Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts: Professions Of Faith
Author(s): Prof Mary Caputi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication Date: 11 April 2013
Language: English
Print length: 286 pages
ISBN-10: 1441121196
ISBN-13: 9781441121196
Book Description
Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts highlights the Derridean assertion that the university must exist ‘without condition’ – as a bastion of intellectual freedom and oppositional activity whose job it is to question mainstream society. Derrida argued that only if the life of the mind is kept free from excessive corporate influence and political control can we be certain that the basic tenets of democracy are being respected within the very societies that claim to defend democratic principles.
This collection contains eleven essays drawn from international scholars working in both the humanities and social sciences, and makes a well-grounded and comprehensive case for the importance of Derridean thought within the liberal arts today. Written by specialists in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, geography, political science, animal studies, and gender studies, each essay traces deconstruction’s contribution to their discipline, explaining how it helps keep alive the ‘unconditional’, contrapuntal mission of the university. The book offers a forceful and persuasive corrective to the current assault on the liberal arts.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘Mary Caputi and Vincent J. Del Casino Jr. begin Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts with a remark by Derrida that our work in universities is no longer possible without reflection on the political conditions of the institution. This guiding thought then becomes the basis for a fundamental rethinking of the disciplines in all its facets: the archive and the text, the new instrumentalism with its emphasis on applied knowledge over theoretical knowledge, the hierarchicalization of knowledge, the historical trajectories of the disciplines, the binary animality/humanity, and the new tasks for the humanities. This is an excellent collection with notable scholars like Simon Critchley, Christopher Norris, Jonathan Culler mixing it with younger and subject specialist scholars to retherorize language and truth, literary studies, history, third-wave feminism, French studies, sociology, political science, spatial studies as well as ‘the institutional form of thinking’ (Critchley), ‘deconstruction of the university’ and the ‘future of the humanities’. If there was one book to read on the university this year, it would have to be Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts.’ — Michael A. Peters, Professor Emeritus, University Of Illinois And Professor Of Policy, Cultural & Social Studies In Education, University Of Waikato 20121122
‘Deconstruction provides a way to begin reassessing and reaffirming the responsibilities of an institution. Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts does not call for an uncritical dismissal of the memory of the university as institution, or a rejection of the institution’s memory as disciplinary history. This excellent and thought provoking volume engages the role of the university in relation to the demands and conditions of a ‘new international’ by opening up the logic of its existence as a ‘cultural institution’ concerned with the problem of global education and the question of what knowledge is of most worth.’ —
Peter Trifonas, Professor With The Department Of Curriculum, Teaching, And Learning At The Ontario Institute For Studies In Education, University Of Toronto 20121122
About the Author
Mary Caputi is Professor of Political Science at California State University at Long Beach, USA. She writes and teaches in many areas of contemporary political thought, including feminism, critical theory, psychoanalysis, and postmodernism.
Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr. is Professor of Geography and Development and Associate Dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona, USA. He is author of
Social Geography: A Critical Introduction (2009) and co-editor of A Companion to Social Geography (2011) and Mapping Tourism (2003).
Wow! eBook
