I, Daniel: An Illegitimate Reading of Jacques Derrida’s Envois

How to become Jacques Derrida’s reader? By letting his texts engender you. Such a birth is taken literally by Jeremy Stewart, who proves by algebra that he is the author’s bastard son. In this wonderful, intense, witty, and gripping exercise in autotheory, deconstruction meets autofiction with a vengeance.

(Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences)

With I, Daniel, Jeremy Stewart offers a reading, both rigorous and adventurous, of ’Envois, ’ one of Jacques Derrida’s most fascinating works. Unfolding and refolding the text around a blind spot in the philosopher’s journey, seeking to recognize in the twists and turns of this variously encrypted text the traces of an unutterable filiation, he takes us with him into the labyrinth, losing ourselves to better find ourselves. Through his personal commitment, Jeremy Stewart gives this close reading its full legitimacy, with the name ’Daniel’ playing the role of révélateur, in the photographic sense of the term.

(Benoît Peeters, author of Derrida: A Biography)

Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond (1987) has often been read in purely philosophical terms. Derrida, alluding to Freud’s talk of theoretical fiction, describes the opening section ( Envois ) as a project for a fiction. Envois (that is, sendings ) takes the form of hundreds of postcards to an unnamed lover.

Enter a figure called Daniel. In some ways, he resembles Derrida’s unrecognized third son. In others, he resembles the author; this book’s creative-critical approach thus turns scandalously personal. In addressing literary questions, it draws on dreams, faith, the author’s middle name, and a testimony to illegitimacy.

One of Envois key conceits is that it is the preface to a book [...] not [yet] written. Taking, as cues, fleeting references to the biblical book of Daniel and George Eliot’s novel Daniel Deronda, Envois is read as a preface not so much to an unwritten book as to the text that is the name Daniel.