Coming from behind (derrière) — how else to describe a volume called “Derrida and Queer Theory”? As if arriving late to the party, or, indeed, after the party is already over. After all, we already have Deleuze and Queer Theory and, of course, Saint Foucault. And judging by Annamarie Jagose’s Queer Theory: An Introduction, in which there is not a single mention of “Derrida” (or “deconstruction”) — even in the sub-chapter titled “The Post-Structuralist Context of Queer” — one would think that Derrida was not only late to the party, but was never there at all.
This untimely volume, then, with wide-ranging essays from key thinkers in the field, addresses, among other things, what could be called the disavowed debt to “Derrida” in canonical “queer theory.”
Table of Contents
The Gift from (of the) “Behind” (Derrière): Intro-extro-duction — Christian Hite
Preposturous Preface: Derrida and Queer Discourse — J. Hillis Miller
Impossible Uncanniness: Deconstruction and Queer Theory — Nicholas Royle
No Kingdom of the Queer — Calvin Thomas
Derrida and the Question of “Woman” — Sarah Dillon
Les chats de Derrida — Carla Freccero
Derrida’s Queer Root(s) — Jarrod Hayes
Deco-pervo-struction — Èamonn Dunne
A Man For All Seasons: Derrida-cum-“Queer Theory,” or the Limits of “Performativity” — Alexander García Düttmann
“Practical Deconstruction”: A Note on Some Notes by Judith Butler — Martin McQuillan
Performing Friendship — Linnell Secomb
Postface: Just Queer — Geoffrey Bennington
Appendix: Supreme Court (1988) — David Wills