202 Derrida 1963–1983
While the start of Derrida’s stay in America was quite ‘calm, slow
and unhurried’, a real whirlwind of lectures – the fi rst in a long series
- started in mid-October. Over the next few weeks, he went to New
York, Yale, Providence, Washington, Buff alo, and Chicago. As he
wrote to Sollers:
I keep asking myself, from the depths of my old, neurotic vul-
nerability, how I survive – pretty well, basically – this series of
exhibitions of a travelling salesman that I felt I would be quite
unable to carry out. I manage without too many disasters, for
the salesman and, dare I hope, for the merchandise (I note
this since you are part of the latter.. .). [.. .] I am still living
in Numbers, and everything I do here – in particular, but not
only, the classes – constantly brings me back to it, makes the
numbers work, over and above the dissemination that I left
behind me on my departure.50*In New York, at the conference on ‘Philosophy and Anthropology’,
he gave an infl uential paper that would long be remembered: ‘The
ends of man’. As he would make it a habit of his, Derrida immedi-
ately underlined the circumstances in which he was speaking: ‘Every
philosophical conference necessarily has a political signifi cance,’
he insisted, especially if it is supposed to be international; its very
possibility is inseparable from the ‘form of democracy’:
Such, in its most general and schematic principle, is the ques-
tion which put itself to me during the preparations for this
encounter, from the invitation and the deliberations that fol-
lowed, up to acceptance, and then to the writing of this text,
which I date quite precisely from the month of April 1968: it
will be recalled that these were the weeks of the opening of
the Vietnam piece talks and of the assassination of Martin
Luther King. A bit later, when I was typing this text, the
universities of Paris were invaded by the forces of order – and
for the fi rst time at the demand of a rector – and then reoc-
cupied by the students in the upheaval you are familiar with.
[.. .] I have simply found it necessary to mark, date, and
make known to you the historical circumstances in which I
prepared this communication. These circumstances appear to- From New York, Derrida sent Sollers a proposal for a lecture tour in American
universities, which in his view had two advantages: to confi rm the presence of Tel
Quel and his own in the United States – henceforth, ‘Tel Quel is considered the most
original and reliable French cultural product of the day’ –, and going home having
pocketed $1,500 to $2,000 net profi t (i.e. some 5,000 to 7,000 euros today). Sollers
did not follow this proposal up, largely for political reasons.