U. of California Sues the Family of Jacques Derrida Over the Noted Philosopher's Papers
Chronicle of Higher Education 2/1/07
The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Central California in late November, focuses on the ultimate disposition of Derrida's papers, many of which are housed at the University of California at Irvine. At the time of his death, Derrida taught both at Irvine and at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, in Paris.
The Derrida papers at Irvine were donated by the author to the university in 1990. The papers are the centerpiece of the university's Critical Theory Archive, which is part of the Special Collections and Archives section of Irvine's libraries.
According to a guide to the Derrida archive, the papers include "manuscripts, typescripts, and recordings" that provide comprehensive documentation of his activities as a student, teacher, and scholar. The collection spans the years 1946 to 1998, the guide adds, but contains "no material that might be described as 'personal,' such as private correspondence."
What is at stake in the battle may be the remainder of Derrida's papers, which are held by his estate or in other repositories, including the Institute of Contemporary Publishing Archives, known by its French acronym IMEC, near the city of Caen, in northwestern France.
Quiet Storm
The lawsuit attracted virtually no attention until recent weeks, when reports of its existence -- and the reaction of Derrida's family members to the lawsuit when they were served with papers sometime in January -- spread among faculty members at Irvine.
One professor at Irvine, Peter O. Krapp, posted an item on his personal blog on Sunday about the lawsuit. An associate professor of film and media studies, Mr. Krapp studied with Derrida. In addition to writing scholarly articles about the philosopher and translating some of his work, Mr. Krapp serves as curator of the world's most comprehensive Derrida bibliography and Web site.
In an interview, he said that, to his understanding, the lawsuit was an attempt at a "pre-emptive" action against the possibility that Derrida's family might try to withdraw the archive in its entirety from Irvine.
Repeated attempts by The Chronicle to reach Marguerite Derrida, the philosopher's widow, were unsuccessful this week. Ms. Derrida and the philosopher's three sons -- Pierre, Jean, and Daniel Derrida -- were named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Jackie Dooley, head of the university's special collections and archives, referred questions from The Chronicle to a university spokeswoman.
Christine Byrd, an assistant director of media relations at Irvine, told The Chronicle that "in the very near future," the university "expects to resolve this issue, in a manner we feel confident will satisfy the Derrida family."
She added that the university had no further comment on the lawsuit. She declined to elaborate on the substance of meetings that were held this week between university administrators and faculty members to forge a solution to the dispute.
Lasting Influence
As the creator of an approach to textual scholarship known as deconstruction, Derrida remains a vital (and controversial) figure in the humanities almost two and a half years after his death. The winter 2007 issue of a prominent scholarly journal, Critical Inquiry, for instance, is devoted to texts about and remembrances of the thinker.
"He was a dearly beloved person on that campus," said W.J.T. Mitchell, the editor of Critical Inquiry and a professor of English and art history at the University of Chicago. Without knowing the details of the lawsuit, he added that the idea of any legal action against the Derrida family was "appalling on the face of it."
The Derrida papers already in Irvine's archive have been fully processed and are now accessible to scholars. But the battle over the remainder of the philosopher's papers has now burst into public view, with possible competition as a powerful spur.
Sandrine Samson, assistant director of collections at the IMEC archive, which houses a considerable amount of Derrida's correspondence, confirmed that there was friction between Ms. Derrida and Irvine.
"It's certain that there is a problem, and the problem is a difference of interpretation," she said. "The university thought that the entire archive would come to them."
Ms. Samson also said that Ms. Derrida had told the institute that she wanted the other manuscripts in her possession to go to IMEC. As for the material now housed at the institute, Ms. Samson said that "it was not at all a provisional deposit -- that much is certain."
National Pride and Archives
The irony of a battle between research libraries in France and the United States over Derrida's papers is a sharp one. For many years after he burst onto the American cultural scene, in the late 1960s, Derrida was an intellectual superstar in the United States but a lesser light in the firmament of the country where he began his career as a scholar.
Mr. Mitchell cites an anecdote in his own introduction to the latest issue of Critical Inquiry, in which Derrida replied to a 1994 question about the death of deconstruction with wry humor: "Deconstruction has been dying for quite a while," the philosopher said. "The first reports of its dying came to us a long time ago, and no doubt it will continue dying for some time to come. And it seems to be dying more in some places than others. For instance, in France, deconstruction is not dying. It was declared dead long ago."
If the scrum over Derrida's papers does signal a brightening of Derrida's intellectual luster in France, Mr. Mitchell observed, "that would be a reversal."
Mr. Krapp, the Irvine professor, pointed to another irony: Derrida was obsessed with archives and the idea of archives. He even wrote a book, translated into English as Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (University of Chicago Press, 1997), about the archives of Sigmund Freud.
Derrida "was suspicious about archives, and what can happen with them," Mr. Krapp said. But despite his apprehension, he added, Derrida "was very generous" in his gift to Irvine.
Discussion about Derrida's archive and what to do with it, he said, "should be an invitation to return to the thought of the archive." The lawsuit, he concluded, is "a distraction" from that conversation.