A Period of Withdrawal 1968 203
me to belong, by all rights, to the fi eld and the problematic of
our colloquium.^51The rest of his address – with its text emblematically dated to 12
May 1968 – endeavours to answer the question ‘What does France
think about man these days?’ In it, Derrida mentions Hegel and
Kojève, Sartre and Nietzsche, but the focus was on Heidegger and
his ‘Letter on humanism’.
While this paper and his other contributions were well received,
Derrida was soon complaining about these unremitting, exhaust-
ing journeys. He spent only two or three days a week in Baltimore,
and the rest of the time travelling, ‘like a sleepwalker, not even or
barely noticing the places, the lecture halls, the people, his own
discourse, etc.’ He claimed he wanted to put a quick end to ‘this
machinery and the pleasure one can sometimes take in it’.^52 But this
frenzied rhythm did not stop him appreciating the American style of
education and its comfortable, peaceful character – poles removed
from the permanent tension prevailing at Normale Sup. At Johns
Hopkins, Derrida’s presence aroused great enthusiasm: the origi-
nality of his reference points, the force of his concepts, and also his
personal availability ensured his reputation for a long time to come.
When Gérard Genette occupied the same post, over the following
two autumns, he emphasized how much Derrida had left ‘a dazzling
memory, for countless good reasons, plus this one: the only nice
Frenchman since Lafayette. All the others are arrogant.’^53
In Paris, meanwhile, intense and often fraught negotiations on
Vincennes continued. In spite of this distance, Derrida was con-
cerned about the fate of some of his friends, such as Lucette Finas
and Michel Deguy. As Genette told him:
Everyone feels, three times a day, shunned, then welcomed,
then again shunned, depending on the wheeling and dealing,
the pressure of external forces, and the skilful but very complex
manoeuvrings of Las Vergnas, who is in the fi nal analysis the
only one who decides for the time being. [.. .] All this is very
diffi cult, it’s no longer the merry throng that started the ball
rolling, a few ‘principles of reality’ have resurfaced.^54Maurice Blanchot himself, who might have been thought to
have kept a great distance from this petty academic bargaining, felt
obliged to become involved. He was glad that Derrida had escaped
these ‘very troublesome debates’ by virtue of his distance. Even
though he regretted having to take part, he tried to prevent rivalries
between diff erent circles and cliques of intellectuals ‘mobilizing the
students in the guise of more disinterested demands’.^55