216 Derrida 1963–1983
He began exchanging views with Jean-Luc Nancy, a young assis-
tant lecturer at the University of Strasbourg. It was Nancy who took
the initiative, sending Derrida an article in which he discussed his
work, before it was published in the Bulletin de la faculté de lettres
de Strasbourg. Derrida sent him in return a long letter which showed
how well he knew the young philosopher’s work:
I already knew, having read your work several times in Esprit,
that we were bound to meet or that, at least, our paths would
cross. Your letter and your article surpass my expectations:
warmest thanks.
I won’t be able to answer all the questions – decisive and
incisive – that you formulate, both discreetly and forcefully. I
also wonder about them, as you can probably guess, and the
perplexity that you express openly in your letter, as you know
[.. .] is one that I cannot fail to share. [.. .] Yes, too, on the
matter of ‘ideology’, of ‘science’. We read our ‘contemporaries’
in a similar way. We need to work. But it’s a minefi eld, more
than ever.^26At the end of his letter, Derrida mentioned the text in which he
thought he had gone ‘furthest’ in discussing the matters raised by
Nancy: ‘The ends of man’, a paper that he was preparing for a con-
ference in Brussels, once he had given it in New York. He off ered
to send him this text: he did not envisage publishing it in France, at
least not for the time being: ‘I’m not really interested in publication
just now, I’m even rather scared at the prospect. And I think this
state of aff airs is going to last.’
Nancy was very touched by this letter; the intimacy of its tone
meant he felt less isolated. But he did not know whether he would
be up to a meeting with Derrida – he was worried he might not be
able to ‘unpack correctly my no doubt rather inchoate intuitions’.
Nancy came from a very diff erent background from Derrida. Born
in Bordeaux in 1940, into a Catholic family, he had been shaped
by the JEC, the Jeunesse Étudiante Chrétienne (Christian Student
Youth). After several attempts to get into Normale Sup, he had
done a Masters under the supervision of Paul Ricoeur. He had
originally gone to Strasbourg to study theology, but he soon moved
away from the subject. Here, Lucien Braun, then an assistant lec-
turer in the Department of Literature, introduced him to Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe.
We immediately got on really well, even though we were very
diff erent. Philippe was an atheist, more political than me,
more literary, too. He’d published a few things in Le Nouveau
Commerce and was still close to Gérard Genette, a teacher he’d