"Parages" brings together four essays by Derrida on the fictions of Maurice Blanchot. Three of the essays--"Living On," "Title To Be Specified," and "The Law of Genre," are by now canonical. The fourth, ""Pa"ce Not("s")" as well as Derrida's 1986 introduction to the French edition of the book, appear here in English for the first time. This was a breakthrough publication in the analysis of Blanchot, a notoriously difficult writer. It is safe to say Derrida contributed much to that writer's reputation in both French and English, always insisting on the philosophical pertinence of Blanchot's work to any discussion of the relationship between literature and critical thought. Through patient citation, and an ample collocation and readings of Blanchot's various motifs, Derrida explores a variety of questions, including the limits of genre, the procedure of crossing out, and the evocation of a non-dialectical and non-privative negativity. The book marks a crucial stage in Derrida's itinerary and provides a context for his later writings on apophatics in such works as "On the Name" (SUP, 1995) and his response to Heidegger on death in "Aporias" (SUP, 1993).

"Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry": An Introduction" (1962) is Jacques Derrida's earliest published work. In this commentary-interpretation of the famous appendix to Husserl's "The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology," Derrida relates writing to such key concepts as differing, consciousness, presence, and historicity. Starting from Husserl's method of historical investigation, Derrida gradually unravels a deconstructive critique of phenomenology itself, which forms the foundation for his later criticism of Western metaphysics as a metaphysics of presence. The complete text of Husserl's Origin of Geometry is included.