204 Derrida 1963–1983
Pautrat, meanwhile, informed Derrida of the negotiations con-
cerning the department of philosophy. He was in regular contact
with alumni of the École Normale who might be interested in
teaching at Vincennes. But discussions on this matter were no easier:
The fi rst reactions of Balibar and a few others were very
negative, for political and personal reasons, but the latest
news suggests that there might be a sudden U-turn: Badiou,
Miller, Balibar, Macherey and others might apply – for posts
that are, after all, limited in number. Serres would be pre-
pared to come, and Foucault’s great regret is that he can’t call
on Deleuze, who’s just been urgently hospitalized for a very
serious pulmonary tuberculosis.^56At the École Normale Supérieure, just one memorable incident
occurred during Derrida’s absence. At the request of a few new
students, who had been taught by him in khâgne at Henri-IV, Jean
Beaufret had been invited to give a lecture for the fi rst time in years.
Despite a certain reluctance, Derrida did nothing to stop this. But
on the day Beaufret spoke, a group of leftists – led by Philippe
Castellin, who had come top in the entrance exam to the École in
1968 – prevented him from speaking. When he learned about this
boycott, Derrida asked Pautrat to phone Beaufret and off er his
apologies, saying that he was unable to do so in person: the events
of the beginning of the year had left their mark.
Towards the end of November, Pierre informed his parents: ‘[W]e
have to return now, I’m losing my French.’^57 For Derrida, too, it
was high time to go home to Paris. But the journey involved several
diffi culties. The plane that had taken off from Baltimore was caught
in bad weather, which meant the Derridas missed their connection
at Boston. Derrida found this delay and the whole chaotic journey
a real trial. On the fl ight the following day, he spent the whole
time tense and hunched up, clenching his fi sts tightly. And when
Marguerite coaxed him to relax, he replied, furiously: ‘Don’t you
realize that I’m keeping the plane in the air by the sole force of my
will?’ He was traumatized for a long time, and for several years he
refused to get back into a plane.^58
Return to life in Paris was diffi cult, especially because of a sig-
nifi cant event that had occurred during Derrida’s stay in the United
States: Jean Hyppolite, his thesis supervisor and long-standing
protector, had died of a massive heart attack on the night of 27–8
October. As Derrida explained twelve years later, at his thesis viva,
this loss was not just a moment of great sadness for him; it was also
a way of drawing a line and moving on: ‘By a strange coincidence, it
[Hyppolite’s death] marked at that date – the autumn of 1968, and