"In this original and engaging response, Sean Gaston re-examines his own relationship with this great thinker and traces his own mourning, while examining the very nature of mourning in Derrida's work. In exploring the gap that the death of Derrida has left open. Gaston traces the gaps [ecarts], and the history of the gap, in Derrida's work. He argues that the inescapable gaps that are always at once behind us and in front of us and that cannot be bridged or filled play a central role in Derrida's thought and in our response to his death. In tracing the ecarts in Derrida's work, Gaston also takes in Plato, Hegel, Descartes, Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas and Lyotard.

The Impossible Mourning of Jacques Derrida explores how, after the death of Derrida, we think of him in a history of philosophy and asserts the importance not only of literature, but also of history in Derrida's thought." "Written in the immediate aftermath of Derrida's death as a philosophical diary of 52 days, this insightful and touching account offers a fresh analysis of a vital element of Derrida's thought and a genuine reflection on the implications of Derrida's death for how we will now address his work."--Jacket.