Biodeconstruction: Jacques Derrida and the Life Sciences

by Francesco Vitale, Mauro Senatore (Translator)

In Biodeconstruction, Francesco Vitale demonstrates the key role that the question of life plays in Jacques Derrida's work. In the seminar La vie la mort (1975), Derrida engages closely with the life sciences, especially biology and evolution theory. Connecting this line of thought to his analysis of cybernetics in Of Grammatology, Vitale shows how Derrida develops a notion of biological life as itself a sort of text that is necessarily open onto further articulations and grafts. This sets the stage for the deconstruction of the traditional opposition between life and death, conceiving of death as an internal condition of the constitution of the living rather than being the opposite of life. It also provides the basis for the deconstruction of the rigidly deterministic concept of the genetic program, an insight that anticipates recent achievements of biological research in epigenetics and sexual reproduction. Finally, Vitale argues that this framework can enrich our understanding of Derrida's late work devoted to political issues, connecting his use of the autoimmunitarian lexicon to the theory of cellular suicide in biology.

258 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 1, 2018

Reviews

[E.]

The most original work of the book lies in its last 30 pages. Several passages (esp. the quote from "Freud and the Scene of Writing") are quoted multiple times in the book without the author seemingly noticing, which gives the book the feel of a not-so-well-edited collection of essays than a continuous argument. Several parts are really hasty, while others are repetitive and vague. Vitale also often let Derrida, Jacob, and Freud do the talking (at some moments there are much more block quotes than his own words) without really unpacking as much as one would perhaps prefer, making the reader wonder if those passages really add anything to the quoted texts at all.

All that, however, does not change the fact that this is an important work that systematically treats the theme of life/death in Derrida's thinking, from La Vie La Mort (finally published in French in 2019) to his later writings on autoimmunity and survival. Biodeconstruction is a quickly emerging field in deconstructive thought today and this books remains a good introduction for whoever wishes to learn about it.