« IANAMB | Main | Not So Much »
December 19, 2006
Ni Rituel Ni Oraison
I just caught Church and Postmodern Culture’s notice of Derrida’s last words. Rather than simply reproducing here the translation that Jamie Smith offers, I’ll note that the translation obscures at least one pun; oraison does indeed mean “oration,” and Derrida knew well the difficult obligation of composing a eulogy (in his last years he wrote funerary tributes to numerous luminaries from his generation of French intellectuals). The word “oraison” also, though, means “prayer” (especially, I’d say, in parallel with “rituel”).
I doubt I will ever come to the end of my own thinking and talking about Derrida, but these last words bespeak a heart of grace and an attentive respect for the truths to which “religions” attend harmonious with his remarks on prayer at the SBL/AAR meeting a few years back (1, 2, 3).
Posted by AKMA at December 19, 2006 09:41 AM | Threadorati
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://disseminary.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1082
Comments
Post a comment
Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)
