Dead Theory: Derrida, Death, and the Afterlife of Theory ed. by Jeffrey R. Di Leo (review)

Dead Theory collects a series of essays permutating "death," "theory," and "Derrida" in various rhythms and to various ends. For some contributors, the volume provides the occasion to respond to the alleged death of "theory" as a period or field: with proclamations of theory's rebirth in the numerous "studies" now populating the academic landscape (Jeffrey Di Leo, "Notes from the Underground"); with calls for the institutionalization of theory (W. Lawrence Hogue, "The Heirs to Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction"); with reflections on the cybernetic afterlife of theorists (Henry Sussman, "The Afterlife of Critics"). For others, the volume provides the occasion to theorize death anew and in sometimes unexpected shades: death in Freud and futurity in Kant (Jean-Michel Rabaté, "Thanatographies of the Future"); haunting, friendship, and the democratic temporality to which they are bound (Paul Allen Miller, "Ghosts in the Politics of Friendship"); zombies, phenomenality, and alterity (Christian Moraru, "Undying Theory"). For others still, Dead Theory is an opportunity to relate "death" to "theory" in literary analyses: the fate of the poem in translation (Brian O'Keeffe, "Death, Survival, and Translation"); Jack Kerouac's schizoanalytic resistance to fascism and death (Hassan Melehy, "Deleuze, Kerouac, Fascism, and Death"); theories of the ruin in Caribbean studies (Nicole Simek, "Theory's Ruins").

In this opening and very cursory survey, I have not listed all the articles included in the volume, and there are certainly other themes and approaches according to which they could be regrouped, which is a sign of the volume's versatility. All divisions and all continuities, however, depend upon a more general binding within the phenomenon that has been called "theory" for nearly half a century, first in the United States and elsewhere soon after. But what, exactly, is "theory"? Debates over the term, its relevance, and its referent have existed almost as long as the phenomenon it is meant to name. There would seem no better occasion, indeed, no more pressing occasion for reflections upon "theory" than a volume dedicated to its possible decline and resurgence, its death and afterlives, its abandonments, reactivations, and transformations. As long as "theory" in its specificity remains undefined, as long as it is not positively differentiated from the fields and disciplines in which it intervenes or from which in certain cases it derives, there can be little hope of celebrating its rebirth or even, if it cannot be revived, mourning its death. At the risk of both normalization and aporia, one must understand theory "as such" to understand its relation to death.

In his editorial introduction, Di Leo presents the constellation of death, theorist, and theory as the volume's unique problem: "how the deaths of the high priests of theory have affected the life of theory and our relation to it" (3). Although six of the eleven articles address him only in passing or not at all (which should be noted by anyone expecting a collection dedicated exclusively to him), the volume focuses upon Derrida in particular. Taken as a paradigm of sorts, Derrida silently doubles as a guarantee. Theorist par excellence, he provides implicit assurance that, in speaking of his work, one speaks of theory in the strictest sense and that, in assessing the legacy of his work, one can also discern the fate of theory itself. Pointing to Derrida's often quoted "double feeling" in Learning to Live Finally (trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007, 33–34)—Derrida's feeling that we have not yet begun to read his work and that nothing will remain shortly after his death—Di Leo writes: "If Derrida … has this 'double feeling,' then the legacy of the rest of the theory world is in even worse shape" (11).

Yet, pointing to theory's corpora—whether the writings of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, or any other—cannot determine why a given corpus qualifies as "theory" and not...