In Support of Philosophy 1973–1976 277
Marxist thought. It manifestly represents, in France and the
whole world, one of the most powerful and most lively of
philosophical trends. [.. .]
It is true that, given the novelty of the questions it raises,
by the style of intervention or exposition it inaugurates in the
universities, by its open link with political practice, this work
disturbs the guardians of a certain power and a defi nite tradi-
tion in the philosophical institution. With all the inelegance of
fearful resentment, these guardians have just erected a barrier
against him whose political character they can no longer
conceal.^27Of course, discriminatory measures such as these did not merely
strike at Althusser, but his case did have the merit of illus-
trating, in a spectacular fashion, the political dimension of the
problem: supported by ‘the most reactionary forces in teaching’,
government policy was proceeding on ‘a brutal bringing to heel of
schools and universities’. Replies to the Greph’s appeal arrived en
masse. The Giscardian authorities and members of the Universities’
Consultative Committee would bear a deep grudge against Derrida
and his colleagues.
As the institutional landscape froze, Normale Sup remained in many
respects a space of independence and freedom. Derrida, eager as
ever to open up the École, invited as often as he could the thinkers he
rated highly, including Jean-Luc Nancy, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe,
Heinz Wismann, Jean Bollack, and a few others. His own seminar
was increasingly prestigious. As Lacan’s had been, it was mainly fre-
quented by an audience from outside, even though the theme chosen
was always linked to the agrégation syllabus. Denis Kambouchner,
who started attending when he was still a khâgne pupil at Louis-le-
Grand, before becoming a friend of Derrida’s, gives an excellent
description of the ritual of this seminar, where one in two of the ses-
sions was devoted to Derrida’s meticulously composed analyses and
the other to a freer discussion:
Essentially, these sessions constituted lessons in reading, not in
the traditional shape of the explication de texte or analysis of
doctrines, but in a hyper-interrogative way that adopted many
registers, brought out to a remarkable degree the least singu-
larities of the texts studied, made bold comparisons between
the most cardinal and the most apparently contingent elements,
laid bare key themes and complex structures at the heart of
neglected passages, crisscrossed the history of philosophy or
culture to make us aware of certain parallel structures, and in
short reconstituted, in successive approaches, the ‘gestures’ of