I went to the derrida event in Sydney. It was actually quite dull in the middle section of the talk, which concerned fine art (in particular, the works of Artaud, taking the form of 'spells' which Artaud would send off to epople in the mail - he even sent one to Adolf Hitler (a bad spell). Derrida also spent some time musing on paintings of blind people (by seeing people).
Apart from the anthropological fascination of the event (the star quality, the tasteless dress sense of JD, the adoring fans, some of whom looked as if they were about to chuck their balck skivvys onto the stage) the best part of the evening was at the close of Derrida's speech. It's a pity Derrida didn't get to speak more on overtly political topics.
THe media had asked Derrida various quesitons at a press conference in melbourne. The only reply that the media reported in depth was derrida's comments about whether or not the Australian government (at present controlled by the right-wing Liberal/National coalition) should offer an apology to the 'stolen generation' (indigenous Australians who were removed from their parents and sent to orphanages by anglican churches, supposedly, 'for their own good'). Derrida said, at first, he wasn't from Australia so didn't feel he could comment, "a very dipomatic statement" he said. But then, when pushed, he commented that the Government should say sorry becasue "an apology is not only an expression of sorrow for something that has happenned in the past; it is also a promise to act better in the future".
THe other remark with political overtones was that media ownership is far "too concentrated" in a few hands, a remark which JD addressed to the media scrum - a banal observation yet apparently given more weight by the adoring fans than it merited.
The whole event was captured on a huge screen which dominated the town hall and beamed out onto the Internet.
Even though i'm not too keen on Derrida, he was an incredibly urbane and charming speaker. I was also pleasantly surprised that the wank factor was kept quite low and those fine arts types ad the interlocutor were not too schyophantic.
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