Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French literary critic and philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop "deconstruction" after it emerged in the work of Martin Heidegger.

Life

Derrida grew up in El-Biar, Algeria, and did not leave there until moving to France in 1949 to advance his secondary education (he described himself as feeling on arrival "a little bit black, and a little bit Arab"). He was expelled from his lycée by Algerian administrators zealous to implement antisemitic quotas set by the Vichy government and then skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students. His family remained in France long after, moving to Nice only in 1962. At his request, Derrida served as a teacher of soldiers' children in lieu of military service in Algeria (for the French side in the Algerian War of Independence) from 1957–1959, teaching French and English.

Related Topics:
El-Biar - Algeria - Vichy - Nice - Algerian War of Independence - French - English

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Beginning in 1952, Derrida was a student at the elite École Normale Superieure (ENS), where he studied under Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser, among others. After studies at the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium, completion of his philosophy agrégation, Derrida became a lecturer there. From 1960 to 1964, Derrida taught philosophy at the Sorbonne. From 1964 to 1984, he taught at the École Normale Superieure. Beginning with his 1966 lecture at Johns Hopkins University, at which he presented his essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (see below), he travelled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions, particularly in American universities. He successfully defended his Thése d'État (roughly, the equivalent of a doctorate) in 1980, subsequently published in English translation as "The Time of a Thesis: Punctuations". Until his death he was director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. From 1986 on he was Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Irvine, which has a major archive of his manuscripts. Derrida was awarded honorary doctorates by Cambridge University (see below), Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, University of Essex, University of Leuven, and Williams College. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received the 2001 Adorno-Preis.

Related Topics:
1952 - École Normale Superieure - Michel Foucault - Louis Althusser - Leuven - Belgium - Agrégation - 1960 - 1964 - Sorbonne - 1984 - 1966 - Johns Hopkins University - École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - Paris - 1986 - University of California, Irvine - Cambridge University - Columbia University - New School - University of Essex - University of Leuven - Williams College - American Academy of Arts and Sciences - 2001 - Adorno-Preis

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The documentary Derrida, in the making of which he actively participated, was released in 2002 and directed by Amy Ziering-Kofman and Kirby Dick.

Related Topics:
Documentary ''Derrida'' - 2002 - Amy Ziering-Kofman - Kirby Dick

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In 2003, Derrida was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer, which reduced his speaking and travelling engagements until his death in a Parisian hospital on the evening of Friday, October 8, 2004 (BBC story). An obituary in The New York Times titled Jacques Derrida, Abstruse Theorist, Dies at 74 has drawn a letter of objection, signed online by several thousand persons. Some of the article's alleged defects are recounted here.

Related Topics:
2003 - Pancreatic cancer - Parisian - Friday - October 8 - 2004 - The New York Times

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