Access
Publication Rights
Reproduction Restriction
Preferred Citation
Acquisition Information
Existence and Location of Originals
Processing History
Biography
Chronology
Collection Scope and Content Summary
Collection Arrangement
Disposition of use photocopies
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections and Archives, University of California, Irvine Libraries
Title: Jacques Derrida papers
Creator:
Derrida, Jacques
Identifier/Call Number: MS.C.001b
Physical Description:
61.2 Linear Feet
(153 boxes and 15 oversize folders) and 2.6 unprocessed linear feet
Date (inclusive): 1946-2002
Date (bulk): 1960-2002, bulk
Abstract: This collection is comprised of manuscripts, typescripts, recordings, photographs, and an extensive clippings file documenting
the professional career of Jacques Derrida and providing comprehensive documentation of his activities as a student, teacher,
scholar, and public figure. In addition, Derrida's files on the 1988 controversy regarding Paul de Man's World War II-era
writings are also included. Best known for the development of "deconstruction," Derrida was trained as a philosopher, but
his work engages and transverses numerous other discourses such as literature, politics, law, religion, psychoanalysis, and
ethnography. Ranging from his early work as a student to his recent seminars, the material in the archive spans from circa
1946 to 2000. The collection contains numerous pages of notes and written reports that reflect Derrida's academic training
under the tutelage of figures such as Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. His commitment to teaching is documented by a full
collection of teaching notes for the multitude of seminars that he has taught over the course of his career. The more public
side of Derrida is also well represented by notes, working drafts, final drafts, and other materials related to his vast published
output. With the exception of the photographs, the collection contains no material that might be described as "personal,"
such as private correspondence. The vast majority of the materials are in French.
Language of Material: French
Language of Material: French
Access
Collection is open for research. Access to fragile originals is restricted when preservation photocopies are available. Access
to original audio and video cassettes is restricted.
Publication Rights
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permissions to quote or publish, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Reproduction Restriction
Preferred Citation
Jacques Derrida papers. MS-C001. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Date accessed.
For the benefit of current and future researchers, please cite any additional information about sources consulted in this
collection, including permanent URLs, item or folder descriptions, and box/folder locations.
Acquisition Information
Gift of Jacques Derrida, 1990-2003. Additional material gifted by Peggy Kamuf, 2017.
Existence and Location of Originals
External media recieved, digital object numbers MSC001_DIG001-MSC001_DIG005, MS-C01-V022
Processing History
Preliminary processing by Thomas Dutoit and Eddie Yeghiayan. Series 1 processed and guide compiled by Jeffrey Atteberry and
Thomas Dutoit in 1998. The remainder of the initial accessions to this collection processed and guide updated by Jessica Haile
in 1999. Additions in 2000-2002 processed by Kurt Ozment, with assistance from Jennifer Kwan, and in 2007 by Audrey Pearson.
Guide updated by William Landis in 2003, Audrey Pearson in 2007, Joanna Lamb in 2009, and Christine Kim in 2017.
Biography
Jacques Derrida was born in El-Biar, Algeria on July 15, 1930. He spent his childhood attending primary schools in El-Biar
and Algiers until the beginning of
Pétainisation within the Algerian school system in 1940, at which point Derrida and other Jewish students began to experience forms of
anti-Semitism in the classroom; by 1942 he was barred completely from attending class at the Lycée Ben Aknoum. Although the
Germans never occupied Algeria, Derrida was not allowed to return to school until the spring of 1943. During the interim,
he attended the Lycée Emile-Maupas, which was run by Jewish teachers expelled from the public school system, but Derrida frequently
avoided the classroom.
Upon returning to the Lycée Ben Aknoum in 1943, Derrida completed his primary education and received his
baccalauréat in 1948. Although he had already begun to consider a career as a teacher, Derrida had not yet resolved to pursue his studies
in France until he heard a radio show dedicated to career orientation in which a professor of literature, who had had Albert
Camus as a student, explained that the wide array of subjects studied in the system of higher education allowed one to defer
specialization. Until that moment, Derrida had never even heard of the Ecole normale supérieure, but he decided that his future
awaited him there and immediately enrolled in
hypokhâgne (the first year of a course of study designed to prepare students for one of the Grandes Ecoles) at the Lycée Bugeaud in
Algiers.
