Jacques Derrida

He taught at NYU at least one semester while I was there. I didn't try to get into his class. Probably should have.

i guess the good thread i'm suggesting would be a place to brainstorm ways *out* of the current impasse

― mark s, Wednesday, 24 May 2023 bookmarkflaglink

One day I will read something on TV from a left journal with absolutely no mention of politics.

https://jacobin.com/2023/05/succession-television-devestating-critique-ultrarich-review/

I'm a bit bemused at myself that I only posted twice on this thread over the years and in both cases tried to say something by implication rather than fully spelling it out, but honestly there's not much to tell. Anyway: so I was a grad student in English lit at UC Irvine in the early nineties, switched over to working in the library system there through 2015, and as such was in the mix of Derrida being here for his spring quarterly visits until his passing. I always heard his lectures were crowded/overbooked affairs and actually being in grad school made me realize how my eyes quickly glazed over on a lot of things in the general field, so I admit I never bothered with said appearances, but it was interesting/bemusing to sense him as presence in the air. I essentially saw him in person only a handful of times over the years, never spoke with him directly, but he seemed either affable in conversation with others or lost in thought on his own, which I chose not to disturb, tempted though I was to ask him about a certain Scritti Politti song. Ultimately my strongest memory of him was walking past him casually one morning on the footbridge connecting the campus to the mid-size open air mall across the street, and I like imagining he was going over for a burger or something. (Plus, to add another memory, per my earlier comments, TAs coming in to put lots of books for his course on reserve, and indeed a number of them were his.)

Are you able to confirm a bit of apocrypha about his time there - that over his office door was a "French Only" sign?