Derrida's Marrano Passover: Exile, Survival, Betrayal, and the Metaphysics of Non-Identity

Agata Bielik-Robson's book explores Jacques Derrida's portrayal of himself as a "Marrano of the French Catholic culture" in his "Toledo Confession." She argues that Derrida's Marrano identity is a literary experiment of auto-fiction that permeates all his works, inviting him to think philosophically, politically, and metaphysically without rigid categories of identity and belonging. Bielik-Robson demonstrates that Derrida's Marranoism influences his late thinking and offers new interpretations of his early works, showing that it is not a marginal auto-biographical figure but one and the same thinker who discovered it as a literary trope of openness.

Format: Hardback
Length: 296 pages
Publication date: 12 January 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

In this groundbreaking monograph, Agata Bielik-Robson delves into the enigmatic world of Jacques Derrida's 'Toledo Confession,' where he presented himself as a kind of Marrano of French Catholic culture. Bielik-Robson explores every facet of Derrida's Marrano identity to unveil its true essence as a literary experiment of auto-fiction. She demonstrates that Derrida's Marranoism goes beyond mere identification, evolving into a trope of non-identitarian evasion that permeates all his works. Just as Marranos cannot be categorized as solely Jewish or Christian, Derrida's concept of 'universal Marranism' beckons us to engage in philosophical, political, and metaphysical thinking without being bound by rigid categories of identity and belonging.

By focusing on Derrida's deliberate choice of Marranismo, Bielik-Robson reveals that it penetrates the very core of his late thinking. She draws upon the literary works of Kafka, Celan, Joyce, Cixous, and Valéry, shedding new light on his early works, particularly Of Grammatology, Dissemination, and Différance. Moreover, this book offers a fresh interpretation of seemingly unrelated Derrida works such as Glas, Given Time: Counterfeit Money, Death Penalty Seminar, and Specters of Marx. Through these new readings, Bielik-Robson establishes that Derrida's Marrano identity is not a marginal auto-biographical figure overshadowed by Derrida the Philosopher. Rather, it is one and the same thinker who discovered Marranismo as a literary trope of openness, giving rise, birth to a new genre of philosophical storytelling centered around Derrida's Marrano 'auto-fable.'

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501392610