Wiley Fall 2012 Polity

Derrida: A Biography

by Benoit Peeters
9780745656151, 0745656153
$35.00/£25.00 UK
Hardback
Philosophy / History & Surveys Polity
700 pages
Status: Forthcoming

Title Summary

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.

Contributors

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.

Quotes

‘A real tour de force. Assimilating a vast amount of material – Derrida’s own voluminous publications, unpublished documents and correspondence, and conversations with a host of acquaintances – Benoît Peeters has produced a compelling narrative that sheds light on all aspects of Derrida’s remarkable career.’
Jonathan Culler, Cornell University

‘In addressing a philosopher of the importance of Jacques Derrida, whose massive output – about 60 volumes, not including his as yet unpublished seminars – has been translated and debated the world over, Benoît Peeters has quite rightly chosen not the origins or content of the work itself, but the life of the man behind it. In short, he has written an excellent biography entirely in keeping with Anglo-Saxon traditions.’
Elisabeth Roudinesco, The Guardian

The Crisis of the European Union: A Response

by Jurgen Habermas
9780745662428, 0745662420
$19.95/$23.95 Can./£16.99 UK
Hardback
Political Science / General Polity
120 pages
146.100 mm W | 223.500 mm H | 19.099 mm T 5.75in W | 8.80in H | 0.75in T

Title Summary

Translated by Ciaran Cronin.
In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states.

Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership.

Contributors

Jürgen Habermas is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt and one of the most influential social and political thinkers in the world today.

Quotes

"One of Europe's most prominent intellectuals, a social political theorist of the highest standing. In pinpointing the lack of democratic participation, he builds a case that Europe's leaders will sooner or later have to answer."
Financial Times

"The Crisis' demand for a politicised and democratised Europe is a welcome tonic to an event currently marked by its lack of vision."
Fabian Review

"We should rejoice that a philosopher like Habermas is not giving up, but calling the European elite to order. He sees an opportunity in the crisis. 'With a little backbone the crisis of the single currency can bring about what some once hoped for from a common European foreign policy, namely a cross-border awareness of a shared European destiny.'"
Global Journal

"One of the most famous living philosophers."
Radical Philosophy
"There is something refreshingly honest about Jurgen Habermas's take on the European Union."
Irish Times

"For at least a generation Jurgen Habermas's work has made a significant impact on a variety of important debates in philosophy and the social sciences."
Political Studies

"No-one articulates the 'European' ideal with greater intellectual clarity, philosophical acumen and humanist fervour than Jürgen Habermas."
Muslim World




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