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Materialising the other: pregnancy & deconstruction

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posted on 2023-06-09, 20:00 authored by Joanna CallaghanJoanna Callaghan
In the ‘Envois’ section of Jacques Derrida’s The Post Card (1980), pregnancy and ‘the child’ keep coming back. As early as page five, there is an allusion to a child of sorts; ‘To the devil with the child, the only thing we ever will have discussed, the child, the child, the child’ (1980: 25). This unborn child is central to the emotional drama of the ‘Envois’. It is cause and consequence of the correspondence between the unnamed narrator and his pregnant lover. Nevertheless the topic of pregnancy in ‘Envois’ has been relatively ignored by Derrida scholars. In 2014, I produced a feature film inspired from The Post Card and chose to emphasise the aspect of pregnancy. I included a five-year-old child, Byron, whose genealogy remains open. I also featured a number of characters who are or want to be pregnant. In this video essay, I discuss how Love in the Post: From Plato to Derrida reads Derrida’s ‘Envois’ in relation to pregnancy, reproduction and infidelity.

Funding

Ontological Narratives; Arts and Humanities Research Council; AH/J002003/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Studies in the Maternal

ISSN

1759-0434

Publisher

Open Library of Humanities

Issue

1

Volume

11

Page range

3-3

Department affiliated with

  • Media and Film Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-12-19

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2019-12-19

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2019-12-18

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