In this episode French philosophy specialist Judith Still talks about Jacque Derrida and in particular his late preoccupation with the animal-human boundary. After surveying philosophical writing on animals going back two millennia, including related views on indigenous peoples, the enslaved and women, Judith talks about the challenges of reading Derrida. We discuss his early life, as a Jewish boy in Algeria, excluded from education in the Vichy period. We deconstruct deconstruction (sort of) before touching on his notion of 'leaving a trace', whether birds create something akin to symphonies and anyway their superiority to us, along with dolphins, in navigating the sound/spatial world. We make brief excursion into the notion of animal art, zoopolitics, factory farming and and the ethics of pedigree dog breeding in an episode that makes an often obscure and challenging subject and writer comprehensible.
Participants:
Judith Still, Emeritus Professor of French and Critical Theory, University of Nottingham, Vice President (Humanities), British Academy. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/clas/departments/modern-languages/people/judith.still1
Ken Barrett is an artist, writer and former neuropsychiatrist http://www.kenbarrettstudio.co.uk
Judith's book, 'Derrida and other animals: The boundaries of the human:
Musical extract: Prelude from Act 1 of Brainland, composed by Stephen Brown.
Brainland the opera website: www.brainlandtheopera.co.uk
Portrait sketch by KB
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