Crown of Spikes

At a moment in the sixth session of Derrida's 1999 seminar on 'Perjury and Pardon' (2020), he makes this observation: 'One day, perhaps, a distinction will be made between two eras, between pre-AIDs thinkers and those who were born or lived late enough to encounter AIDS in the world and to have inscribed its motif in their thinking or writing' (my translation). His Comment is made against the background of an earlier discussion of the so-called 'contaminated blood' trial in France, where health administration and policy officials, manoeuvring in 1985 to help a French blood-screening process obtain a patent ahead of its American rival, exposed people having blood transfusions to infection with HIV. Two hundred and ninety seven patients and hemophiliacs were infected, which is, to say the least, an exponentially far Cry from those who have fallen victim to the current epoch-dividing moment, that of COVID-19 (in France, 209,640 infections and 30,032 deaths as of this writing). But Derrida's comment underscores his intense and longtime interest in things parasitic and viral, as they relate both to questions of life and immunity, and to considerations of fault and reconciliation. Were he alive and active today, we would expect him still to be inscribing those motifs in his thinking (as well, of course, sadly, mourning the loss of his wife fallen victim to the disease).