An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781788732802)

Philosopher, film star, father of "post truth"--the real story of Jacques Derrida

Who is Jacques Derrida? For some, he is the originator of a relativist philosophy responsible for the contemporary crisis of truth. For the far right, he is one of the architects of Cultural Marxism. To his academic critics, he reduced French philosophy to "little more than an object of ridicule." For his fans, he is an intellectual rock star who ranged across literature, politics, and linguistics. In An Event, Perhaps, Peter Salmon presents this misunderstood and misappropriated figure as a deeply humane and urgent thinker for our times.

Born in Algiers, the young Jackie was always an outsider. Despite his best efforts, he found it difficult to establish himself among the Paris intellectual milieu of the 1960s. However, in 1967, he changed the whole course of philosophy: outlining the central concepts of deconstruction. Immediately, his reputation as a complex and confounding thinker was established. Feted by some, abhorred by others, Derrida had an exhaustive breadth of interests but, as Salmon shows, was moved by a profound desire to understand how we engage with each other. It is a theme explored through Derrida's intimate relationships with writers such as Althusser, Genet, Lacan, Foucault, Cixous, and Kristeva.

Accessible, provocative and beautifully written, An Event, Perhaps will introduce a new readership to the life and work of a philosopher whose influence over the way we think will continue long into the twenty-first century.

Author: Peter Salmon
ISBN-10: 1788732804
ISBN-13: 9781788732802
Publisher: Verso
Language: English
Published: 10/13/2020
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.50w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/29/2020
Publishers Weekly 07/06/2020 pg. 62