Speculative Grammatology: Deconstruction and the New Materialism

Looking mainly at Derrida's early work - the three texts published in 1967: Of Grammatology, Speech and Phenomenon and Writing and Difference - Deborah Goldgaber opens the conversation between deconstruction and speculative realism. She shows that grammatology implies an original form of philosophical materialism and identifies the salience of deconstructive materialism to contemporary philosophical debates. She demonstrates that Derrida's claims about writing's absolute generality - that writing pertains to more than just language - extend to living and material processes. However, though grammatology generalises writing, it radically displaces scriptural models with a novel schema, that of the mnemonic trace. Goldgaber highlights the productive resources that Derridean writing has to offer contemporary materialist projects, including those of Karen Barad, Catherine Malabou and Quentin Meillassoux. These fresh insights will inspire new dialogues among everyone interested in Derrida as well as in Speculative Realism and New Materialism.