Of Deconstruction in America 455
autumn, Wolfgang Iser in the winter, and Derrida in the spring. In
fi ve packed weeks, Derrida crammed in the equivalent of ten tra-
ditional weeks: throughout the 1990s, he was paid around $30,000
per annum. Murray Krieger had had the right idea when he insisted
on getting Derrida invited to Irvine. His mere presence had ensured
that Irvine’s department of Critical Theory had become the most
famous in the whole United States, attracting students from more
or less everywhere, as well as several signifi cant personalities. These
included Stephen Barker, a dancer and choreographer for ten years
before becoming a philosopher: he asked for a post at Irvine because
the author of Glas taught there too: ‘The two most important men in
my life were Nietzsche and Derrida. I was lucky enough to attend all
the seminars right from the start. And I was far from being the only
one. Many people arranged to be in Irvine for April.’^17
Derrida was indeed something of a star, but he was fi rst and
foremost a full-time teacher, as attentive as he had always been. As
David Carroll recalls:
He gave an open course to all students in social sciences and
humanities. Many of those following his seminar were reg-
istered in history or anthropology. Only the people who ran
the philosophy department tried to dissuade their students
from going. Eventually, some of them did take the plunge, but
those who stayed soon changed subject. Even at Irvine, it was
impossible to do a philosophy thesis if you’d been labelled a
Derridean... There was always a big audience; even his sup-
posedly closed seminar was packed. But this didn’t prevent
Derrida from spending a great deal of time seeing students
individually and discussing their papers, their theses, and their
personal plans with them. He was supposed to be available in
his offi ce six hours a week, but he always spent longer than that
so he could give each student as much time as possible.^18When he was on the campus, from Monday to Wednesday,
Derrida was fully available. After his seminar, he invited close
friends to dinner at the Koto, a Japanese restaurant that was a
local high spot.^19 On Tuesdays, he had his ritual lunch with J. Hillis
Miller; on other days, it was with friends and colleagues whom he
liked. ‘Derrida liked to pick up old habits and friends,’ Ellen Burt
recalls.
It was always Angie – Andrzej Warminski – and Hillis who
came to collect him from the airport. Throughout his stay, it
was always the same student who acted as his assistant. On the
other days of the week, he often went on quick return trips to
other universities, for lectures or conferences. But in the last