Event Television: Derrida’s Small Screen

Paul Earlie

Abstract:

The article, ‘Event Television: Derrida’s Small Screen’, published in the journal Postmodern Culture (September 2025), brings Jacques Derrida’s appearances on the small screen into dialogue with his theoretical writings on television as medium. Developing the notion of medial “rhythm” outlined in Echographies of Television (1996) and elsewhere, the essay argues that Derrida’s reflections on broadcast television are important resources for thinking the protean phenomenon of television in a digital age. Despite his suspicions of the structural distortions of the televisual frame, Derrida adapts the medium to his own ends and gestures towards what this essay calls a “television of the event.” At a time when television’s digital mutations offer fresh possibilities for—and obstacles to—thinking differently, Derrida’s involvement with the small screen shows that a new relation to television only ever begins by looking at and listening to what is happening before our eyes.

This page reproduces several captioned stills from Derrida’s engagements on the small screen, based on primary archival research at the Institut national de l’audiovisuel in Paris (Ina.fr). The archive can be searched here and full references for each programme are given in a references list below. Archival research for this article was funded by a British Academy-Leverhulme Small Grant, “Intellectuals and the Popular Media in France” (SRG2021\211010).

Stills:

Fig. 1. Jacques Derrida’s 1997 appearance in a France 2 TV commercial for Monolingualism of the Other (“Jacques Derrida: Le monolinguisme”).
Fig. 2. Journalist Sylvie Marion interviews Derrida on Antenne 2 (2 January 1982) following his release from prison in Czechoslovakia (“Retour Derrida”).
Fig. 4. Derrida and Alfonsi discuss the Art against Apartheid exhibition (1 December 1982)  (“Art against Apartheid”)
Fig. 5. Derrida becomes a Taxi reporter on Nelson Mandela, 7 November 1986 (“Taxi”).
Fig. 6. “Every morning, they are forced to go running after the skip because the white driver never stops driving” (“Taxi”).

List of References

Fig. 1. “Jacques Derrida : Le monolinguisme de l’autre Galilée.” Un livre, des livres, France 2, 25 Aug. 1997, 10 Oct. 1997, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris, 481309.001.

Fig. 2. “Retour Derrida.” Antenne 2 Midi, Antenne 2, 2 Jan. 1982, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris, CAB91050870.

Fig. 3. “Art against Apartheid.” Résistances, 1 December 1983, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris, CAB91019316.

Fig. 4. “Taxi: émission du 07 novembre 1986.” Taxi, F3, 7 Nov. 1986, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris, CAC97108898. 

Fig. 5. “Taxi: émission du 07 novembre 1986.” Taxi, F3, 7 Nov. 1986, Institut national de l’audiovisuel, Paris, CAC97108898. 

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