Vivienne Jennifer Orchard

The past twenty-five years have seen an explosion of interest in nationalism and nationality in the social sciences - the past ten also in cultural studies. These two disciplinary areas define their objects of study differently, but both have recently started to converge in the pervasive use of the term `national identity', which in turn relies on the term `cultural identity'. Although theoretical complications entailed by the use of `identity' as a concept have been noted, the theorization of identity as culture has occurred almost by default, with the term `culture' merely designating what needs to be explained, and the inherent circularity of `cultural identity' as a category remaining unaddressed. The two approaches differ in their understanding of the crucial categories of `culture' and `politics' in their accounts of nation and national identity. Cultural studies accounts focus on politics in terms of cultural politics, and thus fail to take on board important aspects of the social science accounts which they take as standard reference points. Both approaches ultimately rely upon `culture' as an all-inclusive category of social subjectivity, which remains undertheorized in both approaches, albeit in significantly contrasting ways. The place of culture in recent work on European identity functions differently, and provides a useful counterpoint to these difficulties.

The question of the legacies of the work of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) is increasingly coming to the fore in the wake of his death - alongside, though not simply subsumed by, the question of the death and afterlives of 'theory'. Within humanities in the United States, in particular, Derrida has unquestionably been one of the most celebrated and reviled French thinkers of the last thirty years. The transatlantic passage of his work forms part of a particular problematic of 'French theory in America' which has only recently started to be mapped systematically. Orchard's contribution to this emerging and highly active field concentrates on an aspect of Derrida's work previously dealt with only glancingly, yet central not only to his own work but also to the understanding of recent French thought more generally. This is his work on philosophy in France as an institution, its material, cultural and intellectual determinations and their philosophical relevance. In the first book-length study of this corpus of material, Orchard raises the question of contextual determination itself, of 'theory' versus 'philosophy', and of a 'French' versus an 'American' Derrida. This study will provide an invaluable resource for scholars and students with an interest in Derrida, theory and institutional questions