A year later, Derrida left for France to attend the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He spent a total of three years in
khâgne (the latter years of the Grandes Ecoles preparatory course of study). During this period Derrida met many individuals who
have played an important role in his life, including Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Deguy, Louis Marin, and his future wife, Marguerite
Aucouturier. By the end of 1952 he had gained admittance to the Ecole normale supérieure. For the next four years, Derrida
worked assiduously and acculturated himself to a career as an academic philosopher while studying under such major figures
as Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. He became interested in the work of the German phenomenologist Edmund Husserl and
wrote "Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl" for his higher studies dissertation. He completed his studies
in 1956 and passed the
agrégation, thus becoming qualified to hold a position as a teacher in the higher education system.
Upon passing the
agrégation, Derrida received a grant to pursue further research on Husserl at Harvard University. While in the United States, he began
to translate and to write an introduction for Husserl's
Origin of Geometry. The following year, at the beginning of the Algerian War, Derrida became a teacher of French and English in a school for
soldiers' children. During this period, Derrida avoided any active duty and never wore a military uniform.
After spending two years teaching in Algeria, Derrida returned to France in 1959 and took his first teaching position in
hypokhâgne at Lycée Le Mans. In the same year, he made his first public speaking appearance, delivering "'Gènese et structure' et la
phénoménologie" at a conference at Cerisy. Between 1960 and 1964 Derrida taught "general philosophy and logic" at the Sorbonne,
working as an assistant to Suzanne Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, Paul Ricoeur, and Jean Wahl. His teaching during this period
addressed a wide variety of philosophical problems and issues. In 1964 he declined a position at the Centre national de Recherches
supérieures and began teaching at the Ecole normale supérieure at the invitation of Althusser and Jean Hyppolite.
From this point onward, Derrida rapidly became a major presence in the academic and intellectual world. In 1966 he made his
first significant appearance in the United States at the Johns Hopkins University International Colloquium on Critical Languages
and the Science of Man, a conference which marked America's growing interest in the work of French theorists and philosophers.
It was a significant moment in American intellectual history insofar as the conference was intended to introduce structuralist
thought to the United States. Derrida's paper, "Le structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines,"
effectively dismantled structuralist thought at the very moment when it was being introduced to the American academy.
Throughout the remainder of the decade, he published widely and attracted increasing recognition. In addition to numerous
substantial articles published in the journals
Critique,
Tel Quel, and
Revue de métaphysique et de morale, he also published his first three books in 1967:
La voix et le phénomène,
L'écriture et la différence, and
De la grammatologie. Each of these books constitutes a significant contribution to philosophical thought, and by the end of the decade Derrida
had already assured himself a prominent position in the history of Western philosophy.
The 1970s began with a series of publications in which Derrida addressed the thought of such philosophical luminaries as
Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, and Austin. He also engaged more literary texts with his work
on writers such as Mallarmé, Artaud, Bataille, Genet, and Ponge. These works, including
Marges de la philosophie,
La dissémination,
Glas, and
La vérité en peinture altered the study of literature, linguistics and philosophy in the Western tradition. In 1975 Derrida began teaching at Yale
University. His work, along with that of his colleagues and friends Paul de Man and J. Hillis Miller, rapidly became renowned
throughout America under the banner of "deconstruction." Subsequently both Derrida and his work received an increasingly enthusiastic
reception in the United States, especially as the end of the decade and the early 1980s witnessed the rapid appearance of
his works in English translation. Around the same time, he established the collection
La philosophie en effet at Editions Galilée, a French publishing house which issues some of the most important works in contemporary philosophy,
theory and psychoanalysis.
