Journal of American Studies of Turkey

6 (1997) : 83.

Conference Report

Pera Peras Poros with Derrida

The French thinker and American academic mega-star Jacques Derrida was in
İstanbul in May 1997 to participate in a two-day “interdisciplinary workshop with
and around Jacques Derrida” at Boğaziçi University. Organized by the
Phenomenology Branch of the Turkish Philosophy Association and the Georges
Dumezil French Institute of Anatolian Studies in İstanbul, in collaboration with the
Italian Cultural Institute and the Goethe Institute of İstanbul, the workshop was
entitled Pera Peras Poros. One needed to know, not only Greek, to understand the
title, but also French, in which language the workshop was conducted, and German,
to understand the text from Heidegger which Prof. Derrida quoted in his speech the
first day. With entrance reserved to privileged pre-invited participants, some of
whom had come from Germany and Italy as well as Ankara and İzmir for the
occasion, the workshop was an event of high intellectual sophistication.

Professor Derrida, who will retire next year at age 68, as French law requires, from
the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, teaches every fall at
NYU and every spring at UC at Irvine before his classes start in France. During the
three-hour-long speech he gave on Saturday, May 9, the man who it is said
deconstructed Western philosophy is seen above in front of the statue of the man
who deconstructed an Eastern empire.