Autumn 2009 Catalogue 4 pdfing:1 - Yale University Press

14 PhilosophyThese spirited conversationsbetween the philosopher and hisgodson provide one of the mostintimate, illuminating and honestportraits of Sartre ever publishedJanuary 288 pp. 234x156mm.Cloth ISBN 978-0-300-15107-7 £30.00*Paper ISBN 978-0-300-15901-1 £15.00*Talking with SartreConversations and DebatesEdited and Translated by John GerassiWhat would it be like to be privy to the mind of one of the twentiethcentury’s greatest thinkers? John Gerassi had just this opportunity;as a child, his mother and father were very close friends withJean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and the couple became forhim like surrogate parents. Authorised by Sartre to write his biography,Gerassi conducted a long series of interviews between 1970 and 1974,which he has now edited to produce this revelatory and breathtakingportrait of one of the world’s most famous intellectuals.Through the interviews, with both their informalities and theirtensions, Sartre’s greater complexities emerge. In particular, we seeSartre wrestling with the apparent contradiction between his views onfreedom and the influence of social conditions on our choices andactions. We also gain insight into his perspectives on the Spanish CivilWar, World War II and the disintegration of colonialism.These conversations add an intimate dimension to Sartre’s moreabstract ideas. With remarkable rigour and intensity, they also provide aclear lens through which to view the major conflagrations of the lastcentury.John Gerassi, currently Professor of Political Science at Queens College,City University of New York, is the author of Jean-Paul Sartre:Hated Conscience of His Century.Who Was Jacques Derrida?An Intellectual BiographyDavid MikicsWho Was Jacques Derrida? is the first intellectual biography of Derrida,the first full-scale appraisal of his career, his influence and hisphilosophical roots. It is also the first attempt to define his crucialimportance as the ambassador of ‘theory’, the phenomenon that hashad a profound influence on academic life in the humanities.Mikics lucidly and sensitively describes for the general reader Derrida’sdeep connection to his Jewish roots. He succinctly defines his vision ofphilosophy as a discipline that resists psychology. While pointing outthe flaws of that vision and Derrida’s betrayal of his most adamantlyexpounded beliefs, Mikics ultimately concludes that ‘Derrida wasneither so brilliantly right nor so badly wrong as his enthusiasts andcritics, respectively, claimed’.The first full-scale appraisal of thelife and work of Jacques Derrida,one of the most influential thinkersof the twentieth-centuryDavid Mikics is Professor of English at the University of Houston.He published his last book, A New Handbook of Literary Terms, withYale.January288 pp. 210x140mm.ISBN 978-0-300-11542-0 £25.00*