About this title: "The Gift of Death" is Derrida's most sustained consideration of religion to date. While continuing to explore questions introduced in "Giving Time" such as the possibility or impossibility of giving, and the economic and anthropological nature of gifts, Derrida turns to the notion responsibility and the ultimate gifts of life and death. Texts under discussion include the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as writings by Patocka, Heidegger, Levinas, and Kierkegaard, whose work he addresses here for the first time in print.
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
ISBN-13:9780226143057ISBN:0226143058
Description: Good. 0226143058 Good overall condition, no markings, pages and binding good, ex library book with standard stamp and pocket. ** Satisfaction Guaranteed ** Orders ship same or next business day. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Date Published: 1996
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Previous owner's name on endpapers, Illustrated wrap is curled and has a half-inch tear at the top edge. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 124 p. Religion and Postmodernism. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Quarter Cloth
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780226143057ISBN:0226143058
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. 5¾" by 8¾" Quarter beige cloth over purple boards, black title. 115 pages. Light general wear, near fine. read more
Edition: Paperback Edition 1996
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Date Published: 1995
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
Description: viii, 115 p.; 21 cm. Series: Religion and postmodernism. Includes bibliographical references. NF condition. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
Description: Good. 0226143066 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
Description: New. 0226143066 Absolutely Brand New. No marks and in pristine condition. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Date Published: 1996-06-01
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
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Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Date Published: 1995-05-15
ISBN-13:9780226143057ISBN:0226143058
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN-13:9780226143064ISBN:0226143066
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"11/7 Oh, okay - Part Four: Every Other is Every Other builds on Part 3's expoundings of Fear and Trembling, and this all makes complete sense now (I've always kinda felt that Keirkegaard is where I want to be, Schopenhauer is what I realistically work towards, and Derrida is where I happen to find myself). The very last part of this where he adds in that Baudellaire (which isn't a piece I'm familiar with) was unexpected and awesome. This was excellent!
11/6 Part Three: Whom to Give To If I understand this correctly (and I may not), I believe I took away something else from Keirkegaard's Fear and Trembling. Or maybe just never considered this element/layer?
11/4 Part Two: Beyond gets more into how all of the phenomena discussed in Part One has to do w/ notions of responsibility and ideas like the Christ-like "laying down of life" etc, very heady but makes perfect sense
11/2 oh, i thought this was about suicide, but it's about religion or the inclination towards religion (so far) (i think), very interesting - i love w/ Derrida that when i can't fully understand something it still sits well with me"
"This is a hauntingly, sublimely beautiful book. It makes you think--really. I don't mean just in the "How about that" sense: it makes you reconsider loss, betrayal, hardship, duty, sacrifice. And that's just the easy stuff. A gift for Jacques is like a ghost that passes unawares from the giver to the receiver. It is never experienced in the way in which it was expected. Miracle, blessing--all these concepts made sense to me after reading The Gift of Death.
Now Derrida, as we know, only makes sense when interpreted. But interpretation in this context takes on a whole new meaning. It means thinking, like Rodin's thinker, with one's whole body, and how you live your life. It doesn't mean rewording or reducing the metaphysician's ideas, let alone simply parrot them back. I have tried that game as many times as everyone else has and it's fun and frustrating in equal measure. That said, it's missing the point. Then again, to miss the point is precisely to embark on the journey, which is truly one of enlightenment.
Does God exist? "God does not exist, but their is (a) God ("Il y'a dieu'). Likewise, one never dies, yet death comes. It's all about suspension of belief, to rework Coleridge, to arrive at revelation beyond belief. Derrida does not dance around here, as he has been known to (very well, at least) heretofore. In this book he goes straight to the heart. The Gift will make you love the late, great man. Here, he is not the Napoleon of epistemology withering away on Elba. On the contrary, he is the Colossus at Rhodes, bridging an isthmus."
"I read this while researching a paper and found, to my delight, that the late Prince of Opacity can be surprisingly lucid when he wishes. As I understood it, his main arguments are:
1. Christianity superseded Platonism because it made a "gift" of death. Not only did it give its adherents a way out of death, but it also, reciprocally, made their own deaths a gift to the Other.
2. Death, or the apprehension of death, leads to a notion of irreplaceability (only I can die my death), and thus responsibility: how will I die my death? This apprehension, leading to irreplaceability and responsibility, creates the self. Death furnishes unrepeatability of self (hence the gift idea again).
3. Sacrifice means both loving something and rejecting something (rejecting that which we won't sacrifice for). Every choice of an Other means a rejection of the "others."
4. But! Every other is every (bit) Other. Every other that I reject is as Other as the one I accept.
I'm still working out the consequences of this last point, where Derrida deconstructs Other and other. The final chapter was difficult, and I had to read it swiftly. Now that it's summer, though, I'm putting it aside, saving it for the fall. People on the bus were giving me strange looks when they saw the title. When gray skies and rain come again I'll be able to get away with it."
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