ABSTRACT
The ambivalent relation of the United Kingdom and of Anglo-American culture to Europe was not lost on Jacques Derrida, but any serious consideration of deconstruction in the United Kingdom at the historical juncture would have to engage with Derrida’s reflections of the idea of Europe as a deconstruction of the Kantian Idea. Derrida’s keynote was entitled ‘The Time is Out of Joint’ and juxtaposes this quotation from Hamlet with the title of the conference. Derrida certainly never had the kind of personal relationship with this country that he did with the United States where he taught and travelled regularly. Derrida was, of course, a keen observer of the American political landscape, its judicial system, and its love of violence, as evidenced by his seminar on the death penalty, for example. For a start, any translation of deconstruction from France to the United Kingdom will have passed through a detour via America.
