Jim Powell. Illustrated by Van Howell.
 
Derrida is one of those annoying geniuses you
can take a class on, read half-a-dozen books by
and still have no idea what he’s talking about.
Derrida For Beginners is the clearest explanation
of Derrida and deconstruction presently available
in our solar system. Powell guides us through
Derrida’s blindingly obscure texts. Readers
will learn the coolest Derridian buzzwords
(intertextuality, binary oppositions, hymen, sous
rature, arche-writing, phallogocentrism), the highand-
low lights of deconstruction’s history, and the
various criticisms of Derrida, including Camille
Paglia’s objection that America, the rock-n-roll
nation, isn’t formal enough to need deconstruction.