The Gift of Death, Second Edition & Literature in Secret

Playing Seriously with Bad Faith: A Derridean Intersection

“…And this attitude remains our irresponsible response to our infinite responsibility: we are responsible in that we act, play, decide and think, all in response to the unknowable and unforeseeable future-to-come, to the Other and to past events. 58 By affirming the role we play in interrupting and transforming our situation (rather than simply reasserting it), we maintain a sense of openness to play, to our wants and to our projects. Howells echoes this point well.…”

Spoken Through Desire: Maternal Subjectivity and Assisted Reproduction

“…The egg donor, in contrast, became a ''real woman'' possessed of the generative capacity Nora lacked, rendering her powerless and afraid while linking her to her own mother, reenacting her mother's loss of which her miraculous birth was meant to deny. Second, in order to face her lack, Nora had to accept the donor's gift, and this gift-turned-debt became her new sacrifice to bear (Derrida, 2008). She felt she had to carry something that did not belong to her, a false possession, literally a foreign body, reappropriated from elsewhere.…”

Time for Victorian Studies?

“…History depends on such an excessive beginning. 16 Following Heidegger's analysis in 'The Question Concerning Technology', Patočka sees the history of Western thought as both leading to and complicit with an essentially technological or instrumental reason ('enframing' in Heidegger's term), which is (even now, as we speak) devastating the planet. 17 To this account of history, reason and technology, Patočka adds another dimension: that of the sacred, orgiastic and secret.…”