The end of the world still takes time

new missives in the name of Jacques Derrida, from literature

Abstract

The essay has three parallel movements, which seek to relate a non-overlap between theory and practice, when analyzing literary excerpts around mourning writings. At first, Derrida's assumptions around the end of the world are presented, not as a unified category, that is, the World, but rather as an equalization according to which, from the death of a loved one, one arrives at the end of a world, specifically. At that moment, it is presented, along the first movement, the second one, which shows certain passages from The year of magical thinking, by Joan Didion, and Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner, in such a way as to manage some continuity to the Derridian thought, along some ways to complicate it, proposing some questions to the equalization of the previous movement. Finally, the opposite is suggested, based on the notion according to which it is understood that the World, when described as one, is a Eurocentric and Modern version of the word, having the Anthropocene as its apex, and seeing in the end of the World a positive idea, a welcome one, as it puts the colonial, racist experience, that sustains the project of Modernity, to an end. This movement is supported by the work of Jennette McCurdy, I'm glad my mom died, before the essay's conclusion, which completes the previous movements and thus tries to think of the end of the world as an interpretive key for the living, from themselves to themselves.