Jacques Derrida: A Biography [Paperback]

Jason Powell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0826494498 | ISBN-13: 978-0826494498

At the time of his death in 2004, Jacques Derrida was arguably the most influential and the most controversial thinker in contemporary philosophy. Deconstruction, the movement that he founded, has received as much criticism as admiration and provoked one of the most contentious philosophical debates of the twentieth century. Jacques Derrida: A Biography offers for the first time a complete biographical overview of this important philosopher, drawing on Derrida's own accounts of his life as well as the narratives of friends and colleagues. Powell explores Derrida's early life in Algeria, his higher education in Paris and his development as a thinker. Jacques Derrida: A Biography provides an essential and engaging account of this major philosopher's remarkable life and work.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'In attempting an intellectual biography of Derrida [Powell] is doing something unique ... He has a good grasp of the ideas circulating around deconstrution, and articulates them in a suitably reader-friendly manner without sacrificing any of their complexity or compromising their integrity.' Dr Karl Simms, Director of Studies, School of English, University of Liverpool

About the Author

Jason Powell has a PhD in philosophy and is the author of Jacques Derrida: A Biography and Heidegger's Contributions to Philosophy. He has served with the British Army in Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo and now works as a freelance writer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (January 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826494498
• ISBN-13: 978-0826494498
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,984,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Super bad., October 5, 2008

By 

Martin (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacques Derrida: A Biography (Hardcover)

Usually I appreciate Continuum's editorial line, but in this case they really messed it up. They went for the easy sales.

The biggest problems of this book are:
1. It does not add anything new to what it was already know about Derrida
2. It fails to mention the secret of Derrida's life, i.e. that he had a son with Sylvane Agacinski that was later adopted by Jospin when he marrid Sylvane
3. When it tries to move beyond Derrida's life and talk about his work, it messes up big time
4. It's badly written

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now the dust has settled on my book, November 9, 2008

By 

Jason Powell (Wrexham, Wales) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacques Derrida: A Biography (Paperback)

I may be entitled to say a word about it. I am the author of it. I was personally attracted to Derrida's writing because, while growing up I was dominated by ideas deriving from emotional attachments to the politics of Western Civilisation and universal true religion. Jacques Derrida seemed to me to have attained to a superhuman position beyond Right and Left in politics. He had a keen mind, and an aversion to belonging. He appeared to me like Nietzsche's 'blonde beast', a mix of many elements of various cultures. He knew too much, and he found it hard to settle for any position. He loved the future, and he was prone to strange images and phrases like the transitional Black Lodge sequences of David Lynch's films which, while having no distinct meaning in conceptual form, seem to lie at the heart of existence for human beings.

I myself wanted to be at the heart of being, to know the truth, to hear the voice of God. Derrida longs for these things too. He discredits those who claim to have the truth because he still seeks. Who cares for his biography, really? Like him, I seek myself really, and hope to find myself in an other. The superman listens out for the voice of the other. And sees signs of a glimpse of something which is truly new and original. If the full presence of this divine truth does not come, then let us at least be honest about that. Derrida's works meant this desire and disappointment at once.

To be honest, I wrote his biography because I also wanted, with a desire which was relatively pointless since I only sought myself, to know the details of his 74 years.

Now, in my view, what negative views there are about my book are justified in many ways. But the shame for voicing them and accepting them should be felt by those who do that negative work. You might be right to say that 'there is not enough biographical information'. Yes. That is right. Leonardo Da Vinci, Hegel, Beethoven and our other heroes exceed their biography. Derrida implied that there will have to be a new type of biography. My book is not a biography... I wrote against you scholars and teachers, you who earn a salary for reading and teaching what is utterly free, secret, beyond good and evil, beyond Right and Left, and beyond the calculated lifestyle of the average man or woman. I was never at home at our inflated and redundant universities, and neither is this book at home there.

If there is anything which will profit you when reading this, it is my image of a philosopher who belongs with all his intellect and his heart to a new coming order of thought which will, actually, outlast our times, and lead into a new age. I only hope that there are people in coming times with the intellect to be able to read this man's work in French or in English translation. From the outset, from the Introduction, I was only concerned with the future of our culture, and in finding out how Derrida, like Nietzsche, was concerned with the same thing. Naturally, this coming world should have some of the kindness, greatness, and desire for the absolute truth which Derrida represents for me.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars best i have read!, November 6, 2006

By 

anon (uk) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jacques Derrida: A Biography (Paperback)

Derrida's biography may not only face scorn from those who do not admire him, but also from those who expect a biography to mimic Derrida's so difficult books. Given the hatred Derrida's work faces in his life and death, a half-way step towards reconciliation with resistance to deconstruction, such as this book is, is of supreme benefit.

To my mind, this biography offers a good introduction to Derrida's thought and life. It gives to the uninitiated the first step toward Derrida. It consistently invites the reader to actually read Derrida's works, and therefore, even where its own readings are partial and too brief, they point to the importance and the meaning of Derrida's works.

If there are readers who wish to learn about Derrida and modern philosophy, and about much besides, including the question of what the meaning of life is, and what thinking is, then I do not know of a better book with which to begin. I also think it will be a good antidote to the over-enthusiasm of those who think that Derrida's revolution has already happened, and that it needs no further efforts. Derrida's work requires those willing to go their own way, and not simply to mimic Derrida's style and his frame of mind.

The more widely this book is read, the more it will be possible to see and hear philosophy being done in the present day in a relevant way.