ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida goes as far as to argue that the contestation of the ontological law of differentiation between the living and the dead is crucial to an understanding of the history of human thought and culture. On the 'period 8' leaf, Hélène Cixous's hand's work seems to have consisted in highlighting two vowels in Derrida's text, and copying them down in the margins of the published page. The idea that such marginalia could and should be considered marginal to what takes place inside the main text, namely Cixous's more serious portrait of Derrida and her exploration of his queer Judaism, is therefore no longer tenable. Hence the general impression one derives from holding the two archives together: the nine portraits of Derrida as annotated text allow something to take place that is very similar to what takes place in Derrida's self-portrait as an autograph.
