Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts: Professions of Faith

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Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts highlights the Derridean assertion that the university must exist 'without condition' - as a bastion of intellectual freedom and oppositional activity whose job it is to question mainstream society. Derrida argued that only if the life of the mind is kept free from excessive corporate influence and political control can we be certain that the basic tenets of democracy are being respected within the very societies that claim to defend democratic principles. This collection contains eleven essays drawn from international scholars working in both the humanities and social sciences, and makes a well-grounded and comprehensive case for the importance of Derridean thought within the liberal arts today. Written by specialists in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, geography, political science, animal studies, and gender studies, each essay traces deconstruction's contribution to their discipline, explaining how it helps keep alive the 'unconditional', contrapuntal mission of the university. The book offers a forceful and persuasive corrective to the current assault on the liberal arts.

Reviews

This is an excellent collection with notable scholars like Simon Critchley, Christopher Norris, Jonathan Culler mixing it with younger and subject specialist scholars to retherorize language and truth, literary studies, history, third-wave feminism, French studies, sociology, political science, spatial studies as well as the institutional form of thinking (Critchley), deconstruction of the university and the future of the humanities. If there was one book to read on the university this year, it would have to be Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts. -- Michael A. Peters, University of Illinois, USA
Deconstruction provides a way to begin reassessing and reaffirming the responsibilities of an institution. Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts does not call for an uncritical dismissal of the memory of the university as institution, or a rejection of the institutions memory as disciplinary history. This excellent and thought provoking volume engages the role of the university in relation to the demands and conditions of a new international by opening up the logic of its existence as a cultural institution concerned with the problem of global education and the question of what knowledge is of most worth. -- Peter Trifonas, Professor with the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Author Bio

Mary Caputi is Professor of Political Science at California State University at Long Beach, USA. She is the author of A Kinder, Gentler America: the Mythical 1950s (2005) and Voluptuous Yearnings: A Feminist Reading of the Obscene (1994). Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr. is Professor of Geography and Development and Associate Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona, USA. He is author of Social Geography: A Critical Introduction (2009) and co-editor of A Companion to Social Geography (2011) and Mapping Tourism (2003). Matthew Calarco, Assistant Professor (Department of Philosophy, California State University, Fullerton, USA), Mary Caputi, Professor (Department of Political Science, California State University at Long Beach, USA), Simon Critchley, Professor of Philosophy (Philosophy Department, Eugene Lang College / The New School for Liberal Arts, USA), Jonathan Culler, Professor (Department of English and Comparative Literature, Cornell University, USA), Vincent J. Del Casino Jr., Professor, School of Geography and Development and Associate Dean (School of Bahavioural and Social Sciences, The University of Arizona, USA), Clorinda Donato, Professor of French and Italian and Co-Director of the French and Francophone Studies Program (California State University at Long Beach, USA), Colm J. Kelly, Associate Professor (Department of Sociology, St. Thomas University, Canada), Mark Mason, Deputy Dean (University of Chichester, UK), Christopher Norris, Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy (School of English, Communication and Philosophy, Cardiff University, UK), Diane Rubenstein, Professor of Government and American Studies (Department of Government, Cornell University, USA), Keith Woodward, Assistant Professor (Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) .