Relating the Universal, Universalizing the Relation: The Glissant-Derrida Ch(i)asm(us)

Abstract:The first epigraph of Jacques Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other is excerpted from Édouard Glissant’s Caribbean Discourse, a symbolic choice that foregrounds the latter’s call to a critique of the French language and his call for a revisionist “anti-humanism” to dismantle “French linguistic hegemony.’” Yet Derrida concludes his autobiographical reflection on identity, dispossession, and hospitality with an extensive definition of colonization generalized to all cultural interaction. In this article, guided by Jacques Neefs’ model of restorative interpretation, I examine the conceptual chiasmus through which Derrida moves from acknowledging the critical singularity of the colonial condition to a universalizing stance that brackets its specific difference.