Throughout the 1970s Derrida also became increasingly active in social and political projects. Most importantly, he founded
the Groupe de Recherche sur l'Enseignement philosophique (GREPH) in 1975. Intended to secure the place of philosophy in secondary
and university education at a time when the government was attempting to reduce or eliminate philosophy altogether, GREPH
articulated the persistent relevance of the study of philosophy for contemporary society and culture.
In June of 1980 Derrida finally gave his official thesis defense at the Sorbonne. For numerous reasons related to the path
that his work had taken up until that point, Derrida remained a
maître-assistant, an academic rank far below his qualifications. In 1983, however, he was elected to the Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences
sociales (EHESS). In the same year he helped found the Collège international de Philosophie for the French Ministère de la
Recherche et de la Technologie.
Derrida continued his active intervention in various social and political spheres during this period. He participated in
events organized against Apartheid and in support of Nelson Mandela. He also co-founded (with Jean-Pierre Vernant) the Jan
Hus Association to assist dissident Czech intellectuals and conducted a clandestine seminar in Prague. During his visit to
Prague in 1981, he was observed closely by the police and eventually arrested on a fabricated charge of "production and trafficking
of drugs." He remained imprisoned for a few days until President François Mitterand intervened on his behalf and demanded
his release.
During the mid-1980s Derrida became associated with the University of California, Irvine. Following the death of his friend
Paul de Man, he gave a series of commemorative lectures entitled "Memoires for Paul de Man" as the 1984 Wellek Library Lectures.
In 1986 he became a tenured professor at UCI, as did J. Hillis Miller. For the remainder of the decade, his academic and political
activites, as well as his publishing, continued at a steady pace. In 1989 he and Jacques Bouveresse served as co-presidents
of the Commission de réflexion pour l'épistémologie et la philosophie established by the French Ministère de l'Education nationale.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s Jacques Derrida continued to publish and teach widely. As his fame and notoriety increased,
the number of conferences and colloquia in which he participated multiplied. Furthermore, he held teaching appointments at
numerous universities across the globe and received honorary doctorates from ten institutions throughout the United States
and Europe. His publications appeared with great frequency and were translated into numerous languages. At the end of his
life, Derrida lived in Ris Orangis, France (a suburb of Paris), and he continued to teach at EHESS and UCI. In 2003, he was
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and died a year later on October 8, 2004 in a Paris hospital.
NOTE: Much of the biographical information used in the biography and the chronology was taken from the "Curriculum Vitae"
found in
Jacques Derrida, written by Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Chronology
1930 |
Born on July 15th in El-Biar, Algeria. |
1940-1941 |
pétainization |
1942 |
Expelled from the Lycée Ben Aknoum and intermittently attended classes at the Lycée Emile-Maupas. |
1943 |
Returned to Lycée Ben Aknoum. |
1948 |
baccalauréat |
1948 |
hypokhâgne |
1949 |
Traveled to Marseilles and entered as a boarding student at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. |
1952 |
Admitted to the Ecole normale supérieur (ENS). Met Louis Althusser. |
1953-1954 |
Traveled to Louvain to visit the Husserl archives. |
1953-1954 |
Wrote "Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl," which served as his higher studies dissertation. |
1953-1954 |
Became friends with Michel Foucault. |
1956-1957 |
agrégation |
1956-1957 |
Studied at Harvard under the pretext of consulting microfilms of Husserl's unpublished work. |
1956-1957 |
Origin of Geometry |
1957 |
Married Marguerite Aucouturier in June. |
1957-1959 |
Taught French and English in a military school for soldiers' children. |
1959-1960 |
hypokhâgne |
1959-1960 |
Delivered "'Genèse et structure' et la phénoménologie" at a conference at Cerisy. |
1960-1961 |
Took a position teaching at the Sorbonne. |
1962 |
Origin of Geometry |
1963 |
Critique |
1963 |
Birth of son Pierre. |
1964 |
Offered a research position at the Centre national de Recherches supérieures (CNRS), which he declined in order to accept
a teaching position at Ecole normale supérieur.
