Description
Book SynopsisClass Acts examines two often neglected aspects of Jacques Derrida's work as a philosopher, his public presentations at lectures and conferences and his teaching, along with the question of the speech act that links them. What, Michael Naas asks, is one doing when one speaks in public in these ways?
The book follows Derrida's itinerary with regard to speech act theory across three public lectures, from 1971 to 1997, all given, for reasons the book seeks to explain, in Montreal. In these lectures, Derrida elaborated his critique of J. L. Austin and his own subsequent redefinition of speech act theory. The book then gives an overview of Derrida's teaching career and his famous seminar presentations, along with his own explicit reflections on pedagogy and educational institutions beginning in the mid-1970s. Naas then shows through a reading of three recently published seminarson life death, theory and practice, and forgivenessjust how Derrida the teacher interrogated
Table of Contents
Abbreviations of Works Cited | xi
Introduction: The Program | 1
Part I: Derrida in Montreal
(A Play in Three Speech Acts )
Argument and Dramatis Personae | 13
Act 1. The Context (1971) | 15
Intermission 1: Glyph 1 | 41
Act 2. The Signature (1979) | 45
Intermission 2: Glyph 2 | 55
Act 3. The Event (1997) | 59
Encore: Cocoon | 69
Part II: The Open Seminar
The Counter-Program (Syllabus) | 75
Class 1. Agrégations: The Chance of Life Death (1975–76) | 93
Class 2. Education in Theory and Practice (1976–77) | 111
Class 3. Grace and the Machine: Perjury and Pardon (1997–98) | 127
Conclusion: Actes de naissance | 149
Acknowledgments | 157
Notes | 159
Index | 183
