Charles Barbour - Derrida’s Secret: Perjury, Testimony, Oath

Derridas Secret

Incitements

Series editors

Peg Birmingham, DePaul University
and Dimitris Vardoulakis, Western Sydney University

Editorial Advisory Board

tienne Balibar, Andrew Benjamin, Jay M. Bernstein, Rosi Braidotti, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, Adriana Cavarero, Howard Caygill, Rebecca Comay, Joan Copjec, Simon Critchley, Costas Douzinas, Peter Fenves, Christopher Fynsk, Moira Gatens, Gregg Lambert, Leonard Lawlor, Genevieve Lloyd, Catherine Malabou, James Martel, Christoph Menke, Warren Montag, Michael Naas, Antonio Negri, Kelly Oliver, Paul Patton, Anson Rabinbach, Gerhard Richter, Martin Saar, Miguel Vatter, Gianni Vattimo, Santiago Zabala

Available

Return Statements: The Return of Religion in Contemporary Philosophy
Gregg Lambert

The Refusal of Politics
Laurent Dubreuil, translated by Cory Browning

Plastic Sovereignties: Agamben and the Politics of Aesthetics
Arne De Boever

From Violence to Speaking Out:
Apocalypse and Expression in Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze
Leonard Lawlor

Agonistic Mourning: Political Dissidence and the Women in Black
Athena Athanasiou

Interpassivity: The Aesthetics of Delegated Enjoyment
Robert Pfaller

Derridas Secret: Perjury, Testimony, Oath
Charles Barbour

Resistance and Psychoanalysis
Simon Morgan Wortham

Visit the series web page at: edinburghuniversitypress.com/series/incite

Derridas Secret

Perjury, Testimony, Oath

Charles Barbour

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com

Charles Barbour, 2017

Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun - Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jacksons Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 4744 2502 5

The right of Charles Barbour to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003
(SI No. 2498).

My sincere thanks go, first, to the editors of the Incitements series, Peg Birmingham and Dimitris Vardoulakis, for their encouragement and support throughout the duration of this project. Dimitris in particular has been a great friend and consistent supporter of my work ever since my arrival in Australia in 2009, and much of what I have accomplished here and elsewhere would not have been possible without his wisdom and generosity.

The School of Humanities and Communication Arts and the Philosophy Research Initiative at Western Sydney University (and all of its members) have also contributed considerably to whatever I have accomplished here. The latter is an extremely exciting place to be working right now long may it reign! My editor at Edinburgh University Press, Carol Macdonald, and her assistant Ersev Ersoy, are superlative, and I greatly appreciate all of their efforts.

I would also like to mention two mentors Professors Thomas Kemple and George Pavlich both of whom edited special issues of journals in which elements of the present book were first published, and both of whom were integral in helping me navigate academic life over the early years. The reviewers of the manuscript have also contributed immeasurably to its realisation.

Parts of this research have been published in other places, although everything has been altered significantly for the current monograph. Still, I must credit the support of a number of academic journals: Theory, Culture and Society; Societies; Parallax; Philosophy and Social Criticism; and Law, Culture and the Humanities.

Finally, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my family, Erin Kruger, and Jacob and Sofia Barbour. We are an unconventional little family, no doubt but a family nonetheless.

Quotations from Derridas work are followed by abbreviations for the text in question and a page number. With one or two exceptions, in the cases where the reference is to, not a monograph written by Derrida, but a collection of essays all of which are written by him, I make clear which essay I am dealing with in the text, and then refer to the book. In the cases where the reference is to an essay written by Derrida and published in a collection with more than one author, I refer to the specific essay rather than the collection as a whole.

Many of Derridas shorter pieces were published in more than one place. This list indicates which particular edition I am working with. I have occasionally consulted the French originals. But including all of those references here would be cumbersome and unnecessary. I am largely relying on the work of Derridas translators. What I provide here is only a key to the works that, in the course of my argument, I happen to have quoted directly. A fuller list of all the texts by Derrida mentioned, referenced and discussed is provided in the bibliography at the end of the book.