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Insister of Jacques Derrida
Hélène Cixous is arguably the most insightful and unbridled reader of Jacques Derrida today. In Insister, she brings a unique mixture of scholarly erudition, theoretical speculation, and breathtaking textual explication to an extremely close reading of Derrida's work. At the same time, Insister is an extraordinarily poetic meditation, a work of literature and of mourning for Jacques Derrida the person, who was a close friend and accomplice of Cixous's from the beginning of their careers.
In a melodic stream-of-consciousness Cixous speaks to Derrida, to his memory and to the words he left behind. She delves into the philosophical spaces that separated them, filling them out to create new understandings, bringing Derrida's words back to life while insisting on our inability to ever truly communicate through words. "More than once we say the same words," Cixous writes, "but we do not live them in the same tone."
Insister of Jacques Derrida joins Veils, the two loosely autobiographical texts of Derrida and Cixous published together by Stanford in 2001.
In a melodic stream-of-consciousness Cixous speaks to Derrida, to his memory and to the words he left behind. She delves into the philosophical spaces that separated them, filling them out to create new understandings, bringing Derrida's words back to life while insisting on our inability to ever truly communicate through words. "More than once we say the same words," Cixous writes, "but we do not live them in the same tone."
Insister of Jacques Derrida joins Veils, the two loosely autobiographical texts of Derrida and Cixous published together by Stanford in 2001.
- GenresNonfictionPhilosophy
201 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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About the author
Hélène Cixous
195 books857 followersHélène Cixous is a Jewish-French, Algerian-born feminist well-known as one of the founders of poststructuralist feminist theory along with Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. She is now a professor of English Literature at University of Paris VIII and chairs the Centre de Recherches en Etudes Féminines which she founded in 1974.
She has published numerous essays, playwrights, novels, poems, and literary criticism. Her academic works concern subjects of feminism, the human body, history, death, and theatre.
She has published numerous essays, playwrights, novels, poems, and literary criticism. Her academic works concern subjects of feminism, the human body, history, death, and theatre.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 29, 2023
I am not forgetting that each time I call him, designate him, paradigmatically by this name of Derrida, I make as if I knew whom I was talking about or what whereas not at all, I know so little, and in the instant there is one of them, another one, there are so many ones in him that are dissembled beginning with resemblances that ephemeral but vivid but tenuous, and each one uniquely him. 'You know me a little' he says.
9.29.2023 Reread. Equally enjoyable second reading. I liked Cixous placing Derrida as history’s preeminent reader of Freud. She also placed Derrida as being initially uncertain or perhaps mistaken in the nebulous fields of Heidegger.
Original review:
This was such an astonishing journey. Should we begin with the title, which was Derrida's puny punny name for Cixous? Emerging with similar origins and faiths, both were allowed to simmer and saunter over a lifetime: aside from the predilections, there were/are forces at play which allowed (encouraged?) this philosophical conspiracy. This book straddles elegy and eulogy and somehow escapes the sum. It is constructed with imagined dialogues, stream-of-conscious prose poems and excerpts from texts. It offers the shadow of an altar (alter?) but Inister is only a dream's punch line. This is a haunting text: as it reveals it circles back to an always already appreciation, keeping that impossible distance. I feel fortunate to have spent a day with it.
9.29.2023 Reread. Equally enjoyable second reading. I liked Cixous placing Derrida as history’s preeminent reader of Freud. She also placed Derrida as being initially uncertain or perhaps mistaken in the nebulous fields of Heidegger.
Original review:
This was such an astonishing journey. Should we begin with the title, which was Derrida's puny punny name for Cixous? Emerging with similar origins and faiths, both were allowed to simmer and saunter over a lifetime: aside from the predilections, there were/are forces at play which allowed (encouraged?) this philosophical conspiracy. This book straddles elegy and eulogy and somehow escapes the sum. It is constructed with imagined dialogues, stream-of-conscious prose poems and excerpts from texts. It offers the shadow of an altar (alter?) but Inister is only a dream's punch line. This is a haunting text: as it reveals it circles back to an always already appreciation, keeping that impossible distance. I feel fortunate to have spent a day with it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review