Jacques Derrida

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Jacques Derrida : biography

July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004

Jacques Derrida ( July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004) was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction. His work was labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy.Vincent B. Leitch Postmodernism: Local Effects, Global Flows, SUNY Series in Postmodern Culture (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 27.

He published more than 40 books, together with essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence upon the humanities, particularly on anthropology, sociology, semiotics, jurisprudence, and literary theory. His work still has a major influence in the academe of Continental Europe, South America and all countries where continental philosophy is predominant. His theories became crucial in debates around ontology, epistemology (especially concerning social sciences), ethics, aesthetics, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of language. Jacques Derrida’s work also influenced architecture (in the form of deconstructivism), music,"Derrida" Ryuichi Sakamoto (2003)"Deconstruction in Music – The Jacques Derrida", Gerd Zacher Encounter, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, (2002) art,e.g. "Doris Salcedo", Phaidon (2004)|"Hans Haacke", Phaidon (2000) and art critics.e.g. "The return of the real", Hal Foster, October – MIT Press (1996) | "Kant after Duchamp", Thierry de Duve, October – MIT Press (1996)|"Neo-Avantgarde and Cultural Industry – Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975", Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, October – MIT Press (2000)|"Perpetual Inventory", Rosalind E. Krauss, October – MIT Press, 2010 Derrida was said to "leave behind a legacy of himself as the ‘originator’ of deconstruction."

Particularly in his later writings, he frequently addressed ethical and political themes. His work influenced various activists and political movements.Jonathan Kandell, " The New York Times, October 10, 2004 Derrida became a well-known and influential public figure, while his approach to philosophy and the notorious difficulty of his work made him controversial.. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. November 22, 2006. Accessed August 11, 2010.

Life

Derrida was born on July 15, 1930, in El Biar (Algiers), French Algeria, into a Sephardic Jewish family originally from Toledo that became French in 1870 when the Crémieux Decree granted full French citizenship to the indigenous Arabic-speaking Jews of French Algeria."I took part in the extraordinary transformation of the Algerian Jews; my great-grandparents were by language, custom, etc., still identified with Arabic culture. After the Cremieux Decree (1870), at the end of the 19th c., the following generation became bourgeois", , May 2003. He was the third of five children. His parents, Aimé Derrida (1896–1970) and Georgette Sultana Esther Safar (1901–1991),Bennington (1991) p. 325"Safar surname: occupational name from Arabic saffar which means worker in copper or brass", " named him Jackie, "which they considered to be an American name," though he would later adopt a more "correct" version of his first name when he moved to Paris; some reports indicate that he was named Jackie after the American child actor Jackie Coogan, who had become well-known around the world via his role in the 1921 Charlie Chaplin film The Kid.Powell (2006), p.12., accessed August 2, 2007.Cixous (2001), p.vii; also see this . His youth was spent in El-Biar, Algeria.

On the first day of the school year in 1942, Derrida was expelled from his lycée by French administrators implementing anti-Semitic quotas set by the Vichy government. He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students, and also took part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player). In this adolescent period, Derrida found in the works of philosophers and writers such as Rousseau, Nietzsche, and Gide, an instrument of revolt against the family and society: