166 Derrida 1963–1983
On 30 September 1966, Derrida told Piel that he had started
typing up Of Grammatology. In spite of a trip to the United States
that had tired him out and slowed him down, he hoped to send him
the whole work round about the end of November. ‘Anyway, let’s
say that things are done and that the fi nal stage of tidying up the text
can start now.’^33 But a few days later, a new factor came into play:
Jean Hyppolite and Maurice de Gandillac were encouraging him to
present Of Grammatology as a thèse de troisième cycle, which could
then be transformed into a thèse complémentaire. This was a tempt-
ing proposal, since it was a task from which he would thus be freed
on the day he defended his thèse principale. Derrida wanted to pay
due attention to this university side of things, which he had ‘long
neglected’.^34 It would be better to make this concession, even if it
imposed a few editorial contortions on him: according to the strict
rules of the time, the book actually needed to be printed a few weeks
before the thesis viva, but it could not be put on sale in bookshops
until the viva had taken place. Piel, understanding as ever, agreed to
this new constraint and the extra delay it forced on him.
Presented by Derrida as an additional chore in an already taxing
period, the trip to the United States would have a decisive eff ect
on his career. This was the famous Baltimore conference, ‘The
Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man’, that two profes-
sors at the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, Richard Macksey
and Eugenio Donato, had organized as a showcase for the recent
developments in French thought. While structuralism had been
very much in vogue that year in Paris, it was still totally unknown
in the United States, either in bookshops or on campuses. With
the help of René Girard, Macksey and Donato had drawn up a list
of fi rst-rate guests, including Georges Poulet, Lucien Goldmann,
Jean Hyppolite, Roland Barthes, Jean-Pierre Vernant, and Jacques
Lacan.
From 18 to 21 October, all the speakers were given accommoda-
tion in the same hotel, the Belvedere. It was here that Lacan and
Derrida were introduced to one another for the fi rst time: ‘So we
had to wait to come here, and abroad, in order to meet each other!’
said Lacan with ‘a friendly sigh’.^35 Subsequent events are related in
detail by Élisabeth Roudinesco:
The following evening, at a dinner hosted by the organizers,
Derrida raised the questions which concerned him about the
Cartesian subject, substance, and the signifi er. Standing as he
sampled a plate of coleslaw, Lacan replied that his subject was
the same as the one his interlocutor had opposed to the theory
of the subject. In itself, the remark was not false. But Lacan
then added, ‘You can’t bear my already having said what