Derrida for Beginners

Derrida is one of those annoying geniuses you can take a class on, read half-a-dozen books by and still have no idea what he’ s talking about. Derrida’ s ‘ writing’ is definitely confusing (it’ s like he’ s pulling the rug out from under the rug that he pulled out from under philosophy). But beneath the confusion, like the heartbeat of a bird in your hand, you can feel Derrida’ s electric genius. It draws you to it; you want to understand it… but it’ s so confusing. Jim Powell’ s Derrida For Beginners is the clearest explanation of Derrida and deconstruction presently available in our solar system. Powell guides us through blindingly obscure texts like Grammatology (Derrida’ s deconstruction of Saussure, Lé vi Strauss, Roussseau), “ Diffé rance” (his essay on language and life), Dissemination (his dismantling of Plato, his rap on Mallarmé ), along with his other masterpieces.