"Inventare un altro gesto". Trame corporee e politica dell'invenzione: un'idea derridiana per l'Europa a venire

Between 1989 and 1990, Jacques Derrida worked simultaneously on three distinct projects: Circonfession (1991), La démocratie ajournée and L’autre cap, which were combined into a single homonymous publication (1991). In the latter, Derrida addresses the theme of Europe, its “cultural identity” and its future “horizon”. Meanwhile, in Circonfession he describes the profound autobiographical experience of caring for his suffering and dying mother, along with the personal reflections – clearly philosophical in nature – that arise from this experience. By connecting these considerations with those on the event of his own circumcision, Derrida makes the body one of the central elements of the philosophical inquiry within Circonfession. But do these “corporeal warps” pertain only to this work and the significant events it references? Or do they perhaps represent a crucial thematic axis, significant both in the author’s biography and his theoretical work, which also permeates the other writings from that specific period, namely L’autre cap? This study will investigate the reference to the corporeal semantic field in Derrida’s reflexions from L’autre cap concerning Europe and its future, superimposing its textual imagery with that of Circonfession and analysing it in light of Derrida’s idea of “invention”, a quasi-eschatological pharmakon for the Europe to come.