Deconstruction

Martin McQuillan is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, journalist and writer. He is the editor of several texts by Paul de Man, including The Post-Romantic Predicament and The Paul de Man Notebooks. He teaches in the Sound/Image Cinema Lab at Falmouth University.

• Deconstruction: A Reader; Edited by Martin McQuillan; Contents:; Acknowledgements; A Map of This Book; Introduction; Martin McQuillan, 'Five Strategies for Deconstruction'.; Avant la Lettre; Karl Marx, from Capital.; Sigmund Freud, 'A Note on the Mystic Writing Pad'.; Georges Bataille, 'Restricted and General Economy'.; Walter Benjamin, 'Critique of Violence'.; Martin Heidegger, 'The Task of Destroying the History of Ontology'.; Edmond Jabes, 'The Moment After'.; Paul Valéry, 'In Praise of Water'.; Maurice Blanchot, 'On Friendship'.; 1. Opening Remarks; Jacques Derrida, 'A Number of Yes'.; 2. Philosophy; Christopher Norris, 'The Metaphysics of Presence: Plato, Rousseau, Saussure'.; Richard Rorty, 'Philosophy as a Kind of Writing'.; Rodolph Gasché, 'Deconstruction as Criticism'.; Geoffrey Bennington, 'Genuine Gasché (Perhaps)'.; Simon Critchley 'Black Socrates? Questioning the Philosophical Tradition'.; Jean-François Lyotard, 'Discussions, or Phrasing 'After Auschwitz''.; 3. Literature; J. Hillis Miller, 'Derrida's Topographies'.; Paul de Man, 'Autobiography as De-Facement'.; Derek Attridge, 'Ghost Writing'.; Nicholas Royle, 'The Phantom Review'.; Catherine Belsey, 'Hamlet's Dilemma'.; Peggy Kamuf, 'The Ghosts of Critique and Deconstruction'.; 4. Culture; Geoffrey Bennington, 'Deconstruction is Not What you Think'.; Andrew Benjamin, 'Derrida, Architecture and Philosophy'.; Bernard Tschumi, 'Violence of Architecture'.; Richard Beardsworth, 'Thinking Technicity'.; Avital Ronell, 'Towards a Narcoanalysis'.; Judith Butler, 'Implicit Censorship and Discursive Agency'.; Fred Botting and Scott Wilson, 'Homoeconopoeisis 1'.; 5. Sexual Difference; Diane Elam, 'Unnecessary Introductions'.; Robert Young, 'The Same Difference: Deconstruction and the Theory of Sexual Difference'.; Barbara Johnson, 'Gender Theory and the Yale School'.; Rachel Bowlby, 'Domestication'.; Alexander Duttmann, 'Recognising The Virus'.; Hélène Cixous, 'What Is It O'Clock? or The door (we never enter)'.; 6. Psychoanalysis; Geoffrey Hartman, 'Psychoanalysis: The French Connection'.; Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok, from The Wolf Man's Magic Word.; Samuel Weber, 'The Sideshow, or: Remarks on a Canny Moment'.; Nicholas Royle, 'The Remains of Psychoanalysis (i): Telapathy'.; David Wills, from Prosthesis.; 7. Politics; Michael Ryan, 'Derrida and Marx'.; Willy Maley, 'Specters of Engels'.; Bill Readings, 'The Deconstruction of Politics'.; Gayatri Spivak, 'Practical Politics of the Open End'.; Ernesto Laclau, 'Why Do Empty Signifiers Matter in Politics?'; Homi K Bhabha, 'Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse'.; 8. Ethics; Emmanuel Levinas, 'Jacques Derrida: Wholly Otherwise'.; Robert Bernasconi, 'The Trace of Levinas in Derrida'.; Drucilla Cornell, 'Post-Structuralism, The Ethical Relation and the Law'.; Philipe Lacoue-Labarthe, 'In the Name of…'; Jean-Luc Nancy, 'What is to be Done?'; John D Caputo, 'God Is Not Differance'; 9. The Work of Mourning; Jacques Derrida, '(In Memorium) Paul de Man'.; Jacques Derrida, 'Text Read at Louis Althusser's Funeral'.; Jacques Derrida, 'Adieu: Emmanuel Levinas'.; Jacques Derrida, 'I'm going to have to wander all alone: Gilles Deleuze'.; Jacques Derrida, 'Friendship-Above-All: Jean-François Lyotard'.; 10. Closing Statements; Jacques Derrida and Pierre Mendes France, 'Open Letter to Bill Clinton'.; Jacques Derrida, 'Telepathy'.; Jacques Derrida, 'The Deconstruction of Actuality: An Interview with Jacques Derrida'.; Bibliographies; Bibliography I: Jacques Derrida; Bibliography II: Key Publications of Contributing Authors; Acknowledgements.

This is an excellent volume. McQuillan has balanced nicely well-known texts by Derrida or others with texts that are hard to find, untranslated into English, or even still unpublished. A very useful volume not only for those who need an introduction to deconstruction, but as well for scholars who will be able quickly to find these essays and discover others they did not know.