Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of Origin (review)

On closing Jacques Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other, the reader may feel satisfied that the renegade branch of philosophy is alive and well—the tradition which, since Diogenes’ time, has gone cheerfully around taking cracks at the plaster idols lining the halls of academia. Derrida’s role in the intellectual life of the last three decades has been that of the inspired spoilsport who, when the sailing is good, politely points to the ominous flaws in the hull. This time around, the philosopher sets his sights on exploring and exploding the concept of cultural identity—the latest product of our era’s passion for sorting people into as many robustly meaningful categories as possible. This pollster mentality is what, in literature studies, has led to the sort of analysis that imagines the value of a literary artifact is evident once its author and characters are kindly shown the way to their respective cultural, social, colonial, sexual and economical “subjectivities.”