Derrida's Politics of Friendship

Luke Collison is a recent PhD Graduate from the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University London. Cillian Ó Fathaigh is Assistant Professor and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Fellow in Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, Poland. Prior to that, he was a Lecturer at King’s College London and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He previously completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, where he was a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Scholar. He currently works at the intersection of political philosophy, European philosophy, and the philosophy of the digital, with a particular focus on the concept of institutions. His work has been published in prestigious international journals, including Philosophy and Social Criticism; Journal of Medicine and Philosophy; Angelaki; Paragraph; and Derrida Today. He is co-editor of Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025—with Gavin Rae); and Derrida’s Politics of Friendship: Amity and Enmity (Edinburgh University Press, 2022—with Luke Collison and Georgios Tsagdis). Georgios Tsagdis is Lecturer in Philosophy at Leiden University and a Lecturer at the Architectural Association.

The Politics of Friendship has never been more relevant at a time when being a friend seems undermined by fragmentation and a fantasy of individualism. The editors have brought together some of the most important Derrida scholars in this volume to develop critical discussions of this rich text and to remind us why we must return to it again and again.

• Welcome Friends: Reading Derrida’s Politics of FriendshipLuke Collison, Cillian Ó Fathaigh and Georgios TsagdisPart I: Responses1. Who or What: Differential FriendshipGeorgios Tsagdis2. Derrida, Montaigne and the Time of FriendshipJennifer Rushworth3. Is there a Politics to Friendship? Derrida’s Critique of the Couple, in Montaigne, Kant and LevinasCillian Ó Fathaigh4. Beyond Presence: Derrida’s Fidelity to Husserl in Politics of FriendshipGiovanni Menegalle5. Hostility in Philosophy – Between Hegel and HeideggerSusanna Lindberg6. Responding Justly to ‘the Friend’Joseph Cohen and Raphael Zagury-Orly7. Another FriendshipPheng CheahPart II: Echoes8. The Time of Friendship: Mourning, Survival, SpectralityRozemund Uljée9. Friendship and Fission: Personal Identity in Derrida and ParfitKit Barton10. Two Structures of Friendship: On the Specular and the SpectralCathrine Bjørnholt Michaelsen11. Dividing the EarIsabelle Alfandary12. Narcissus as an Anti-NarcissusTimothy Secret13. The apparition of feminine alterity in Derrida’s Politics of FriendshipDavid Ventura14. The Possible EchoPeggy KamufPart III: Polemics15. Political Friendships to Come? – Futurity, Democracy and CitizenshipRosine Kelz16. The Rhythm of Democracy, The Pulse of DeconstructionNaomi Waltham-Smith17. Derrida, Democracy and the State of Education: Learning, by Design, PerchanceAllan Parsons18. The Law of AutoimmunityChris Lloyd19. The Other that Accompanies MeNicole Anderson20. Companionship, Kinship, Friendship, Readership – and ‘the Possibility of Failure’Thomas Clément Mercier21. Interruption and Responsibility: Derrida's Passive DecisionMauro Senatore22. The Phantasmatic Fiction: Derrida on the Ground of PoliticsGavin Rae23. Modal Aporias: Derrida on the reale Möglichkeit of Friends and Enemies in SchmittLuke Collison