Phil 409/609/711
Recent French Philosophy: Jacques Derrida
Dr. Deborah Achtenberg

Spring 2019
1:30-2:45 p.m.
Tues., Thurs.

Introduction

“Derrida,” Leonard Lawlor, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

2 classes

“Adieu” (in Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas)

Mustapha Chérif, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida

Mustapha Chérif bio
“A Reform against Violence and Loss of Meaning”

You [Derrida] responded that “the unity of ‘western philosophy’ was an illusion, the product of the effects of a representation, a dogma, and that in your work you were always insisting on splits, fissures, discontinuities in the corpus.  ‘It’s a contradictory, conflictual structure which has to repress forms trying to disrupt this unity from inside and out'” (Derrida 1979).  Robert J.C. Young,”Subjectivity in History: Derrida in Algeria” in Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction

Paper #1 

approx. 2 classes

approx. 4 classes

Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmontelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond

‘hospitality’ (in Monolingualism of the Other)’

Levinas / Zuboff (handout)

Lot / Levite (handout)

Kant, Doctrine of Virtue (handout)

Levinas:  “The separation of the Same is produced in the form of an inner life, a psychism. …The original role of the psychism…is already a way of being, resistance to the totality” (TI 54).

Paper #2

“Hostipitality” (in Acts of Religion) 

Louis Massignon with Mohamed Taki of the Students of the Comoros Islands in France

Paper three

approx. 4 classes

“A Word of Welcome” (in Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas) 
(15-45; 45-70; 70-101; 101-123)

At the AIU teachers’ ball, June 1960 (source: Bibliothèque de l’AIU / AIU library)

Paper #4

“Lift the Siege on Gaza,” Shlomo Gazit  /  “I Would Ask Hamas’ Military Chief This One Question [Why Not Recognize Israel],” Aluf Benn

Course topic:  hospitality; our relations to others, strangers and foreigners

Course goals:  through reflecting on readings by Jacques Derrida on hospitality—and, more generally, on relations to others, strangers and foreigners—students will achieve familiarity with Derrida’s views on those topics; in class discussions and papers, students will learn to interpret, analyze, explain, compare and evaluate those views; in general, students will learn how to read Derrida’s unusual kind of writing, will increase their understanding of issues regarding how we relate to others, strangers and foreigners, and will increase their understanding of how to write an essay on a text.

Course requirements: 
Attendance
Readings as assigned
Participation in class discussion
Four papers (five to seven pages)

Course texts: course texts are available from the university bookstore and from local and online distributors.  Students are required to utilize hard copies of all course texts. There are no exceptions to this requirement.

Jacques Derrida, Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, trans. (Stanford University Press)

 Mustapha Chérif, Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida, Teresa Lavender Fagan, trans. (Chicago University Press)

Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality: Anne Dufourmantelle Invites Jacques Derrida to Respond, Rachel Bowlby, trans. (Stanford University Press)

“Hostipitality,” Gil Anidjar, trans., in Acts of Religion (Routledge)  

Attendance:  Much of the important work in this course goes on in class.  Students are expected to be in attendance except in cases of illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity, to be present for the entire seventy-five minute period and not to make appointments that conflict with class sessions.  Graded assignments are based, in part, on class discussion and are expected to reflect familiarity with topics discussed.  As a result, it is to your disadvantage to miss class.

Attendance is required and will be taken at the beginning of each class session.  Students may miss three classes without penalty.  Five points will be subtracted from the final course grade for the fourth class missed and two points for each class missed after that.  Exceptions will be made in the case of illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity.  A written excuse or other evidence must be provided for exceptions to be made.

Missed classes: If you miss class, contact one of your fellow students to find out what we did in your absence and to get notes on the class you missed.  Once you have done that, you are invited to talk to the instructor about what you missed.  Please do not email the instructor to find out what you missed in class or—really!—to tell the instructor that you will not be attending. 

Spring break: March 16-24, 2019 

Papers: The papers will be essays.  They will be five to seven pages long.  Papers are due as scheduled on the course outline.  You need use no books other than the course texts to write the papers.  

In an essay, you state a thesis, explain it and argue for it.  The basic structure of an essay is:  an introduction in which you state your thesis, the body of the essay in which you explain and argue for your thesis, the conclusion in which you summarize or highlight what you have done in the essay.

Essay format: Essays will be typed or word-processed, double-spaced and in ten- or twelve-point type.  They will be in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.  They will have a title and a title page.  Pages will be numbered.  There will be no extra spaces between paragraphs.  All quotations will be accompanied by a reference in parentheses.

Block indent passages that are more than three lines long.  When you block indent, you do not need quotation marks (the block indentation serves to show that the passage is a quotation).  In addition, block-indented quotations do not need to be in italics.  

In general, put the author’s ideas in your own words, and then cite the passage in which you find those ideas, for example:  

Derrida is sympathetic to Emmanuel Levinas’s understanding of ethics as “straightforwardness” or “uprightness” (in French, droiture).  By this concept, Levinas means a characteristic of relating to other people in such a fashion that the relationship is really about the other person and not about oneself.  Derrida quotes Levinas’s definition of droiture as the “urgency of a destination leading to the Other and not an eternal return to self” and as “a movement toward the other that does not come back to its point of origin” (2-3).

