Living On / To Survive

Those familiar with the work of Derrida will recognize the double term in the title as variations, in translation, of Derrida's untimely essay Survivre. "e;To survive"e; – in this infinite mood and indefinite form that sets no limit to number, person, or time – is at once the theme and the undercurrent that runs through the diverse texts gathered together in this volume. "e;To survive"e;, for such is our exceptional situation, also animates the act of writing: to shelter a personal existence and actualize the promise writing holds for saving something more than (bare) life. Derrida termed it "e;sur-vie"e; or "e;living on"e;. The texts date from different times and phases of the mutating epidemic. In chronological order, they register the progressive evolution and complication of the sense of this "e;novel"e; crisis. The first is contemporaneous with the immediate virus outbreak and with Agamben's provocative dismissal of the "e;health"e; crisis. The "e;Two Transcripts"e; are of video interventions that appeared on Jerôme Lebre's Youtube channel "e;Philosopher en temps d'epidemie"e; – one of several platforms to call for critical discourse; a third intervention, completing the triptych, was recorded in French but never published. Here an extended, more developed version closes the volume. Engaging Derrida's "e;Survie,"e; it also responds to the recent death of Jean-Luc Nancy. At the center, anchoring the volume, is a complex text that can be read as a belated postscript to the first volume On Contemporaneity after Agamben, and / or as a premature preface to its forthcoming successor (The Time That Remains). It asks about the newly acquired sense of the "e;World"e; in Paul Celan's often cited last phrase: "e;The world is gone"e;. Living On / To Survive is essential reading for students and scholars in literature, philosophy and psychology. Publication details of these and related titles are provided in the prelims to the book.