At the risk of beating a dead horse . . .
Catherine wrote:
> I have never found Derrida all that useful, but as it has enabled others
to
> try and act productively and think critically in and about the world it
> still seems like a good thing to me. In fact, while I have never found
> *Derrida* useful, I have found writers influenced and even shaped by
Derrida
> very helpful in thinking about how we receive and how we rely on founding
> structures of our cultures as given and unavoidable.
> I found the work around _Of Grammatology_ hideous to read, but some of his
> points at that time about, for example, the ways in which 'speech' is
> prioritised over 'writing', and about the effects of that prioritisation,
> have continued to hang around in useful ways.
I attended Derrida's graduate seminar at Irvine in 96, which was in many ways fascinating. He's an interesting teacher, but is very quick to cut off questions that go to the historical limitations of his work. Actually, I was more excited about being in Southern California, which I fell in love with. All those big, butch, beautiful men, yeah.
Sometimes the po-struc/po-mo conflation is harmless or beneficial. For example, Benjamin Cohen's recent book _The Geography of Money_ begins by referencing Derrida and Foucault as po-struc and therefore pomo, but he uses that as a way to introduce the historicity of monetary geography.
_Grammatology_ is a great book, but it's a lousy translation. Spivak's intro is great, but her translation of many of the crucial moments in that text is a bit strained.
Christian