{"id":6441,"date":"2026-04-21T01:29:46","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T23:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/?p=6441"},"modified":"2026-05-25T22:15:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:15:58","slug":"the-beast-and-the-sovereign-first-session-december-12-2001-by-jacques-derrida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/2026\/04\/21\/the-beast-and-the-sovereign-first-session-december-12-2001-by-jacques-derrida\/","title":{"rendered":"<em>The Beast &amp; the Sovereign<\/em>: \u201cFirst Session December 12, 2001\u201d by Jacques Derrida"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Derrida\u2019s seminars, this is the first I\u2019ve ever read. It\u2019s noticeably different from his writing style\u2014it\u2019s challenging and demanding, as expected, but didactically scaffolded in ways that betray meticulous seminar preparation and a well-developed educational purpose and mindset for teaching philosophy and philosophical thought.<\/p>\n<p>The first lecture starts out with myths and fables around the \u201cwolf\u201d as an introductory representative of the \u201cbeast\u201d; steers toward Hobbes\u2019s <em>Leviathan<\/em>\u2014his true target here\u2014on a thorough and comprehensible path; and ends with a note on a passage from Freud\u2019s <em>Civilization and Its Discontents<\/em>. On the way, of course, one meets Aristotle, Plautus, La Fontaine, Rousseau, Nietzsche, and others from the list of usual suspects one would expect against the background of such a topic and an interrogation by Derrida.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a lot of room in between for discussions (not part of the transcripts for various reasons), and I would have loved to be part of it. It\u2019s riveting. Plus, it would certainly have incentivized me to finally learn French seriously, so I wouldn\u2019t have to make do today with the English translation.<\/p>\n<p>More seminar sessions to follow.<\/p>\n<div class=\"spacer20\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"ruler\"><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"epigraph\">Derrida, Jacques. \u201cFirst Session December 12, 2001.\u201d In: <em>The Beast &amp; the Sovereign<\/em> Vol.1, transl. Geoffrey Bennington. The Seminars of Jacques Derrida. Chicago UP: 2009.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/2026\/04\/21\/the-beast-and-the-sovereign-first-session-december-12-2001-by-jacques-derrida\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to The Beast &amp; the Sovereign: \u201cFirst Session December 12, 2001\u201d by Jacques Derrida\"><p>\ud83d\udcda I miss all this so much.<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-archive","h-entry","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6441"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7063,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/betweendrafts.com\/justdrafts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}