Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book traces a complex movement from Derrida's early texts in Writing and Difference which focused on avant-garde figures. It looks at how one might, following certain clues which are given by Derrida himself, piece together how the various early texts might be grouped together. The book argues that the focus on avant-garde figures in these transitional texts of Derrida's is not coincidental. It looks at how Derrida's reading of Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty can already allow us to foreground a thematic of embodiment which was central to surrealism and which Artaud takes up in his own idiosyncratic way. In a provocative essay, Derrida gives the lie to those who would present him as simply offering a critique of speech-centred, 'phonocentrism' in the name of some writing-centred, 'graphocentric' philosophy.