This book uses Édouard Glissant’s concept of the transfer and the transplant to examine Jacques Derrida and Albert Memmi’s distinctive relationships to French colonialism. Both the transfer and the transplant undertake the work of reconciling oneself with the place of first habitation, the process of dislocation, and the new place of habitation. In Glissant’s definition, the transplant makes an effort to maintain the culture of first place of habitation, while the transfer attempts to form a relationship with the new place of habitation. The essays featured in this volume designate Memmi, the Tunisian, as the transplant while Derrida, the Algerian, struggles with the difficulties of the transfer. By engaging with the work of these three figures, this book presents a triangulation of Mediterranean-Atlantic-metropolitan French philosophical thought.
Centering on French colonialism and decolonialization, this book explores how Édouard Glissant’s concept of the transfer and the transplant presents a model for exploring the ideas of Derrida and Memmi in relation to each other.
