Derrida and Hospitality

Winner of the R. H. Gapper Book Prize 2011

Judith Still sets Derrida's work in a series of contexts including the socio-political history of France, especially in relation to Algeria, and his relationship to other writers, most importantly Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray and Emmanuel Levinas – key thinkers of hospitality. Still also follows the thread of sexual difference in Derrida's writing in order to shed light on his exploration of the complex and delicate, strange yet familiar, political and ethical dilemmas of how to be those impossible things, a good host and a good guest.

Hospitality is critically important in Derrida's writings, and his insights in this have been influential across a range of disciplines from geography, politics and sociology to literary studies and philosophy. It functions as a way of both thinking about relations between individuals, and analysing the community or state's often inhospitable reception of outsiders, such as refugees or migrants.