Of Grammatology

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 456 pages
• Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Corrected edition January 8, 1998
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0801858305
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0801858307
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Weighs: 1.3 pounds

Product Review


"The translation is a noble job, and we should be grateful to have this distinguished book in our hands [Spivak's] situating of Derrida among his precursors -- Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Husserl -- and contemporaries -- Lacan, Foucault, and the elusive animal known as structuralism -- is very lucid and extremely useful." -- Michael Wood, New York Review of Books



"The tool-kit for anyone who wants to empty the 'presence' out of any text he has taken a dislike to. A handy arsenal of deconstructive tools are to be found in its pages, and the technique, once learnt, is as simple, and as destructive, as leaving a bomb in a brown paper bag outside (or inside) a pub." -- Roger Poole, Notes and Queries



"There is cause for rejoicing in the translation of De la grammatologie Just as Derrida discloses in Rousseau a writer who distrusts writing and longs for the proximity of the self to its voice, so Spivak approaches Derrida through the structure of his diction; no ideas but in the words themselves." -- Denis Donoghue, New Republic



"Reading Derrida was the shock of a decentering, the critical shift into a world of the interminable movement of difference, the crisis of any closure. Of Grammatology was and remains the most tightly worked and exemplary demonstration of the science of this shift and crisis." -- Canto

Product Description


"One of the major works in the development of contemporary criticism and philosophy." -- J. Hillis Miller, Yale University

Jacques Derrida's revolutionary theories about deconstruction, phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, first voiced in the 1960s, forever changed the face of European and American criticism. The ideas in De la grammatologie sparked lively debates in intellectual circles that included students of literature, philosophy, and the humanities, inspiring these students to ask questions of their disciplines that had previously been considered improper. Thirty years later, the immense influence of Derrida's work is still igniting controversy, thanks in part to Gayatri Spivak's translation, which captures the richness and complexity of the original. This corrected edition adds a new index of the critics and philosophers cited in the text and makes one of contemporary criticism's most indispensable works even more accessible and usable.

Reader Reviews
In the context of Derrida's early project - to provide a critique of the foundational human science - linguistics - Of Grammatology is an essential book. In it he develops ideas about "writing" and about the "trace", ideas which illuminate much about the modern science of linguistics. His work is an astringent when applied to other more "analytical" philosophers of language (e.g. John Searle). Derrida's writing style may seem difficult at first, until one realizes that it embodies two other important ideas - play and undecideability. Of Grammatology is not exactly a book of philosophy, and not exactly a book on linguistics, and not exactly a literary work but one which rests uneasily among these three disciplines. By not drawing conclusions, by keeping in play many concepts at once, Derrida manages to provide provocative ideas on mental representations while at the same time instantiating these ideas in the ebb and flow of the work itself. Because of its kalidescopic style, the book can be read for the pure enjoyment of a rambunctious entertainment, and as an important philosophical text, and as a satire, and as profoundly serious. As the academic furor over "decontruction" dies down, Derrida's work perhaps can begun to be read for its human importance. Those who value an insistent questioning will find a champion here.