Dear University Community,

As has been reported in newspapers around the world, our colleague
Jacques Derrida passed away in Paris last Friday. He had been
diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and his illness prevented him from
returning to UCI last spring to teach his course.

Those who know "Derrida" only as the world's most famous contemporary
philosopher or as an international "celebrity" might be surprised to
learn that his teaching activity made an invaluable and indelible
contribution to the intellectual life of UCI. Starting in 1987, he
taught a regular seminar in the spring quarter that, for five weeks,
consisted of two two-hour lectures open to the public and one
two-hour discussion session for the graduate students enrolled in the
course for credit. The opening lectures of each seminar would
usually draw a crowd of around 150 students and faculty, as well as
some curiosity seekers, from all over California. This number would
settle down to 80 or so serious participants once it quickly became
clear that the seminar was not going to be just a spectacle but
rather a rigorous inquiry into a difficult (and often timely) topic.
But however difficult the problem addressed and however rigorous
Derrida's working through it, evident to all was Derrida's genuine
pedagogical gift. A true "philosopher" in the ancient Greek sense,
Derrida was always, and first of all, a teacher.

However, Derrida's pedagogy was not confined to classroom
instruction. He generously served on graduate students' Ph.D.
qualifying examinations, turning them into intellectual events.
Always unstinting in his praise of good work, Derrida would never
fail to point out, delicately and politely, what the student (or the
faculty member serving on the committee!) had not yet thought
through, how he or she could and should go further and ask more
questions before hurrying to premature answers. Equally generous and
equally unsparing, Derrida's extensive comments on students' papers
became collectors' items. They arrived in the summer in the form of
two- or three- or four-page letters written by hand in Derrida's
distinctive hand-writing. Derrida's dedication to his teaching was
also clear in the six hours (and more) a week he devoted to office
hours. Every Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday a passerby would see a
line of students outside the door of Derrida's office in Humanities
Hall--with every student getting the time needed to discuss his or
her paper topic.

Derrida was also an effective teacher of his colleagues at UCI. For
many years, he contributed his time to the weekly discussions of the
Critical Theory Institute, and he was a tireless participant in the
many conferences and lectures held at UCI every April and May
precisely because Derrida would be there to serve as speaker or
respondent. And one could say that Derrida continues to teach at UCI
even now in the form of the vast Derrida archive, the many thousands
of pages of manuscripts of lectures and notes that he contributed to
the Critical Theory Archive at the UCI Library. Researchers from all
over the world have been profiting and learning from the materials at
the archive for over 10 years already. Like the many students and
colleagues he taught--to read better, to think better, to be
better--at UCI over 16 years, the archive remains as a living part of
Jacques Derrida's legacy.

The School of Humanities will plan a memorial service to recognize
Jacques Derrida and his contributions. Details will be communicated
as soon as they are available.

Karen Lawrence,
Dean of Humanities

Andrzej Warminski,
Department of English and Comparative Literature

The University of California, Irvine