[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Theory after Derrida (7/31/06; collection)

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

                     Call for Papers for a volume on

                            Theory After Derrida

Jacques Derrida died on 8 October 2004. Controversies embraced him while
alive even followed him after his death. An obituary of Derrida by
Jonathan Kandell in the New York Times titled "Jacques Derrida, Abstruse
Theorist, Dies at 74" (10 October 2004) provoked unprecedented response
from academia across the USA. If controversies have a way of signifying
something besides arguments and counter-arguments they certainly
underline the importance of the person about whom they are made. With or
without controversies, Derrida is certainly an extraordinary thinker,
philosopher and theorist. His method of critical engagement called
"deconstruction," declared many times dead by his critics, is alive and
challenges us as it denaturalizes many of the hierarchies that Western
philosophy and culture conceived as natural. Derrida defines
deconstruction as "something which happens" in an attempt to understand
the slipperiness of any system, whether linguistic or cultural. As Terry
Eagleton in his work _Literary Theory_ maintains: "deconstruction is for
him (Derrida) an ultimately political practice, an attempt to dismantle
the logic by which a particular system of thought, and behind that a
whole system of political structures and social institutions, maintains
its force."

Derrida challenges not only our ways of thinking but also our hitherto
methods of critical inquiry. In doing so he exposes the lie behind
binaries such as speech/writing, nature/culture, male/female,
black/white, literature/criticism and so on that have shaped our world
views in that a hegemonic centre is always already in place
dominating/marginalizing the "other." Although Derrida's influence on
literary criticism is well known and many have practised his method of
deconstruction; the roots of his thought are more philosophical than
literary. Derrida's examination of philosophical foundations of human
sciences both conceptual and historical is an important aspect of his
thought. Heidegger among others has influenced him the most in his
attempt to renovate philosophy that allowed him to examine fundamental
matters of critical concern. However he has moved beyond Heidegger.

A year after his death it is pertinent to explore not only the status of
Derrida's contribution as a thinker but also the status of critical
theory as such. Should we dismiss Derrida as a thinker who espoused an
extreme form of relativism bordering on nihilism, or has he something
fundamental to contribute to the future of theory? This question also
underlines the future of theory in a significant way. If we consider
theory as an endless problematizing of our beliefs and practices, and of
our suspicion and mistrust, then one may legitimately ask what is then
its future? Could we say that our mistrust and suspicion possibly would
cohabit with faith in visualizing a future? Could we suggest that
deconstruction is not destruction but a possibility that doubts the
present having faith in the future? As John D. Caputo maintains: "If
there were no theory, there would be no future, just the endless
repetition of the same. What deconstruction will have done, and
the way that it will live on, after Derrida, after deconstruction
itself, lies in its insistence on the future, on what is coming, and on
the courage it takes to keep the future open."

It is time that we ponder over and reflect on Derrida's legacy and the
future of theory. Having in mind all these we propose to bring out a
volume titled _Theory After Derrida_. We have not consciously prepared
any thematic division for the volume, allowing the contributors the
freedom the way they think of/about Derrida as a critical thinker, a
philosopher and a theorist predicating their thoughts to the future of
critical theory. We expect the volume to be out by March 2007.

Last date for submission of articles: July 31st 2006. The articles
should be sent through E-mail. If a hard copy is submitted a soft copy
in Windows Word 98 or 2000 format should accompany it. Queries on the
volume can be made from the editors.

Editors:
Kailash C. Baral
R.Radhakrishnan
Bichitrananda Ray

Contact Addresses:

Kailash C. Baral	       R.Radhakrishnan
Professor of English        Professor of English
  and Director		   Chair Asian-American Studies
CIEFL, NE Campus	   University of California, Irvine	
NEHU Permanent Complex	      300H,Krieger Hall	
Shillong 793022,India	       Mail Code:6900	
Phone:91+364-2550065(O)	       Irvine,CA 92697
       0919436117351(M)	

E-Mail: kailashbaral at rediffmail.com	E-mail: rradhakr at uci.edu
              baral at ciefl.ac.in


and
Dr. B.N.Ray
Reader, Department of Political Science
Ramjas College
University of Delhi, Maurice Nagar
Delhi- 110007, India


About the editors:

Kaialsh C. Baral teaches English literature and is the Director of the
Northeast Campus of the Central Institute of English and Foreign
Languages (CIEFL) at Shillong. He has authored Sigmund Freud: A Study of
His Theory of Art and Literature (1994) and edited Humanities and
Pedagogy: Teaching of Humanities Today (2002), Interpretation of Texts:
text, meaning and interpretation (2002) and Earth Songs: Stories from
Northeast India (2005). He has co-edited Theory and Praxis: Curriculum,
Culture and English Studies (2003), Reflections on Literature, Criticism
and Theory (2004), U.R.Anantha Murthy's Samskara: A Critical Reader
(2005). His articles on critical theory, cultural studies and
postcolonial literatures are published in India and abroad and also
included in many anthologies.

R. Radhakrishnan is Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and
Chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of
California, Irvine. Author of  Diasporic Meditations: Between Home and
Location (University of Minnesota Press, 1996), Theory in an Uneven
World (Blackwell, 2003), and History, the Human, and the World Between
(Forthcoming: Duke University Press, 2007), he is also the author of a
volume of Tamil poems and translator of contemporary Tamil fiction into
English besides having a number of publications in journals on critical
theory, postcolonial and  Asian-American studies.

Bichitrananada Ray teaches Political Science at Ramjas College,
University of Delhi. He studied at the Universities of Delhi and
Toronto, Canada. He has authored Tradition and Innovation in Indian
Political Thought (1998), Critical Theory: The Marx-Marcuse Encounter
(1999), Liberalism and the Communitarian Challenge (1999), edited John
Rawls and the Agenda of Social Justice (2000), C.B. Macpherson and
Liberalism (2004) and co-edited   Nietzsche After Hundred Years (2006).
He works in the area of critical theory and is widely published.




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