French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Jacques Derrida Abecedary
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

Editions Sils Maria
Éditions Vrin

Published April 16, 2007

The Jacques Derrida Abecedary
Edited by Manola Antonioli.

Editions Sils Maria/Éditions Vrin, co-edition
Abecedary Collection, No. 3.
ISBN: 2-930242-56-6
23 €

Publisher's Description:

This volume in the Abecedary collection, and more generally the titles within it, has a twofold purpose: to offer students and general readers alike an initial introduction to the thought of Jacques Derrida, and to allow researchers to continue their work on or inspired by his oeuvre.

Concepts:
Animal – Aporetology – Arche-writing – Architecture – Austin – Blanchot – Frame – Postcarding – Catastrophe – Celan – Circumcision/Circumfession – Deconstruction – Deleuze – Descartes – Mourning – Différance – Dissemination – Gift – Spirit – Ethics/An-ethics – Event – Ex-appropriation – Fire – Faith (and knowledge) – Foucault – Freud – Gadamer – Grammatology – Hegel – Heidegger – Hospitality – Husserl – Undecidability – Iterability – Jabès – Kant – Khora – Lacan – Levinas – Law – Mandela – Marx – Globalization – Death – Nancy – Nietzsche – Ontology – Otobiography – Forgiveness – Painting – Pharmakon – Presence – Polyphony/Polysemy – Propriation – “What is it to expect the arrival?” – Revenance (ghost) – Rousseau – Saussure – Signature – Signsponge – Telecommunication – Teletechnology – Teletechnoscience – Television – Trace – Tympanum – Ulysses (Derrida and Joyce) – Truth – City of refuge – Wohlgefallen – X (Derrida and negative theology) – “Is there a phenomenology at work in Derrida?” – Zography (Derrida and writing).

Contributors:
Manola Antonioli – Sophie-Jan Arrien – Alain Beaulieu – Jean-François Bert – Giuseppe Bianco – Elena Bovo – Jean-Philippe Cazier – Pierre-Antoine Chardel – Hervé Couchot – Sara D'Andrea – Olivier Devillaine – Marco Enrico Giacomelli – Solange Guenon – Bruno Heuzé – Alexandra Richter – Mario Vergani.

Another publication from Editions Sils Maria, February 2007: The Pierre Bourdieu Abecedary (ed. Jean-Philippe Cazier)
Already published: The Michel Foucault Abecedary (ed. Stéfan Leclercq)
Forthcoming: The Claude Lévi-Strauss Abecedary (ed. Jean-Philippe Cazier)

Editions Sils Maria (www.silsmaria.org)
Purchase online on the VRIN bookstore website: www.vrin.fr

The abecedary format has long served as a pedagogical entry point to complex intellectual figures, allowing readers to navigate intricate corpuses through key lexical items. Within twentieth-century French philosophy, deconstruction emerged as a major critical framework that interrogated traditional metaphysics, language, and institutional structures. This volume addresses a wide array of concepts and figures associated with Jacques Derrida's oeuvre, spanning foundational notions such as différance and trace alongside engagements with thinkers like Hegel, Heidegger, Freud, and Levinas.

Readers interested in contemporary continental philosophy and literary theory may find it relevant to consult this volume for its overview of key terms. The book offers an initial introduction to the thought of Jacques Derrida while allowing researchers to continue their work on or inspired by his oeuvre, engaging with topics that range from ethics and hospitality to aesthetics and technoscience. The collaborative contributions by various scholars provide multiple perspectives on these concepts, situating them within the broader landscape of modern intellectual history.