Output details

Derrida and hospitality: theory and practice

A total of 35 pp. of this monograph substantially rework material published prior to 2008 as follows:

pp. 73-7: ‘Acceptable Hospitality', Journal of Romance Studies 3 (2003) 1-14

pp. 83-6; 153-7: ‘Language as hospitality’, Paragraph 27 (2004), 113-27

pp. 118-20, 194, 196-201; 205-6: ‘Derrida: Guest and Host’, Paragraph 28 (2005), 85-101

pp. 29-33; 168-71; 194-6: ‘France and the Paradigm of Hospitality’, Third Text 20 (2006), 703-10

pp. 24-7: ‘Writing the Body’ in A History of Feminist Literary Criticism, ed. G. Plain and S. Sellers (CUP, 2007), 263-81

Extensive research for this monograph included three years full-time funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It deals with the complex and controversial concept of Derrida’s writing on hospitality has been widely influential but is frequently misunderstood. It was necessary to study the original texts and the translations (which are more read) in terms of fine detail as well as the key intellectual and historical context. This entailed analysing other challenging theorists, intertexts (eg from the Old Testament or the Classics), and the socio-political context, notably the influence of the Second World War and the colonial relationship with Algeria.