LETTER BY UCI FACULTY, STUDENTS AND STAFF TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

We at UC Irvine are outraged by the so-called obituary for Jacques Derrida, written by Jonathan Kandell and appearing in Sunday's NY Times. We feel you have shabbily misrepresented the life and achievements of a great thinker, a most generous teacher, and a courteous human being.

Had your reporter done what reporters are supposed to do and bothered to ascertain even the barest of the facts contained in a curriculum vitae-before even asking what deconstruction means-he would have discovered that Jacques Derrida has received upwards of 11 honorary degrees from highly respected institutions, besides the controversial one from Cambridge University, including two from New York's own Columbia University and the New School for Social Research. He has been the recipient of various honors from governments, including the Chevalier de
la Legion d'honneur, which is France's highest honor. When the French Government decided to found the well-thought of Collège International de Philosophie, it was Professor Derrida who was put in charge of the mission. Jonathan Kandell may not know what deconstruction means, and Jacques Derrida may have been a controversial figure inside the academy (which thrives, and should thrive, on controversy), but the bare facts make it very clear that Jacques Derrida was well-respected inside the academy, where people who have thinking as their profession felt interested enough by what he had to say to invite him regularly to speak. On a rough calculation, between 1959-1998, he gave lectures or spoke at conferences in over 420 places around the world (from Algeria and
Jerusalem and Virginia, to Budapest and Buffalo, to Rome and Mexico and Frankfort and Toronto and Istanbul and Oslo and Moscow and Rabat). The abstruseness of which the Times reporter complains does not appear to have
kept people in Nebraska and Kyoto, Buenos Aires and Rekjavik from wanting
to hear what Jacques Derrida had to say. He taught continuous seminars at
more than 20 universities. Had your reporter bothered to read only Professor Derrida's curriculum vitae, he would perhaps have thought that something might be going on in deconstruction, something might be worth finding out about in the works of this "notoriously difficult" thinker. Then, perhaps, he would have sought to understand what was going on in some of the upwards of 70 books Jacques Derrida wrote, instead of recycling the stale newspaper reports of staler controversies. In any event, he would have had something to write to fill the allotted columns
besides the errors, half-truths, and slurs they did contain. We cannot expect the New York Times to devote pages to repairing the mistakes and apparently wilful misinterpretations (yes, it is possible to misinterpret; no, deconstruction does not say that texts are confused and can mean anything you like). It is too late for anything but regrets at an occasion missed to rise above the petty controversy to honor the life and achievements of a remarkable man.

However, there is one specific statement that we at Irvine cannot leave without remark, because the harm to the memory of this great and generous man comes from his relations to us. Kandell claims that Professor Derrida "was paid hefty fees to lecture a few weeks every year at several East Coast universities and the University of California at Irvine", thereby implying that he was an operator who did not give us full bang for our buck. Let us set the record straight: at Irvine, Professor Derrida occupied 1/3 of a regular teaching position, remunerated in accordance with the very bureaucratic University of California system for determining salaries. He taught more than his share in the weeks he was with us, and was a full and valued participant in university life. His generosity with
his time was simply unparalleled.

We regret that the New York Times was willing to publish an obituary that feels like an insult at a moment when people around the world are mourning one of the greatest thinkers of our time.


Yours,

Colette LaBouff Atkinson, Associate Director Irvine Center for Writing and
Translation
Ellen S. Burt, Chair of French and Italian, for the full department
Jerome Christianson, Chair of English
Michael P. Clark, Associate Executive Vice Chancellor, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Natalka Freeland, Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Alex Gelley, Interim Director of the Program in Comparative Literature,
for the full program
Rebeca Helfer, Assistant Professor of English
Susan C. Jarratt, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Dragan Kujundzic, Director of the Program in Russian
Aki Lippit, Acting Director of the Critical Theory Institute, Chair of Film Studies
Steven Mailloux, Director of the Critical Theory Emphasis
J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Ian Munro, Associate Professor of Drama
Bryan Reynolds, Head of Doctoral Studies, Department of Drama
Gabriele Schwab, Former Director of the Critical Theory Institute, Chancellor's Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Rei Terada, Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor, Department of English and
Comparative Literature, and Director, International Center for Writing and
Translation
Andrzej Warminski, Professor of English and Comparative Literature