Jacques Derrida: Critical Thought (review)

Paul Hegarty

French Studies: A Quarterly Review, Volume 60, Number 4, October

2006, p. 548 (Article)
Published by Oxford University Press

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/frs/summary/v060/60.4hegarty.html

Access provided by Panteion University of Social __ACCESS_STATEMENT__ Political Science (8 Apr 2014 10:09 G

548

REVIEWS FS, LX.4, 2006

Jacques Derrida: Critical Thought. Edited by IAN MACLACHLAN . Aldershot,

Ashgate, 2004. xii 166 pp. Hb 47.50.
There are two things that an unthemed collection of essays on a particular writer
seeks to do: offer detailed critical perspectives based on informed readings; and
present a range of accessible perspectives from which the newcomer to the
writer will nd ways in to the body of work in question. This collection
certainly attempts the negotiation of these aims, and often succeeds. The
writing is, without exception, clear, and the essays largely offer valuable
analyses that could be seen as stimulating basic research, whilst offering indications of more particular and advanced investigations into Derridas works
and the issues raised in them. None the less, the collection does not successfully
resolve its double mission, nor does it fail in an interesting, deconstructive way
on several occasions, the essays are pitched at readers who do not need introductory work, and yet they consist primarily of exegesis (for example, the essay
by Harvey), sometimes of writers other than Derrida (MacLean, Robbins,
Smith). There is nothing wrong with these contributions, but I fail to see the
purpose of anthologizing them in a volume that does purport to have a specic
aim: the exploration, in detail, of key ideas in Derrida, and, often (too often?)
their relation to other writers. The range of subjects covered is good (from autobiography to death, from metaphor to analytical philosophy), but the depth is
sometimes lacking simply because these are often essays about more than
Derrida, and therefore there is no room to go into the textual detail of Derridas
own texts (notable exceptions on this point are MacLean, Todd, Clark), and
certainly, seemingly, no room for properly critical analysis. Todds essay, on
Glas, and focusing on autobiography and its undoing, is one of the best pieces
on offer, and is joined in that by Clarks examination of the notion of time in
Heidegger and Derrida. The weakest point is Smiths article on death
originally published in 1998, it is about death, but does not feature the many
texts Derrida wrote on that subject in the 1990s, and therefore, whatever its
merits, it does not belong here. Maclachlan is aware of this issue, but his
defence in the preface of its inclusion only emphasizes the problem. Overall,
this is an interesting collection if you are already familiar with Derrida, even if
it adds little to debates on his work. There are some usefully introductory
elements (Maclachlans introduction, Basss compact article from 1972). Its
purpose as a collection gets lost along the way. It has another, pragmatic,
purpose to bring together unanthologized texts but too many of these are
simply dated (as explorations of Derridas thought on particular subjects), and
are mostly literally dated to the 1980s English-speaking world, so this cannot
claim to be a representative collection of important essays on Derrida.
doi:10.1093/fs/knl158

PAUL HEGARTY
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK

Hele`ne Cixous. By IAN BLYTH with SUSAN SELLERS . (Live Theory). London,
Continuum, 2004. vi 164 pp. Pb 9.99.
The guiding theme in this book is the controversial question of ecriture feminine
which won Hele`ne Cixous international fame in the 1970s. While unsurprising