1 The Territories of Deconstruction 1984–1986
In a public discussion with Hélène Cixous in March 2003, Derrida
mentioned a question that someone had already asked him at a
conference in summer 1984. ‘Why did you say it was in 1984?’ asked
Cixous. The short dialogue that ensued was less trivial than may
appear:
J.D.: Because it’s a date, and I very clearly remember that it
was in 1984, and because 1984 was a very strange date or
year for me, and it was the year I did that little thing on Joyce
[Ulysses Gramophone], and gave it again, a few months later,
in Urbino. That’s where it happened, the...
H.C.: And you can remember the date? What a guy!
J.D.: No, 1984, I’m not going to bore you with that, I have
reasons to remember that year, because it was one of the
strangest years in my life... that’s all.
H.C.: He’s got a capacity for remembering things that stupefi es
me.
J.D.: Not at all! I’m profoundly amnesiac and there are just
some things that stay with me.1*If 1984 really was more than just busy in terms of work and travel,
Derrida remembered it fi rst and foremost for a private reason, one
that could not be stated in the context of that public debate with
Cixous. The year had started with a real shock: Sylviane Agacinski
- I can vouch for the importance of that year from an altogether more personal
point of view. On 21 August 1984, Derrida sent Marie-Françoise Plissart and I
the text of his essay on the photo album Right of Inspection, and wrote: ‘Will you
ever forgive me for this long delay? If I could describe my “life”, since last summer,
you might agree that I can plead mitigating circumstances.’ The phrase had, at
the time, seemed merely part of the rhetoric of a perpetually overworked and par-
ticularly punctilious man. It was only when I came to write this book that I fully
understood it.