Performatives After Deconstruction

What has happened since de Man and Derrida first read Austin? How has the encounter between deconstruction and the performative affected each of these terms? In addressing these questions, this book brings together scholars whose works have been provoked in different ways by the encounter of deconstruction and the performative.

Following Derrida's appeal to any rigorous deconstruction to reckon with Austin's theorems and his ever growing commitment to rethink and rewrite the performative and its multiple articulations, it is now urgent that we reflect upon the effects of a theoretical event that has profoundly marked the contemporary scene. The contributors to this book suggest various ways of re-reading the heritage and future of both deconstruction and the performative after their encounter, bringing into focus both the constitutive aporia of the performative and the role it plays within the deconstruction of the metaphysical tradition.

“Every contribution in this outstanding collection demonstrates that if deconstruction 'appropriates' the performative that finds its roots in the tradition of speech act theory, it is in order to push its logic to the point where it becomes unrecognizable. Senatore has assembled a stellar group of scholars, and together they have compiled an exceptional collection of essays on a topic that is close to the heart of deconstruction and, in light of this, has been too often overlooked. Each contribution brings something unique to this volume, and I suspect that it will have an important and lasting effect on the way we read Derrida.” - Vernon W. Cisney, Notre Dame Philosophical Review

 

 

Mauro Senatore is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor of French Contemporary Philosophy at the Instituto de Humanidades, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile.

Notes on Contributors \ Acknowledgements \ Introduction: Positing, the Performative and the Supplement Mauro Senatore \ Part I \ 1. Promising Hospitality: l'Étranger Gives the Law in D'Alembert's GENÈVE Ellen S. Burt \ 2. Performative Perfume Diane Davis \ 3. The Performative and the Normative Matthias Fritsch \ Part II \ 4. Performativity as Ek-scription: Adonis After Derrida Herman Rapaport \ 5. Living On: the Absolute Performative Francesco Vitale \ 6. Archive-Abilities Simon Morgan Wortham \ Part III \ 7. The Performativity of Art Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield \ 8. Passive Performative John W. P. Phillips \ Part IV \ 9. Departures: the American Future of Psychoanalysis Martin McQuillan \ 10. Laruelle Contra Derrida. Performative Realism and the Logics of Consistency John Mullarkey \ Epilogue: No Sooner Said Than Done Alexander García Düttmann \ Bibliography \ Index