false 41962207 757661 188009 0226143147 9780226143149 3 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172543110m/188009.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172543110s/188009.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/188009.Given_Time_I_Counterfeit_Money 4.06 50 giving possible? Is it possible to give without immediately entering into a circle of exchange that turns the gift into a debt to be returned? This question leads Jacques Derrida to make out an irresolvable paradox at what seems the most fundamental level of the gift's meaning: for the gift to be received as a gift, it must not appear as such, since its mere appearance as gift puts it in the cycle of repayment and debt.

Derrida reads the relation of time to gift through a number of texts: Heidegger's Time and Being, Mauss's The Gift, as well as essays by Benveniste and Levi-Strauss that assume Mauss's legacy. It is, however, a short tale by Baudelaire, "Counterfeit Money," that guides Derrida's analyses throughout. At stake in his reading of the tale, to which the second half of this book is devoted, are the conditions of gift and forgiveness as essentially bound up with the movement of dissemination, a concept that Derrida has been working out for many years.

For both readers of Baudelaire and students of literary theory, this work will prove indispensable.</div>]]> 4132 3.99 3264 237 1992 0 0 false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jan 05 09:22:18 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 05 09:22:38 -0800 2009