458 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
the word – and know better, especially downtown (Gramercy
Park, Union Square, Washington Square, Soho, South Street
Seaport), I mean that I know it diff erently well than Paris, at
whose altar I nevertheless worship unconditionally.^23In New York, Derrida taught very intensively for three weeks.
To begin with, it was Tom Bishop, director of the Centre of French
Civilization and Culture at NYU and a major fi gure in Franco-
American relations, who invited him. Then, once he had started
to teach in English, he was invited by the Poetic Institute of the
department of English, whose director was Anselm Haverkamp. In
his last years, it was Avital Ronell who asked him to come: now a
Distinguished Global Professor, he was invited by the departments
of English, French, and German. As Tom Bishop relates:
Derrida in New York was a whirlwind of activity: extraordi-
nary. In spite of his huge fame, he didn’t behave like a diva
at all. In the Maison Française, the closed seminars were held
round a big table, with thirty or so people. This enabled him to
pursue a kind of dialogue that he loved; I can especially remem-
ber some extraordinary sessions devoted to readings of texts by
Hugo and Camus on the death penalty. But NYU was only a
minor part of his activities during his stay. He let people have
their way, wore himself out, could never say no. He sometimes
ended up taking a night train to give a lecture in Cornell or
Princeton.^24‘For a long time, October was synonymous with “Derrida’s
month” in New York,’ confi rms Avital Ronell.
One year, we’d planned at least one activity per day for him.
We were afraid it might be too much, but he’d really liked
it. So we fell back into the same pattern the following years.
Symbolically, October was an important month, correspond-
ing to Yom Kippur, to Nietzsche’s birthday, and also to the
anniversary of his father’s death. Jacques was a sort of prodigy,
he had so much energy. In addition to NYU and the New
School for Social Research, he also taught at City University
and the Cardozo Law School. He would sometimes speak on
three diff erent occasions in a single day. He was forever seeing
people, giving seminars, lectures, interviews; he seemed able to
lead ten lives at the same time. What was really incredible was
the way he could adapt to every person he met and immediately
enter the new problem that was submitted to him. During the
times when he wasn’t teaching, at NYU, his door was always
open to any people who thought they had an idea to put to