Derrida

Benoît Peeters was born in Paris in 1956. Following a degree in Philosophy at the Sorbonne (Paris I), he went on to study for his Masters at the École Pratique des Hautes Études under the direction of Roland Barthes. He has since published over forty works on a wide variety of subjects and has written essays and biographies on Hergé, Alfred Hitchcock, and Paul Valéry.

This biography of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) tells the story of a Jewish boy from Algiers, excluded from school at the age of twelve, who went on to become the most widely translated French philosopher in the world - a vulnerable, tormented man who, throughout his life, continued to see himself as unwelcome in the French university system. We are plunged into the different worlds in which Derrida lived and worked: pre-independence Algeria, the microcosm of the École Normale Supérieure, the cluster of structuralist thinkers, and the turbulent events of 1968 and after. We meet the remarkable series of leading writers and philosophers with whom Derrida struck up a friendship: Louis Althusser, Emmanuel Levinas, Jean Genet, and Hélène Cixous, among others. We also witness an equally long series of often brutal polemics fought over crucial issues with thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, John R. Searle, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as several controversies that went far beyond academia, the best known of which concerned Heidegger and Paul de Man. We follow a series of courageous political commitments in support of Nelson Mandela, illegal immigrants, and gay marriage. And we watch as a concept - deconstruction - takes wing and exerts an extraordinary influence way beyond the philosophical world, on literary studies, architecture, law, theology, feminism, queer theory, and postcolonial studies.
 
In writing this compelling and authoritative biography, Benoît Peeters talked to over a hundred individuals who knew and worked with Derrida. He is also the first person to make use of the huge personal archive built up by Derrida throughout his life and of his extensive correspondence. Peeters' book gives us a new and deeper understanding of the man who will perhaps be seen as the major philosopher of the second half of the twentieth century.

The definitive biography of the philosopher Jacques Derrida(1930-2004).
In writing this biography, Benoît Peeters talked to over ahundred individuals who knew and worked with Derrida. He is alsothe first person to make use of the huge personal archive built upby Derrida throughout his life and of his voluminouscorrespondence.

* Acknowledgements
* Introduction
* PART I: JACKIE 1930-1962
* CHAPTER 1 The Negus 1930-1942
* CHAPTER 2 Under the sun of Algiers 1942-1949
* CHAPTER 3 The walls of Louis-le-Grand 1949-1952
* CHAPTER 4 The École normale supérieure 1952-1956
* CHAPTER 5 A year in America 1956-1957
* CHAPTER 6 The soldier of Koléa 1957-1959
* CHAPTER 7 Melancholia in Le Mans 1959-1960
* CHAPTER 8 Towards independence 1960-1962
* PART II: DERRIDA 1963-1983
* CHAPTER 1 From Husserl to Artaud 1963-1964
* CHAPTER 2 In the shadow of Althusser 1963-1966
* CHAPTER 3 Writing itself 1965-1966
* CHAPTER 4 A lucky year 1967
* CHAPTER 5 A period of withdrawal 1968
* CHAPTER 6 Uncomfortable positions 1969-1971
* CHAPTER 7 Severed ties 1972-1973
* CHAPTER 8 Glas 1973-1975
* CHAPTER 9 In support of philosophy 1973-1976
* CHAPTER 10 Another life 1976-1977
* CHAPTER 11 From the 'nouveaux philosophes' to the Estates general
* 1977-1979
* CHAPTER 12 Envois and proofs 1979-1981
* CHAPTER 13 Night in Prague 1981-1982
* CHAPTER 14 A new set of circumstances 1982-1983
* PART III: JACQUES DERRIDA 1984-2004
* CHAPTER 1 The territories of deconstruction 1984-1986
* CHAPTER 2 From the Heidegger affair to the Paul de Man affair 1987-1988
* CHAPTER 3 Living memory 1988-1990
* CHAPTER 4 Portrait of the philosopher at sixty
* CHAPTER 5 At the frontiers of the institution 1991-1992
* CHAPTER 6 Of deconstruction in America
* CHAPTER 7 Spectres of Marx 1993-1995
* CHAPTER 8 The Derrida International 1996-1999
* CHAPTER 9 The time of dialogue 2000-2002
* CHAPTER 10 Till death us do part 2003-2004
* Notes
* Sources
* Bibliography