On the paradoxical semantic ambivalence at the root of the unrooted concept ‘host’ On Wednesday 22nd June 2016, during Refugee Week, Adbul Rahman Haroun was sentenced to nine months in prison under the Malicious Damage Act 1861, prosecuted for ‘dangerous obstruction’ of traffic. This ‘obstruction’ of which it speaks concerns the evasion of high speed…
Key Concept Deconstruction by its very nature defies institutionalization in an authoritative definition. The concept was first outlined by Derrida in Of Grammatology where he explored the interplay between language and the construction of meaning. From this early work, and later works in which he has attempted to explain deconstruction to others, most notably the…
Following campaigns against pro-democracy and Occupy Central sympathisers at the University of Hong Kong, we must ask the old question: what are legal academics for?Take your time but be quick about it, because you do not know what awaits you (Jacques Derrida).1 The heady days of Occupy Central have passed. The 79 day occupation of…
Key Concept Speaking in 1976 at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville Derrida prefaced a lecture on Nietzsche with some remarks on The American Declaration of Independence. In this brief text — subsequently published in Negotiations (2002) as “Declarations of Independence” (hereafter “Declarations”) — Derrida assesses the status of “the people” as the sovereign guarantor of…
Key Concept“The democracy to come” (la démocratie à venir) is perhaps the most enduring principle that emerges from Derrida’s later work. This difficult little syntagm is developed in a number of books, articles and interviews, most notably in Spectres of Marx (1993) and The Politics of Friendship (1994), finally given its fullest elaboration in Rogues:…
In March of this year Jean-Luc Nancy published an article entitled “What the Arab Peoples Signify to Us” in the Libération newspaper. The article supported the NATO lead military intervention in Libya. Alain Badiou penned an acerbic response, claiming that Nancy had misread the situation in Libya entirely. The uprising in Libya was not at…
Spare a thought for Alain Badiou. He must be busy tending to the sensitive instruments of his evento-graph. As with the seismographs of late – all ‘revolutionary event’ detectors have had a busy time. The anticipation must also be difficult to bear. Syria is unraveling. The Road to Damascus might soon yield another Paul, or…