|
1965 |
Tel Quel |
1966 |
Delivered "La structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines" at the International Colloquium on "The
Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," Johns Hopkins University.
|
1967 |
Critique |
1967 |
Delivered "La différance" at the Société française de Philosophie. |
1967 |
De la grammatologie,
La voix et le phénomène, and
L'ecriture et la différance
|
1967 |
Birth of son Jean. |
1968 |
Joined in marches and organized the first general assembly at the Ecole normale supérieur during the May 1968 movement. |
1968 |
Gave a series of seminars at the University of Berlin at the invitation of Peter Szondi. |
1972 |
La dissémination,
Marges de la philosophie, and
Positions
|
1972 |
Participated in a conference at Cerisy on Nietzsche along with a vast number of other intellectual luminaries, including Deleuze,
Klossowski, Kofman, Lacoue-Labarthe, Lyotard, and Nancy.
|
1982 |
Tel Quel |
1973 |
Presented "Glas" as a seminar at the University of Berlin. |
1974 |
Began the collection "La philosophie en effet" at Editions Galilée. |
1974 |
Glas |
1975 |
Founded the Groupe de Recherche sur l'Enseignement philosophique (GREPH). |
1975 |
Began teaching at Yale. |
1978 |
La Vérité en peinture and
Eperons: Les styles de Nietzsche
|
1979 |
Organized the Etats généraux de la Philosophie at the Sorbonne. |
1979 |
Traveled throughout Africa. |
1980 |
Defended his thesis at the Sorbonne. |
1980 |
Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe organized a Cerisy conference on the work of Derrida. |
1980 |
La Carte postale de Socrate à Freud et au-delà |
1981 |
Founded the Jan Hus Association with Jean-Pierre Vernant to help dissident and persecuted Czech intellectuals. |
1981 |
Traveled to Prague to conduct a clandestine seminar. Was arrested and charged with drug trafficking. Released from Czechoslovakia
following the urgent protests of the French president, François Mitterrand.
|
1982 |
Became A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. |
1982 |
Traveled to Mexico and Japan. |
1982 |
L'Oreille de l'autre |
1982 |
Ghost Dance |
1983 |
Helped found the Collège international de Philosophie and served as its first president. |
1983 |
Various activities directed against Apartheid in South Africa and in support of Nelson Mandela. |
1983 |
Became a member of the Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (EHESS). |
1983 |
Signéponge and
D'un ton apocalyptique adopté naguère en philosophie
|
1984 |
Visited Frankfurt to lecture at Habermas's seminar. |
1984 |
Delivered "Ulysse Gramophone" as the opening lecture at the international Joyce conference. |
1984 |
Gave "Mémoires: For Paul de Man" as the Wellek Library Lectures in critical theory at the University of California, Irvine
(UCI).
|
1984 |
Otobiographies: L'enseignement de Nietzsche et la politique du nom propre and
Feu la cendre
|
1985 |
Traveled to Latin America, where he visited Jorges Luis Borges. |
1986 |
Became a tenured professor at UCI. |
1986 |
Worked with Peter Eisenman on the Parc de la Villette in Paris. Beginning of his engagement with architecture. |
1986 |
Mémoires: for Paul de Man;
Parages; and
Schibboleth: pour Paul Celan
|
1987 |
De l'esprit: Heidegger et la question;
Feu la cendre;
Psyché: Inventions de l'autre; and
Ulysse gramophone: Deux mots pour Joyce
|
1988 |
Traveled to Jerusalem and met with Palestinian intellectuals. |
1988 |
Limited, Inc. |
1989 |
Gave the opening address at the Colloquium at the Cardozo School of Law in New York on "Deconstruction and the Possibility
of Justice."
|
1989 |
Served as co-president (with Jacques Bouveresse) of the Commission de réflexion pour l'épistémologie et la philosophie established
by the French Ministère de l'Education.
