where ghosts live

Description

Following the spectres of Marx, do we now see everywhere Derrida’s ghosts? Or can it be said that the contemporary theorist has always been haunted by the ghost (“which is neither present or absent, neither alive nor dead” [Derrida]) of Derrida (“the philosopher renowned for his problematic relation to presence” [McQuillan])?

“The ghost of Derrida” might here refer to his work on the crypt, the coffin, on the spectre, the revenant, the phantom, spirit, on hauntology, on mourning, but is this all that we subscribe to if we believe in Derrida’s ghost? In the same way, the theoretical and critical currency that the figure of the ghost possesses is understandable, given the ghost’s presentation of absence, its (non-)presence everywhere, its untimeliness, its relation to repetition and the uncanny, to memory and writing, to the dead, but is this theoretical resonance all that the ghost consists of? Do ghosts, the dead living, not teach us something significant about theory, living and not living, and living after theory, and especially about those things which are intangibly present in our lives: love, friendship, hospitality, justice, knowledge, forgiveness, responsibility?

Period	4 Sep 2009 → 6 Sep 2009
Event type	Conference
Location	Cork, IrelandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International