Positions. Entretiens avec Henri Ronse, Julia Kristeva, Jean-Louis Houdebine, Guy Scarpetta.

A PRESENTATION COPY, INSCRIBED TO PIERRE KLOSSOWSKI.

First edition. 8vo (184 x 136mm). 133, [3] pp. Original printed wrappers (wrappers slightly marked, small stain to fore edge, otherwise a near fine copy with a glassine jacket). Paris, Editions de Minuit, Collection Critique.

A presentation copy, inscribed by the author 'Pour Pierre Klossowski J.D.' in red ink to the front free end paper.

Pierre Klossowski's work as a translator and interpreter of Nietzsche exercised a profound impact on the development of post-structuralism in France, gesturing to an avenue away from an ossified French intellectual scene dominated by the humanism of Sartre on the one hand and by the structuralism of Saussure on the other. Along with Georges Bataille, with whom he had collaborated on the journal Acéphale, Klossowski's readings of key Nietzschean doctrines, particularly his motifs of parody and simulacrum, exerted a broad influence on Derrida, who had called for "a different type of reading [of Nietzsche], more faithful to his type of writing" in his Of Grammatology (1967). Both Derrida and Klossowski were present at a celebrated conference on Nietzsche held at the Cerisy-la-Salle in July 1972, presumably the occasion from which the presentation copy offered here dates, with Derrida presenting a significant paper titled "La Question du style" and Klossowski offering "Circulus Vitiosus", what would become his final published writing on Nietzsche. Also present at the conference were a wealth of post-structuralist luminaries, including Gilles Deleuze and Jean-François Lyotard, amongst others.

Positions is a collection bringing together three interviews previously published separately between 1967 and 1971: 'Implications' with Henri Ronse is perhaps the closest to a complete statement of Derrida's philosophy, offering definitions of deconstruction, difference, and différance as well as providing an important and often referenced outline of the connections between his three foundational texts of 1967; 'Semiology and Grammatology' with Julia Kristeva focuses on the implications of Derrida's works to linguistics in general and Saussurean structuralist semiotics in particular; and 'Positions' with Jean-Louis Houdebine and Guy Scarpetta - two Marxist theorists closely aligned with the Tel Quel group - is an infamously acrimonious debate concerning the relation of politics to deconstruction. As a whole, the interviews provide important context for Derrida's philosophical project, both in terms of his philosophical lineage as well as the avenues of thought opened by deconstruction.

Stock Code: 231470