Brain Pain discussion

This thread is for any questions and general you may have about Jacques Derrida and his work in Writing and Difference

If you have any links to resources, interviews, criticism, organizations, etc., please share them here.

I know of a documentary about him called Derrida. I don`t know if it`s any good but I guess it`s a good starting point. I imagine it`s a kind of `Derrida for dummies` made for the general public. I`m gonna see it one of these days, found it at the library :)

Corina wrote: "I know of a documentary about him called Derrida. I don`t know if it`s any good but I guess it`s a good starting point. I imagine it`s a kind of `Derrida for dummies` made for the general public. I..."

Let us know what you think after you watch it. Do you know when it was produced? Who directed, etc.?

It was released in 2002
This is the imdb link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303326/

Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie as well. It's by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman. I also found "Gost Dance" by Ken McMullen from 1984, in which Derrida talks about memory, history and his theory of ghosts (?!)

Corina wrote: "It was released in 2002
This is the imdb link
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303326/"

Thanks Corina!

Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie as well. It's by Kirby Dick and Amy Zier..."

Unfortunately, you're the third person who hasn't been able to find W&D in the library. Travis said he has a pdf version. I'll have to ask him where he found it.

I ordered a copy from Amazon. I imagine there must be used copies for sale online from several vendors.

Hmm... I'm not 100% sure, but I think Mark Z. Danielewski also worked on 'Derrida' the documentary?

Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie as well. It's by Kirby Dic..."

I got mine from mediafire. Just Google for the pdf and it should come up no problems, about 20MB all up.
Otherwise, here' where i got mine:

http://www.mediafire.com/?fmjjzznmu5e

It is the Alan Bass translated version

Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie as well. It's ..."

Travis -- if you printed yours out or it is in page format, would you give us an estimate of the number of pages? (Yes, I know I could download and check myself, but 20 mb is big for the current status of my system. I'm in line for a replacement soon.) Thx from Lily.

Just for the record, I believe I saw the Derrida film. Not much of an introduction. More just some face time if you know something about him.

Lily wrote: "Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie..."

Lily, the pdf is formatted 'as published' in the book so each page on the pdf represents two pages (landscape formatting) in the book if that makes any sense. There is 234 pages in the pdf so this is like 380 odd pages of the book with the rest being notes. I hope I'm making sense, bit of an awkward thing to describe.

Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped into the movie as well. It's ..."

Thank you Travis, that's a great start, might have to do some more looking around for a German version, I am not sure if I can handle Derrida in English entirely, but I'll be reading into it now to find out. Thanks again!

Travis wrote: "I got mine from mediafire. Just Google for the pdf and it should come up no problems, about 20MB all up.
Otherwise, here' where i got mine:

http://www.mediafire.com/?fmjjzznmu5e

It is the Alan Bass translated version ..."

Thanks Travis!

Travis wrote: "Lily wrote: "Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) I just bumped i..."

Thanks, Travis! I think that means I'll invest in a publisher's copy, rather than try to either read online or print it out, although it will certainly be great to have access to an online version if one wants a few pages here and there. (With an ebook, I might change my mind, if I can figure out the download interfaces and protocols. Another front for learning in 2012.)

Lily wrote: "Travis wrote: "Lily wrote: "Travis wrote: "Jim wrote: "Jenny wrote: "Funny, when checking whether my library has Writing & Difference (which unfortunately it hasn't, neither in English nor German) ..."

Yeah guys I'm definitely hesitant to have to resort to these measures but being in rural Qld, Australia, beggars cant be choosers, and being a uni student for the last few years I'm well and truly used to reading off the PC. Worse comes to worse it's there; I know I'll be attempting to buy these in the near future.

Oopsie, I forgot this discussion is starting tomorrow, so only just started the essay... I'm really at quite an exciting point in another book, and have a few RL things going on, but I'm going to see what other posts happen and jump into it ASAP tomorrow or Tuesday.

Here's a link to Of Grammatology as a pdf

http://www.mediafire.com/?muyoyujujmb

Thank you, sir. But that's a link to Of Grammatology. Did you have one to Writing and Difference?

Bill wrote: "Thank you, sir. But that's a link to Of Grammatology. Did you have one to Writing and Difference?"

Travis' post #9 above has the link

Got it. Sorry.

Ok, so now which book/essay should we be reading then, Of Grammatology, or Writing and Difference?

For me, Derrida is rather slow going. Not quite the same as Harry Potter or the Sunday Mail.

Unless Of Grammatology is more accessible than Writing and Difference, which has been slow going for me.

For E*V*E*R*Y*O*N*E Derrida is slow going. :-) That much is uncontroversial.

As far as I know, we're still reading Writing and Difference.

Traveller wrote: "Ok, so now which book/essay should we be reading then, Of Grammatology, or Writing and Difference?

For me, Derrida is rather slow going. Not quite the same as Harry Potter or the Sunday Mail.

Un..."

Yes, we're going to read W&D as planned. I posted the Of Grammatology link so we'll have it as back-up if we lose our way.

The reason we gave each essay a two week discussion window is because the ideas are densely packed and need some time to breathe. And please, crack open Harry Potter here and there if you need a little relief.

I'm thinking about adding Flaubert's Bouvard and Pécuchet into the mix maybe mid-way through our 22 weeks of W&D. It's an unfinished novel, but might be interesting to see a 19th century novelist's ideas about signs and what not presented in story form.

I'm rearing for that thread to start now, because I have a ton of puzzlements about the kind of language Derrida uses. It's kind of emotive and poetic which makes it much, much worse for me. Give me dry text-book type talk anyday. I love textbooks, I've always eaten them up for breakfast.

"in the acts and institutions of man, with the immense region of somnambulism, the almost-everything which is not the pure waking state, the sterile and silent acidity of the question itself, the almost-nothing.'"

I don't quite get the somnambulism theme there - what exactly is he referring to? Note how emotional "the sterile and silent acidity" feels.(To me, anyway) I guess I feel more at ease with more clinical language when one is discussing something from an analytical angle.

Traveller wrote: "I guess I feel more at ease with more clinical language when one is discussing something from an analytical angle...."

I suspect it would be out of character for Derrida to ask his readers' preferences before writing?

Lily wrote: "Traveller wrote: "I guess I feel more at ease with more clinical language when one is discussing something from an analytical angle...."

I suspect it would be out of character for Derrida to ask h..."

Hmm,.. may I suggest irony yet again? The irony that a lot of what what Derrida does talk about would appear to be about meaning, language and semiotics? The relationship between words as signifiers and the signified- (or between language used and that which is being waxed forth on)...

Maybe his style is constructed so as to prove his assertion that a text can never be summarized and is never present, that the play of meaning can overflow signification.

Well I think his style does make it harder to summarize his text, but does the meaning I "write" while I read Derrida overflow his signification? Sadly I hardly think so.

Traveller wrote: "...Maybe his style is constructed so as to prove his assertion that a text can never be summarized and is never present, that the play of meaning can overflow signification...."

Traveller, thx for that phrasing.

At least with Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, I sometimes feel the meaning is in the interstices.