Threshold Phenomena

Threshold Phenomena reexamines Jacques Derridas thinking of hospitality, from his well-known writings of the 1990s to his recently-published seminars on the same topic. The book follows Derridas rereading of several central figures and texts on hospitality (Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus, Kants Perpetual Peace, Levinass Totality and Infinity) and his attempt to rethink questions surrounding not only private but also public hospitality in the form of immigration law, the contemporary treatment of migrants or stateless peoples, and the establishment of cities of asylum. Naas develops many of the central themes of Derridas seminarthe relationship between hospitality and teletechnology (telephone, internet, cyberspace, etc.), the role of fatherlands and mother tongues in hospitality, questions of purity, immunity, and xenophobia, and the possibility of extending hospitality beyond the humanto animals, plants, gods, and clones. Reframing Derridas approach to ethics, Naas reconsiders the relationship between hospitality and deconstruction, concluding that hospitality is not merely a theme to be treated by deconstruction but one of the best ways of describing its work. Naass book turns around a figure that Derrida himself returns to several times throughout the seminar: the thresholda figure of hospitality par excellence, but also, in his seminars, another name for what Derrida in the 1960s began calling diffrance. Threshold Phenomena concludes that Derridas seminar on hospitality is one of the best introductions we have to Derridas work in general and one of the surest signs of its continuing relevance, a seminar that is at once fascinating and engaging in its own right and necessary for analyzing todays increasingly nationalistic and xenophobic political climate.