never right through. 316 pages: 10 pages a day should see me through in about a month.
Check out threads on Savage Minds and the new Dead Voles. The instigation of all this was the post on Savage Minds about getting from “topics” to “problems”. Topics are empirical contexts, Problems are universal questions which are in principle able to be entertained and considered independent of the empirical context. The empirical context is an occasion for considering the problem because the “universal question” does not exist independently of its occasions.
Some observations. The debate is murky. Why? Because “universals” are always strategically enlisted into empirical situations. Their pulling power gets us funding, gets us published, wins us influence, looks good on our cvs. We’re thoroughly skeptical of such claims, and out of habit, we quickly pass over to see what context these are being employed in. If the last 50 years of “theory” has taught us anything, it has been to be attentive to the use to which such Problems are put.
The Problem, (alas, I cannot escape the system), is that Problems are indispensable. And I don’t mean just at the pragmatic level (ie. I still need to win funding). They are logically indispensable. Even with your skepticism in top gear, it can’t be left behind. It’s more difficult to rigorously justify them, perhaps, as we pile up criticisms, but still essential.
That’s why it’s boring to hear about constant “inversions of Plato“, because you still need to go back and read him. We’ll never get beyond the problems he raised. He can’t be done away so easily, and neither can the logical discipline of distinguishing between empirical and philsophical contexts.
Edit: I’m not for a moment trying to imply a lack of rigour on the part of anybody commenting or posting on this at either Savage Minds or Dead Voles. Not at all. What I think is interesting and worth exploring is the way that these two facets of academic “economy” are so easily twisted together — and how this leads to all sorts of difficulties.
these that make you want to be a teacher. Not just any teacher, but a good teacher.
It’s probably an inherent problem of doing “interdisciplinary” work, but one of my supervisors pressed me on my chosen audience this morning. Who do I want to talk to? Do I want to write a philosophical work, with a long historical prologue, or an historical work, with a philosophical appendix? Could I do both and keep everybody happy?
Of course, practicalities emerge: I’m only trying to write a PhD thesis, not author a revolution. So, decide on markers, decide to side with a discipline, for the moment, and leave the methodological revision of borders for later. There is a minimum degree of recognition required in order to be intelligible to one’s audience, and it exists in a community incommensurable with any other.
I can’t help thinking that this is a significant and depressing thought.
I’ve just spent a lovely week with the excellent folks at the Critical Theory archive at UC Irvine. I’ve written on the (idea of the) archive before, but this was my first visit to a “proper” archive – where you have to order up boxes, duplications are controlled, reading is done in a special reading room, and so on. I had a good week, and, so here are a scattering of reflections on the archive experience.
Handwriting. Frustrating! And even worse when in another language. Given my French is still slow and stuttering, and that deciphering handwriting requires some “intelligent guessing”, having to guess in another language adds a whole new realm of difficulty. It was… not comforting, but I was at least somewhat reconciled to the idea, when I discovered that just about everybody has difficulty with Derrida’s handwriting.
Quotidian. (Everyday, usual, commonplace) Somehow, for some reason, (perhaps because I work in a history department, perhaps I was thinking of Michelet), I had expected some kind of hushed, hallowed experience–beyond that usually experienced in libraries, that is–at the archives. Not so. It was a workplace; staff wondered through with coffee cups to talk with each other, there were staff meetings, no one scowled when my mobile phone went off. I had expected these amazing books and files to whisper their thoughts to me from their shelves, that I would smell their ideas, and breathe the heady brew of their author’s thoughts. But no.
Translation. I transcribed quotations in French, roughly translating in my head as I went, while transcribing in order to translate sections more carefully later. By the end of the week, I think my feel for the rhythm in Derrida’s French, and the way he went about his seminars had improved a great deal. Not that I got far in a week: you could spend years reading this stuff.
Econocrisis. On the last day I was there, I found out that the hours of the archive, and the hours of the library, had been cut due to funding cuts. Talking to a professor, he mentioned that they had four open positions, but couldn’t hire, and that every department’s programs had been down sized, while undergrad numbers ballooned. It reminded me that an archive requires a luxury of space. Without it, things are consigned to destruction.
