Jacques Derrida, 1930 - 2004.

World renowned thinker Jacques Derrida, a founder of the school of philosophy known as deconstructionism, has died, the office of French President Jacques Chirac said Saturday. Derrida was 74.

The AP's Elaine Ganley.

Jacques Derrida could claim to be one of the few philosophers of the late 20th Century who people other than students of the subject had actually heard of, says Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield. That did not mean that they understood what Derrida was on about though...

The BBC.

When people talk about crazy French intellectuals and esoteric superstars, when they stumble across the word deconstructionism in Entertainment Weekly and wonder what it could possibly mean, when college kids around the world are forced to figure out what it means, as they have been for the last 20 years - it all goes back to Jacques Derrida. One of the reigning figures of intellectual life of the last quarter-century, Derrida is the father of Deconstructionism, a controversial system of analysis designed to dismantle language and reveal the biases and false assumptions embedded within it. Rooted in the belief that language is freighted with things we're either unable or unwilling to bring to full consciousness, Deconstructionism is a flexible methodology applicable to any and all texts - and indeed, the impact it's had on literary criticism is equal to, if not greater than, the mark it's left on philosophical discourse.

Kristine McKenna, introducing her 2002 interview with Derrida in the LA Weekly. The occasion was the release of Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman's documentary, Derrida.

I'm in love with a Jacques Derrida
Read a page and know what I need to
Take apart my baby's heart
I'm in love

[...]

Closer examination is needed to determine if and how deconstruction is at work in Scritti Politti's music. However, this is not the right place. Not the right framework.

Marcel Cobussen, Deconstruction in Music.

Posted by dwhudson at October 9, 2004 11:33 AM