{"product_id":"portrait-of-jacques-derrida-as-a-young-jewish-saint-european-perspectives-a-series-in-social-thought-and-cultural-criticism-9780231128254","title":"Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePortrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism)\u003c\/strong\u003e by Cixous, Hélène. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780231128254.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho can say \"I am Jewish?\" What does \"Jew\" mean? What especially does it mean for Jacques Derrida, founder of deconstruction, scoffer at boundaries and fixed identities, explorer of the indeterminate and undecidable? In Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint, French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous follows the intertwined threads of Jewishness and non-Jewishness that play through the life and works of one of the greatest living philosophers.\n\nCixous is a lifelong friend of Derrida. They both grew up as French Jews in Algeria and share a \"belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging\"―not Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In Derridas family \"one never said circumcisionbut baptism,not Bar Mitzvahbut communion.\" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls a \"Jewish Saint.\"\n\nAn intellectual contemporary of Derrida, Cixouss ideas on writing have an affinity with his philosophy of deconstruction, which sought to overturn binary oppositions―such as man\/woman, or Jew\/non-Jew―and blur boundaries of exclusion inherent in Western thought. In portraying Derrida, Cixous uses metonymy, alliteration, rhyme, neologisms, and puns to keep the text in constant motion, freeing language from any rigidity of meaning. In this way she writes a portrait of \"Derrida in flight,\" slipping from one appearance to the next, unable to be fixed in one spot, yet encompassing each point he passes. From the circumcision act to family relationships, through Derridas works to those of Celan, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais, Cixous effortlessly merges biography and textual commentary in this playful portrait of the man, his works, and being (or not being) Jewish.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45118025498677,"sku":"ByrdShop_0231128258","price":40.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780231128254_a52486aa-a082-44e4-a552-ebfaf5b968ab.jpg?v=1779906705","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/portrait-of-jacques-derrida-as-a-young-jewish-saint-european-perspectives-a-series-in-social-thought-and-cultural-criticism-9780231128254","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}