|
1990 |
Taught various seminars in the Soviet Union. |
1990 |
Returned to Prague for the first time since his imprisonment in 1981. |
1990 |
Gave the opening lecture at a conference at UCLA on "The Final Solution and the Limits of Representation." |
1990 |
Organized exhibition "Mémoires d'aveugle" at the Louvre. |
1990 |
Du droit à la philosophie and
Mémoires d'aveugle: L'autoportrait et autres ruines
|
1990 |
Began donating his papers to the Critical Theory Archive at UCI. |
1991 |
Donner le temps: 1, La fausse monnaie |
1992 |
Points de suspension and
Donner la mort
|
1993 |
Passions;
Sauf le nom;
Khôra; and
Spectres de Marx
|
1994 |
Participated in an international colloquium in London on "Memory: The Question of Archives." |
1994 |
Force de loi and
Politiques de l'amitié
|
1995 |
Mal d'archive and
Moscou Aller Retour
|
1996 |
Participated in a symposium to celebrate the opening of the Critical Theory Archive at the UCI. |
1996 |
Apories: Mourir--s'attendre aux "limites de la verité;"
Echographies;
Resistances de la Pyschanalyse;
Le monolinguisme de l'autre; and
Le toucher
|
1997 |
Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort!;
Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas;
De l'hospitalité;
Marx en jeu; and
Le droit a la philosophie du point du vue cosmopolitique
|
1998 |
Demeure |
2004 |
Died on October 8 in Paris. |
1930 |
Born on July 15th in El-Biar, Algeria. |
1940-1941 |
pétainization |
1942 |
Expelled from the Lycée Ben Aknoum and intermittently attended classes at the Lycée Emile-Maupas. |
1943 |
Returned to Lycée Ben Aknoum. |
1948 |
baccalauréat |
1948 |
hypokhâgne |
1949 |
Traveled to Marseilles and entered as a boarding student at Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. |
1952 |
Admitted to the Ecole normale supérieur (ENS). Met Louis Althusser. |
1953-1954 |
Traveled to Louvain to visit the Husserl archives. |
1953-1954 |
Wrote "Le problème de la genèse dans la philosophie de Husserl," which served as his higher studies dissertation. |
1953-1954 |
Became friends with Michel Foucault. |
1956-1957 |
agrégation |
1956-1957 |
Studied at Harvard under the pretext of consulting microfilms of Husserl's unpublished work. |
1956-1957 |
Origin of Geometry |
1957 |
Married Marguerite Aucouturier in June. |
1957-1959 |
Taught French and English in a military school for soldiers' children. |
1959-1960 |
hypokhâgne |
1959-1960 |
Delivered "'Genèse et structure' et la phénoménologie" at a conference at Cerisy. |
1960-1961 |
Took a position teaching at the Sorbonne. |
1962 |
Origin of Geometry |
1963 |
Critique |
1963 |
Birth of son Pierre. |
1964 |
Offered a research position at the Centre national de Recherches supérieures (CNRS), which he declined in order to accept
a teaching position at Ecole normale supérieur.
|
1965 |
Tel Quel |
1966 |
Delivered "La structure, le signe et le jeu dans le discours des sciences humaines" at the International Colloquium on "The
Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," Johns Hopkins University.
|
1967 |
Critique |
1967 |
Delivered "La différance" at the Société française de Philosophie. |
1967 |
De la grammatologie,
La voix et le phénomène, and
L'ecriture et la différance
|
1967 |
Birth of son Jean. |
1968 |
Joined in marches and organized the first general assembly at the Ecole normale supérieur during the May 1968 movement. |
1968 |
Gave a series of seminars at the University of Berlin at the invitation of Peter Szondi. |
1972 |
La dissémination,
Marges de la philosophie, and
Positions
|
1972 |
Participated in a conference at Cerisy on Nietzsche along with a vast number of other intellectual luminaries, including Deleuze,
Klossowski, Kofman, Lacoue-Labarthe, Lyotard, and Nancy.
