The Department of English and the Experience of Literature

Abstract

Derek Attridge draws on Jacques Derrida’s lecture ‘The University without Condition’ in order to argue that the British university today fails to encourage unconditional enquiry; much of the most creative work that takes place does so in spite of rather than as a result of official university policy, producing a situation in which academics work both in the open and in what Thomas Docherty has called ‘the Clandestine University’. Literary study has been distorted by official policies and government priorities, in particular by the emphasis on ‘research’ as understood in the sciences. Attridge calls for greater attention to be paid to the primary act of engaging with literary works, where creativity and openness to alterity is fostered, both in the classroom and in publications.