Derri-dead...
I just heard that Jacque Derrida has passed away and is now deconstructing himself... or being deconstructed by other higher powers.
I feel bad for several reasons...
First, because I was shocked to learn he was alive until he died. I suppose I assumed he was long dead. Why? I'm not sure. I think I generally assume that anyone whose texts are read so widely by undergraduate philosophy majors is already loong down the path of the DoDo.
Two, because Derrida had a hand in my mental-poetry-mess in college. Not his fault, I know, but... if not for him I might have suffered less at the hands of those undergrad philosophers... with their clunky understandings, poor applications of theory, and 19 year old mean streaks.
If not for him I might have been something beyond, "The last modernist" when I was in college. I had what my friends called a "beauty hangup."
I am, after all, religious.
And third, I feel bad that I've never really read him. Rather I've read enough of him to refute oncomers with a mix of academic jargon and defensive logic. So here is my prayer, my confession, and my promise to Jacque.
I will read you now. Tonight I'll start. I'm sorry you're dead. I'm sorry it was cancer. I hope that Josh Corey and my cousin Tim and Maria and that guy from the Atlanta Poetry Group will forgive me for making a pun from your demise.
But it seemed fitting!
I feel bad for several reasons...
First, because I was shocked to learn he was alive until he died. I suppose I assumed he was long dead. Why? I'm not sure. I think I generally assume that anyone whose texts are read so widely by undergraduate philosophy majors is already loong down the path of the DoDo.
Two, because Derrida had a hand in my mental-poetry-mess in college. Not his fault, I know, but... if not for him I might have suffered less at the hands of those undergrad philosophers... with their clunky understandings, poor applications of theory, and 19 year old mean streaks.
If not for him I might have been something beyond, "The last modernist" when I was in college. I had what my friends called a "beauty hangup."
I am, after all, religious.
And third, I feel bad that I've never really read him. Rather I've read enough of him to refute oncomers with a mix of academic jargon and defensive logic. So here is my prayer, my confession, and my promise to Jacque.
I will read you now. Tonight I'll start. I'm sorry you're dead. I'm sorry it was cancer. I hope that Josh Corey and my cousin Tim and Maria and that guy from the Atlanta Poetry Group will forgive me for making a pun from your demise.
But it seemed fitting!
2 Comments:
I have a close friend who's been studying with him at UC-Irvine. He's not what you think. Veneration of the ideas, but perhaps not the man.
Laura
dear laurel, i forgive you twice. i was never that in to derrida anyway. as an philsophe-turned-enviro, i choose to save the world at work and masturbate at home.
so i read the obit in the nytimes, and afterwards i was like, but what did he do?
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