(Re)reading Derrida: A Library to Come – Conference and Workshop

Event | (Re)reading Derrida: A Library to Come – Conference and Workshop
Dates: 31 October-1 November 2024
Location: University of Amsterdam
Organizers: dr. Marie Baronian (UvA), dr. Joost de Bloois (UvA).
Contact & registration: M.A.M.B.LousBaronian@uva.nl, j.g.c.debloois@uva.nl*
Registration deadline: 1 October 2024
Credits: 1, 2 or 3 ECTS

*Upon registration, provide the organizers with your name, preferred e-mail, university and research school! Please also specify whether you are an RMA student or PhD researcher.

Twenty years ago, Jacques Derrida passed away and left behind an incredibly dense, extensive and varied body of work. Since the late sixties, Derrida has authored several texts and books that altogether not only reflect what has commonly come to be known as deconstruction through a wide set of original concepts and ideas, but have also become “classics” and points of references for several disciplines, fields, and discourses beyond philosophy.

This two day conference aims to “unpack” the library that Derrida has constituted and the revenance of his writing legacy. In today’s context of global changes and transitions on all fronts — from institutions to technological transformations as well as enduring crises and extreme forms of violence— which of Derrida’s books should we keep on the bookshelf? Or, why should we re-read such books in the first place and how to read them?

In a way, this resonates with the sorts of close reading that Derrida himself has practiced, inviting us to question, again and again, our critical engagement with texts, and with the process of reading and writing that puts into question exegetic and hermeneutic readings. Moreover, Derrida has continuously reflected upon questions of inheritance, trace, repetition and reproducibility, destination and spectrality while claiming, as he did in his very last interview, that, simultaneously, “one has not yet begun to read me” and that “after my death there will be nothing left”. How then to (re)consider a work and language that is at once at our disposal (that we use and absorb) but do not belong to us? And how do recent editions of seminars and posthumous publications of older texts, as well as some of the new directions that Derrida’s thinking has led to, impact our perception of the philosopher?

Each presentation during the conference will engage specifically with one of these texts in order to question and stress their function, echo, singularity and relevance, or perhaps limitations. “Il n’y a pas de hors-texte” is not solely one of Derrida’s most famous statements, but an opportunity to re-read his oeuvre as an infinite and ongoing source of inspiration and contestation. The conference will include a plenary round table discussion as well. The conference will be followed by a masterclass by Isabelle Alfandary open to rMA students.

Schedule

9.30
Doors open

10.00:
Marie-Aude BARONIAN & Joost de BLOOIS: Welcome Words

10.15:
Isabelle ALFANDARY: “It just keeps on beginning: Reading Of Grammatology”
Esther PEEREN: “Demeure: Fiction and Testimony – Derrida as Close Reader”

11.15:
Jakko KEMPER: “Circumfession: Generative AI and Aesthetic Production”
Georgios TSAGDIS: “Mal d’archives: Bioarchive Fever”

12.00-13.00
Lunch break

13.15:
Raphael ZAGURY-ORLY: “Spectres de Marx: Deconstructing Trust in the Vitality of Life”
Gijs van OENEN: “Voyous: Autoimmunities Revisited”

14.15:
Hent de VRIES: “Glas: On Sounding Out Hegel on Absolute Knowledge”
Johan de JONG: “Passions: ‘An Oblique ODering’: On Derrida’s irresponsible response”

15.15-15.45:
CoXee break

15.45-16.45:
Darin TENEV: “A Chimerical Library: Reading L’Animal que donc je suis”
Susanna LINDBERG: “The Concept of World in the Séminaire La bête et le souverain I-II”

17.00-18.00:
Roundtable on translating and publishing Derrida: with Thomas CROMBEZ,
Darin TENEV, Raphael ZAGURY-ORLY and Hent de VRIES.
Supported by ASCA, NICA, and Institut Français NL

Credit details

Participants may receive up to 3 ECTS for attending and preparing the conference (2 ECTS) and the workshop/masterclass (1 ECTS).

Participants 1. read a book by Derrida, presented by the conference speakers 2. prepare questions concerning this book (to be sent to the organizers shortly before the start of the conference), bring their comments and quotes 3.afterwards, reflect in writing on their reading experience (1 A4)

For the masterclass with Isabelle Alfandary, participants receive 3 ECTS: 1. for their presence and active participation 2 preparing the readings selected by Alfandary, 3 .complete and bring in a reflection (2 pages0 consisting of discussion questions, comments and passages for further exploration.