>>Now I've never been a fan of Derrida (and much of this article is tritely
>>concerned with 'Derrida fandom')
>
>Fandom can be an object of interesting research, if you believe pop cult
>studies folks who have long insisted on this point. They've exoticized
>Trekkies and Otaku; why not Derrida fans?
nothing wrong with discussing it i just don't think recapitulating amazement at it in this fashion is much of an analysis or even discussion
>>My problem with this is that it is so damned romantic -- not that I'm
>>immune, not that I never desire that kind of idea of meaningfulness in what
>>I do, but... we are owned by the system that contains us, and that system
>>doesn't much care what we write/think about within certain boundaries.
>>Having said that I also sympathise, and while I don't think the definition
>>they desire is really tenable, there may be a way of maintaining a
>>productive possibility along those lines.
>
>I agree with the above, though I think that the problem that this yearning
>for 'unalienated intellectual labor' (which btw non-postmodern academics
>also share, esp. in English-speaking countries) has produced is larger than
>any positive influence that it may have, even seen dialectically, so to
>speak. I hope that, one of these days, fans will get tired of this
>left-Hegelian secular religion, but I am not optimistic.
i'm not sure its a religious attitude any more than any other academic interest and a number of people have talked about the rise of universities and secularised religion. i don't think this surprising. but i also don't see why the *it* which you are identifying as 'left hegelian' is more religious -- certainly it's not very unified, very sectarian -- than other intellectual interests, focal points, schools of thought in fact it may be, at its best, a whole lot less religious (and no i don't think the pilgrimages to derrida constitute anything 'at its best', though nor do i think its defeatist, deluded or distracted either)
must go
catherine