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Conversation with Jacques Derrida

Raymond Williams and Jacques Derrida talk in the empty hall at the end of the Linguistics of Writing Conference (Glasgow UK, 1986). They begin by reflecting on the recording of the event for television. Gradually their conversation widens to touch on topics including translation, the international flow and influence of publications and artistic movements, and the role of the English language and North American market in legitimizing academic ideas.

The conversation ends with Williams pointing to a need to examine one complex contemporary instance of such legitimation of ideas: what is commonly, and Williams says not always frivolously, denounced as a kind of Franco-American intellectual hegemony.