----- Original Message -----
From: "Barry Alpert" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2009 6:26 PM
Subject: Re: Dead ends
From the economic perspective of the international rare book market, the
collectible first
editions of Jacques Derrida have steadily risen in price over the years.
Even though I
have monitored these prices for quite a long time, I was startled today to
note a copy of
the true first of Derrida's "La Carte postale: de Socrate á Freud et
au-delá" with an
autographed inscription to Paul de Man being offered at $12500.00 by a
leading dealer
who has remained in business for more than 20 years. The lowest price for
any signed
Derrida is $300. I'm certainly glad I invested the money to buy 5 first
French editions
from the library of post-Cunningham/Cage choreographer/dancer Robert Dunn
and to
drive over to Johns Hopkins University to hear Jacques Derrida lecture. Nor
am I
complaining economically about my comparable activity with Tzvetan Todorov.
I'd
recommend investing in the true first editions of all the
"post-structuralists".
Have you evaluated the "economic popularity" of your two books recently?
Barry Alpert
I hope you mean this as a joke; otherwise, it's very silly. What I meant -
and I didn't think anyone could misunderstand it - is that a nominalistic,
relativistic philosophy will lose its appeal to intellectuals (younger
intellectuals, or any whose careers have not committed them to it) who are
actually *suffering. Reality, said Freud, is what you bump your head
against. Reality (and to some degree content) is *hors-texte.
Meanwhile, may your first-edition poststructuralists . provide you a
financial hedge comparable to Krugerrands. A first-edition Houston Stewart
Chamberlain might fetch even more.
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