|
1982 |
Tel Quel |
1973 |
Presented "Glas" as a seminar at the University of Berlin. |
1974 |
Began the collection "La philosophie en effet" at Editions Galilée. |
1974 |
Glas |
1975 |
Founded the Groupe de Recherche sur l'Enseignement philosophique (GREPH). |
1975 |
Began teaching at Yale. |
1978 |
La Vérité en peinture and
Eperons: Les styles de Nietzsche
|
1979 |
Organized the Etats généraux de la Philosophie at the Sorbonne. |
1979 |
Traveled throughout Africa. |
1980 |
Defended his thesis at the Sorbonne. |
1980 |
Jean-Luc Nancy and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe organized a Cerisy conference on the work of Derrida. |
1980 |
La Carte postale de Socrate à Freud et au-delà |
1981 |
Founded the Jan Hus Association with Jean-Pierre Vernant to help dissident and persecuted Czech intellectuals. |
1981 |
Traveled to Prague to conduct a clandestine seminar. Was arrested and charged with drug trafficking. Released from Czechoslovakia
following the urgent protests of the French president, François Mitterrand.
|
1982 |
Became A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. |
1982 |
Traveled to Mexico and Japan. |
1982 |
L'Oreille de l'autre |
1982 |
Ghost Dance |
1983 |
Helped found the Collège international de Philosophie and served as its first president. |
1983 |
Various activities directed against Apartheid in South Africa and in support of Nelson Mandela. |
1983 |
Became a member of the Ecole des hautes Etudes en Sciences sociales (EHESS). |
1983 |
Signéponge and
D'un ton apocalyptique adopté naguère en philosophie
|
1984 |
Visited Frankfurt to lecture at Habermas's seminar. |
1984 |
Delivered "Ulysse Gramophone" as the opening lecture at the international Joyce conference. |
1984 |
Gave "Mémoires: For Paul de Man" as the Wellek Library Lectures in critical theory at the University of California, Irvine
(UCI).
|
1984 |
Otobiographies: L'enseignement de Nietzsche et la politique du nom propre and
Feu la cendre
|
1985 |
Traveled to Latin America, where he visited Jorges Luis Borges. |
1986 |
Became a tenured professor at UCI. |
1986 |
Worked with Peter Eisenman on the Parc de la Villette in Paris. Beginning of his engagement with architecture. |
1986 |
Mémoires: for Paul de Man;
Parages; and
Schibboleth: pour Paul Celan
|
1987 |
De l'esprit: Heidegger et la question;
Feu la cendre;
Psyché: Inventions de l'autre; and
Ulysse gramophone: Deux mots pour Joyce
|
1988 |
Traveled to Jerusalem and met with Palestinian intellectuals. |
1988 |
Limited, Inc. |
1989 |
Gave the opening address at the Colloquium at the Cardozo School of Law in New York on "Deconstruction and the Possibility
of Justice."
|
1989 |
Served as co-president (with Jacques Bouveresse) of the Commission de réflexion pour l'épistémologie et la philosophie established
by the French Ministère de l'Education.
