The Lit'ry Life: Jacques Derrida

"...Derrida's deconstructionist works are integrally related to the more general phenomenon of postmodernism. Postmodernist theories and attitudes come in a variety of forms. In the realm of social and political theory, what unites them -- from Foucault to Baudrillard, from Lyotard to Derrida and others -- is a challenge to, and largely a rejection of, both the truth value and pragmatic capacity for achieving justice or peace of the modern system of political and economic institutions, as well as the very ways in which we know and act to explain and understand ourselves. Especially in the latter theoretical and explanatory domain, Derrida's deconstructionism is provocative, if not subversive, in questioning the self-evidence, logic and non-judgmental character of dichotomies we live by, such as legitimate/illegitimate, rational/irrational, fact/fiction, or observation/imagination. " -- from the website. <http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/derrida/>