Research in African Literatures

Wise, Christopher, 1961-
Saying "Yes" to Africa: Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx
Research in African Literatures - Volume 33, Number 4, Winter 2002, pp. 124-142

Indiana University Press

Christopher Wise - Saying "Yes" to Africa: Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx - Research in African Literatures 33:4 Research in African Literatures 33.4 (2002) 124-142 Saying "Yes" to Africa: Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx Christopher Wise Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International (1994) is one of the most important books of cultural theory to appear since the end of the cold war. Its literary virtuosity is as remarkable as its value in suggesting new directions for radical politics in the "post-Marxist" dispensation, especially on an international scale. It would, however, be erroneous to describe Derrida's book in strictly literary terms, or as a masterpiece of print media, rather than an unusual transcription of an important historical event. What must be emphasized is that Specters of Marx functioned in the first instance as a voiced performance at a specific place and time. Not unlike the Platonic dialogues Derrida has famously subverted, Specters of Marx must be construed as a book that seeks to subvert its own status as a merely reified and spatial artifact. Although surprisingly few commentators have remarked upon this book's deconstruction of the book form, it is finally impossible to divorce Specters of Marx from its historical and performative context, or, as Derrida would have it, from its "perverformative" and stubbornly anti-logocentric basis in temporality. The...