Event overview
Our 'What is Global Critical Theory' seminar series welcomes Prof. Nishiyama Yuji to discuss the Japanese Association for Deconstruction and Derrida in Japan.
About the talk
My presentation on Derrida in Japan consists of two parts: Derrida’s visit in Japan and a report of our activities at the Association for Deconstruction.
Like other French thinkers, such as Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard, etc., Jacques Derrida was invited three times to Japan (1983, 1984 and 1992), and on each visit received philosophical inspiration from the “civilization developing outside of all logocentrism” (Of Grammatology). He wrote some articles in collaboration with Japanese (“Letter to a Japanese Friend,” “Faxitexture,” “Aletheia,” etc.), two books (The Language of the Other, The Translation and/or the Performance) and interviews (including a long one about Sartre) which are published only in Japanese. What was Derrida’s intellectual relationship with Japanese culture? What kind of essential inspiration did his journey on the island country give his philosophy?
In 2013, in Tokyo, the Association for Deconstruction was founded by five initiators: Satoshi Ukai, Kazuisa Fujimoto, Yusuke Miyazaki, Daisuke Kamei and myself. The association aims to allow free discussion on the thought of deconstruction in Derrida and other thinkers or writers. We organize seminars, run a site containing information on deconstruction, build a database of books and articles, and advance collaboration between Japanese and foreign researchers. I will make a report on our research activities developed by the Association for Deconstruction.
About the speaker
NISHIYAMA Yuji is Professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Program Director at the Collège international de Philosophie (2010-2016). He works on modern French philosophy, focusing on Jacques Derrida and Maurice Blanchot. He is the author of Literature as Contestation: Solitude, Friendship and Community in Maurice Blanchot (Ochanomizu-syobô 2007), The Right to Philosophy (with DVD, Keiso-syobo, 2011) and Imagining an Abandoned Land, Listening to the Departed after Fukushima (Lambert, 2016), and the editor of Philosophy and the University (Miraisya, 2009) The Humanities and the Institution (Miraisya, 2013), Never-ending Derrida (Hoseidaigaku, 2016) and To breathe through Words now: Humanities in the Age of Viruses (Keiso-syobo, 2021). He is also the Japanese translator of books and articles by Jacques Derrida (The Beast and the Sovereign Vol. I & II, The Right to Philosophy, The University without Condition, Save the Name, etc), Maurice Blanchot, Jean-Luc Nancy, Emmanuel Levinas, Catherine Malabou and Michel Houellebecq, etc.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 23 Nov 2023 | 12:00pm - 1:30pm |
Accessibility
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