This extraordinary book offers a clear and compelling biography of Jacques Derrida along with one of Derrida’s strangest and most unexpected texts. Geoffrey Bennington’s account of Derrida leads the reader through the philosopher’s familiar yet widely misunderstood work on language and writing to the less familiar themes of signature, sexual difference, law, and affirmation. In an unusual and unprecedented "dialogue," Derrida responds to Bennington’s text by interweaving Bennington’s text with surprising and disruptive "periphrases." Truly original, this dual and dueling text opens new dimensions in Derrida’s thought and work.

CONTENTS:

"This book presupposes a contract"
Derridabase by Geoffrey Bennington
With Time
Remark
The Beginning
The Sign
Writing
Husserl
Différance
Context
Beyond
The Proper Name
Circumfession by Jacques Derrida
Time and Finitude
Metaphor
The Unconscious
The Signature
Translation
Babel
Literature
The Gift
Sexual Difference
The Mother: Chora
Femininity
Politics
The Title
The Institution
The Series: (Quasi-) Transcendental Questions
The Closure
The Jew
Striction
Being the Other
The Machine
Envoi
Acts (The Law of Genre)
Curriculum Vitae
Bibliography (including list of abbreviations of Derrida’s works cited in text)
Supplemental Bibliography
Illustration Sources

AUTHOR:

Geoffrey Bennington is the Asa G. Candler Professor of Modern French Thought at Emory University. He is the author of several books on Derrida and translator of many others by him, and he is coeditor of The Seminars of Jacques Derrida series. 

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) was director of studies at the école des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, and professor of humanities at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of many books published by the University of Chicago Press.