The
Language of Others
Monday 1 March 2004 8.30pm
Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida
Chair: Jacqueline Rose
In
association with the I.C.A. and the Institut Français
Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous are two of
the world’s most celebrated figures in the fields of philosophy and literature.
Both occupy crucial positions in European thought, and share a common
experience of a childhood in Algeria —
although they only met in Paris in
1962.
Close friends ever since, their
writing has often drawn parallels to each other’s work. In
this unique session, in front of an audience of 900, they discussed the shared
cultural and religious heritage of their formative years — not Algerian,
rejected by France,
their Jewishness concealed or acculturated — and the impact it had on them.
Hélène Cixous is
Director of the Centre d’Études Féminines at Paris 8
and house playwright at Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil. Her
publications include The Newly Born Woman (1986), Stigmata (1998)
and Reveries of the Wild Woman (2002). She collaborated with Derrida on Veils
(2001).
Jacques Derrida is
Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Science
Sociales in Paris.
His most recent publications include Monolingualism of the Other (1998), The Politics of Friendship (1997),
On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (2001), Without Alibi (2002)
and Philosophy in a Time of Terror (2003). His latest work on Cixous is H.C.,
pour la vie, c’est à dire… (2002).
Jacqueline Rose is
Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of
London. Her
books include On Not Being Able to Sleep: Psychoanalysis and the Modern
World (2003).