|
1990 |
Taught various seminars in the Soviet Union. |
1990 |
Returned to Prague for the first time since his imprisonment in 1981. |
1990 |
Gave the opening lecture at a conference at UCLA on "The Final Solution and the Limits of Representation." |
1990 |
Organized exhibition "Mémoires d'aveugle" at the Louvre. |
1990 |
Du droit à la philosophie and
Mémoires d'aveugle: L'autoportrait et autres ruines
|
1990 |
Began donating his papers to the Critical Theory Archive at UCI. |
1991 |
Donner le temps: 1, La fausse monnaie |
1992 |
Points de suspension and
Donner la mort
|
1993 |
Passions;
Sauf le nom;
Khôra; and
Spectres de Marx
|
1994 |
Participated in an international colloquium in London on "Memory: The Question of Archives." |
1994 |
Force de loi and
Politiques de l'amitié
|
1995 |
Mal d'archive and
Moscou Aller Retour
|
1996 |
Participated in a symposium to celebrate the opening of the Critical Theory Archive at the UCI. |
1996 |
Apories: Mourir--s'attendre aux "limites de la verité;"
Echographies;
Resistances de la Pyschanalyse;
Le monolinguisme de l'autre; and
Le toucher
|
1997 |
Cosmopolites de tous les pays, encore un effort!;
Adieu à Emmanuel Levinas;
De l'hospitalité;
Marx en jeu; and
Le droit a la philosophie du point du vue cosmopolitique
|
1998 |
Demeure |
2004 |
Died on October 8 in Paris. |
Collection Scope and Content Summary
This collection comprises manuscripts, typescripts, recordings, photographs, and an extensive clippings file documenting the
professional career of Jacques Derrida and providing comprehensive documentation of his activities as a student, teacher,
scholar, and public figure. In addition, Derrida's files on the 1988 controversy regarding Paul de Man's World War II-era
writings are also included. Best known for the development of "deconstruction," Derrida was trained as a philosopher, but
his work engages and transverses numerous other discourses such as literature, politics, law, religion, psychoanalysis, and
ethnography. Ranging from his early work as a student to his recent seminars, the material in the archive spans from circa
1946 to 2002. The collection contains numerous pages of notes and written reports that reflect Derrida's academic training
under the tutelage of figures such as Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. His commitment to teaching is documented by a full
collection of teaching notes for the multitude of seminars that he has taught over the course of his career. The more public
side of Derrida is also well represented by notes, working drafts, final drafts, and other materials related to his vast published
output. With the exception of the photographs, the collection contains no material that might be described as "personal,"
such as private correspondence. The vast majority of the materials are in French.
The collection also contains an accession gifted by Peggy Kamuf which contains assorted Derrida reprints and annotated manuscripts,
as well as Kamuf's files concerning the WWII-era writings of Paul de Man and one folder of UCI-related correspondence, dated
2004-2007.
Collection Arrangement
The collection is organized in the following seven series:
- Series 1. Student work, 1946-ca. 1960. 1 linear ft.
- Series 2. Teaching and seminars, 1959-1996. 8.3 linear ft.
- Series 3. Publication and conference activities, ca. 1960-ca. 1998. 32.3 linear ft.
- Series 4. Audio and video recordings, 1987-1999. 2.4 linear ft.
- Series 5. Photographs, ca. 1970-2000. 0.3 linear ft.
- Series 6. De Man controversy files, 1940-1989 (bulk 1988). 1.7 linear ft.
- Series 7. Argus de la Presse clippings, 1969-2002. 8 linear ft.
The collection also contains two unprocessed additions:
Accession 2002-012. Posters and publicity, 2002. 0.1 linear feet
Accession 2017-028. Jacque Derrida papers unprocessed addition, circa 1970-2004. 2.5 linear feet.
Disposition of use photocopies
In 2015, it was decided that the original documents in the Jacques Derrida papers that had been restricted for preservation
purposes should be reintegrated into the collection due to the high number of demands to view the original documents, as well
as the inadequacy of the surrogate use copies available for access.
Upon review of the material, it have determined that these documents are not in any danger of deterioration from general,
safe handling. Illustrations, photographs, and brittle paper, however, were placed in a Mylar sleeves for protection.
Use copies were disposed of by special collections staff, and the original documents housed boxes 94-104 were physically
moved to replace them. Boxes 94-104 no long exist in MS-C001, an there is a gap between 93-105.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Criticism -- History -- Sources
Criticism -- History -- Sources
Philosophy, European -- 20th century
Philosophy, European -- 20th century
Clippings (information artifacts)
Clippings (information artifacts)
Deconstruction
Deconstruction
Video recordings
Video recordings
Sound recordings.
Sound recordings.
Literary critics.
Literary critics.
Theorists.
Theorists.
Critical theory -- Archives.
Critical theory -- Archives.
Philosophers.
Philosophers.
Philosophy, French -- 20th century
Philosophy, French -- 20th century
Photographic prints
Photographic prints
Derrida, Jacques
Derrida, Jacques
Derrida, Jacques
Derrida, Jacques