Modern & Contemporary France, 2015
Vol. 23, No. 1, 111134
Book Reviews
Derridas Deconstruction of the Subject:
Writing, Self and Other
THEA BELLOU
Berne, Peter Lang, 2013
362 pp., 66.00, pbk, ISBN: 978 3-03-431425-1
Thea Bellous Derridas Deconstruction of
the Subject: Writing, Self and Other
critically examines Derridas engagement
with the question of the subject and its
relation to alterity from the early writings
on phenomenology to the later ones on
ethics and politics. Throughout these
writings, Derrida, Bellou argues, insists
on the irreducibility of otherness to
deconstruct the Western metaphysical
conception of the subject as self-presence
and self-identity. Her assertion that radical
alterity remains a central preoccupation
for Derrida comes as no surprise. She also
repeats the common accusation that his
thinking does away with the subject or the
self (terms which Bellou never entirely
distinguishes), by reducing it to the
differing and deferring play of language
which disrupts mastery and identity. The
book moves into slightly less familiar
territory when it argues that Derrida
writes off the metaphysical subject only
to allow it to return in the inverted form of
the other. The absolute other increasingly
resembles the absolute subject of Western
metaphysics . . . Derrida merely effects a
transference of power rather than a radical
break with the metaphysical residues of
logos (220). His thought allegedly fails to
deconstruct itself, merely reversing rather
than challenging the hierarchical binary.
The other comes to occupy the privileged
position once assumed by the self. The
subject, if not destroyed by the transcen-
dental other, gets subsumed by it, so utterly
subjected to its injunction that it loses all
agency. This absolute dependence on the
transcendental other, Bellou affirms, elim-
inates violence (221). This affirmation
would suggest a degree of closure at odds
with the openness normally associated
with Derridas thought. The other deter-
mines or overdetermines the subject,
providing the source of response, respon-
sibility and freedom. Derridas privileging
of radical alterity sidesteps, Bellou con-
cludes, the question of embodied subjects
or intersubjectivity, lacking the subtlety of
the reflection of other theorists (Ricoeur,
Benhabib, Taylor et al.). However, it is
perhaps Bellous reading that lacks
subtlety, overlooking Derridas analysis of
the undecidability of the self other
relation. Derrida does not invert the
power structure of that relation, as Bellou
implies, but analyses how self and other
mutually inhabit one another while
remaining irreducible to one another.
The self cannot move outside itself to
embrace otherness fully: its understanding
of the other is always mediated by its own
experiences. For the same reason, it cannot
achieve self-presence, remaining perma-
nently marked by an alterity which exceeds
it. Alterity comes from the differance or
temporal finitude which leaves self and
112 Book Reviews
other forever open to change for better or
worse. Differance forecloses complete
identification, rendering any identity
unstable and unpredictable. Who or what
the other is remains in question. This
openness exposes us to the potentially
violating effects of alterity and, in so doing,
provides the non-ethical foundation of
ethics. If I were certain that the other would
never harm me, if I were certain that I
would not harm the other, the need to
decide how to respond, to take responsi-
bility], the need for ethics tout court, would
disappear. Derridas insistence on undecid-
ability refutes Bellous reading of his
philosophy as an injunction to submit
unconditionally to the other. It enables
decision and responsibility; it creates the
conditions of (im)possibility for the agency
of the subject which his reflection allegedly
effaces. So while Bellous book is ambitious
in scope and participates in a broader
debate about the praxis of deconstruction,
its central argument, to my mind, ignores
how Derridas philosophy rigorously resists
any hierarchical conception of self and
other and thereby fails to offer a sufficiently
nuanced interpretation of his work.
KEVIN INSTON
University College London
q 2014 Kevin Inston
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639489.2014.921605
Archives et musees: Le theatre du patrimoine chapters will be invaluable for specialists
(France-Canada)
YVES BERGERON & VANESSA FEREY (Eds)
Paris, Comite des travaux historiques et
scientifiques, 2013
384 pp., e35.00, pbk, ISBN: 978 2-73-550790-0
This wide-ranging book emerges from
a series of conferences celebrating the
400th anniversary of the founding of
Quebec. Richly illustrated, it takes the
form of conference proceedings which aim
to explore and compare the history of
archives and museums in France and
Canada from a variety of different
perspectives with contributions from
academics, curators, archivists and special-
ists of cultural history. As the editors
indicate in their introduction, this is
a fascinating and potentially polemical
comparison: not only because the origins
and history of museums differ greatly in
Europe and the Americas, but also because
of different approaches to exhibiting
narratives of national identity, particularly
between universalist France and multi-
culturalist Canada. However, the editors
also underline that the importance of the
history of cultural exchange between
France and North America over the last
five centuries should not be downplayed
and this volume contributes to the writing
of this history. The metaphor of theatre,
present in the books title and explained in
the introduction, underpins the books
structure and its division into four acts.
The first act, Les coulisses du patri-
moine, contains four chapters. The first
two concentrate on archival history,
practice and exchange between France
and Canada, establishing some interest-
ing tensions to do with tradition,
experience and innovation. The meticu-
lously researched third and fourth
in their respective areas: importexport
of art works between France and Canada
in the latter half of the twentieth century
and books in vernacular (French) con-
tained in religious libraries in the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries. It is
unclear, however, how the latter is
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