In general, you should have very few ellipses in quotations.  In addition, quotations should include complete sentences.  Here’s an example of what not to do:  

Derrida is sympathetic to Emmanuel Levinas’s understanding of ethics as “straightforwardness” or “uprightness” (in French, droiture) and says “To define uprightness…Levinas…in…Tractate Shabbath…consciousness…“urgency of a destination leading to the Other and not…return to self” (2).

Do not start your paper with a broad general claim about the paper topic, for example:  “Hospitality has been discussed by human beings since the beginning of history.”  Such statements do not further your goals in writing an essay, namely, to state, explain and argue for a claim.  Every sentence in an essay, from the beginning to the end, fulfills one of those functions.  So, jump right in at the beginning and start fulfilling those functions  and, at the end, make sure every part of your essay clearly fulfills one of those functions.

Essays will be evaluated on the following basis:
1.  Do you have the parts mentioned above (introduction, body, conclusion)?
2.  Do you fulfill the functions mentioned above (state thesis, explain argue for it, summarize or highlight)?  Do you argue against objections?
3.  Is the thesis you are writing about an interesting and important one?  Does your explanation of the thesis show that it is an interesting and important one?  
4.  Do you explain basic concepts and terms in your essay and make them clear to the reader?  Do you explain text that you have quoted so that the reader can understand it and also can see how you understand it?
5.  Are your arguments clear and convincing to the reader?
6.  Do you use specific examples from the text you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?  Do you use direct quotations from the text you are writing about to make your arguments stronger?
7.  Does your conclusion summarize or highlight what you have done in the essay?
8.  Is the essay typed or word processed, double-spaced and in ten- or twelve-point type?  Does it include a title and a title page?  Are the pages numbered?  Does the essay have no extra space between paragraphs?  Is it in finished form and without errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation?  Are all quotations accompanied by a reference in parentheses?  Do you follow the other instructions regarding format given above?

Evaluation:  Grades will be based on the four papers, weighted equally (1/4 each).  Excellent class participation may raise your grade somewhat over the mathematical average, at the discretion of the instructor.  Any points for non-attendance will be subtracted as described above.

Late papers and take-home assignments will lose a letter grade for each class session they are late.  Exceptions will be made only in the case of serious illness, emergency, religious holiday or university-sanctioned extracurricular activity.  A written excuse or other evidence must be provided for exceptions to be made.  Papers will be submitted on Canvas by midnight on the due date.  Papers submitted after that will be considered late.

Students will be held responsible for knowing what goes on in class.  Absences will not excuse you from knowing due dates of papers or take-homes.  

The grading scale is:  94-100, A; 90-93 A-; 87-89 B+; 84-86 B; 80-83 B-; 77-79 C+; 74-76 C; 70-73 C-; 67-69 D+; 64-66 D; 60-63 D-; below 60, F.

It is the instructor’s policy that cheating, plagiarism or submission of written work for this course which was submitted in another course merits a course grade of ‘F’.

Course links:  The syllabus and class assignments are posted on the world wide web.  They can be accessed through my personal academic website: <deborahachtenberg.com/jds19co>.  They will also be distributed in class.  My site can also be accessed through the Canvas homepage for this course.

Canvas: The Canvas homepage for this course features a link to the online syllabus.  Almost all information you need for the course is on the syllabus, so consult it frequently.  In addition, papers will be submitted and returned on Canvas, absences will be recorded on Canvas, and grades will be calculated on Canvas.  Finally, the instructor does not use Canvas messaging for most communication to or from students and does not check it regularly.  

Use of the internet:  Use of the internet for research purposes is appropriate.  However, students should use their own ideas in papers they write.  In addition, they should be aware that papers plagiarized from internet sources can easily be detected.

Internet resources:

• Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (the on-line edition of Routledge’s encyclopedia of philosophy) 
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (another good on-line encyclopedia of philosophy, this one from Stanford University)
  
• Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper (In addition to suggestions I will make in class, you may find this webpage from Jim Pryor at NYU’s Department of Philosophy helpful.)
  
• Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (the electronic version of Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, published in 1961, with updates)
  
• Oxford English Dictionary (the electronic version of the OED with the latest new and revised entries)

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a serious offense.  You plagiarize when you use someone else’s words or ideas without attribution.  When you do this, you are putting forward someone else’s work as if it were your own.  

Changing a few words in a phrase or sentence is not enough to avoid plagiarism.  (1) Instead, when you utilize someone else’s exact phrases, put them in quotation marks and cite in parentheses the person whose words you have used.  (2) It is fine to paraphrase someone, but when you do, you must say so.  You can make it clear by saying “Derrida says…” or “According to Chérif…”.  (3) Finally, do not utilize even short phrases from another person’s work without a citation.  If you follow these three guidelines, you will find it is easy to use sources in your own writing without being academically dishonest.

Class format: This class will be a combination of lecture and discussion.  Discussions generally will have a focus rather than being general discussion or debate.  Students will be expected to respond to questions asking them to reflect on the texts and the issues raised, to speculate in a thoughtful way when not sure, and in general to participate in discussion.

Class discussions will refer to the course text.  Students will need to bring the course text to class if they are to benefit from lectures and discussions.

Web surfing and sending or reading email or text messages during class are not allowed.  In addition, please refrain from carrying on extensive side conversations during class discussion, please silence cell phones before class and please do not eat during class.

Studying: Many students will find that they do better work in this course if they study together with other students.

Time-sensitive communications:  In the unusual case of need for a time-sensitive communication, the instructor will contact students by email utilizing student email addresses available on MyNevada.