Derrida Dies

What an utterly impossible moment. Derrida died today at the age of 74. I found out after returning from dinner with KK and loading up  this New York Times article . KK and I had gone to dinner at Star of India in celebration of my passing my defense. We talked quickly and non-stop about her boyfriend, D, relationships, manuscripts out of dissertations, love as action taken to advance the spiritual growth of another being, crotchetiness, detailed letters of resignation, being mistaken for a bimbo, and just which gestures can communicate the notion of an all-consuming feeling.

We also talked about Derrida. D uses the metaphor of a house to explain subjectivity as described by structuralism and poststructuralism. Structuralism is like a house because the people inside it are limited by the structure of the house whereas in poststructuralism the house takes its meaning from the activities of the people inside the house. I’m pretty sure I botched the example. What I do remember clearly is that I suggested he try “Structure Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human and Sciences” which lays out the end of structuralism in topological terms.

I’m trying to think about what happens now that one of the most recognizable and important thinkers of the twentieth century has passed. Along with postmodernism, deconstruction is one of the most widely recognized but poorly misunderstood piece of specialist language to be produced by twentieth century philosophy.

But this is not an elegy about Derrida’s passing. It’s not really much of anything, just details about what I did around the time I learned he had died.