Derrida

Derrida was fre­quently inter­ested in mar­ginal writing, as we can see in La gram­ma­tologie, Marges de la Philosophie, or, of course, the infi­nitely labyrinthine Glas. None of these inter­ven­tions can be read devoid of their physical, material aspect. They are mar­ginal writing at many dif­ferent levels, and sporting a mul­ti­layered form that needs to be peeled out like an onion –or look through like a golden apple that has been recovered with silver, tremen­dously subtle lat­ticework (maskiyyot), as Mai­monides said when he talked about the “word fitly spoken”.

The two texts we are reading for this session, “Force of Law” and “Hos­pi­tality” will let us think not only with each of them, but also by com­bining them, as if becoming mutual mar­ginal writing for one another.