Derrida and Hamacher Readers of Benjamin: Différance, Afformativ, Police, Strike

Abstract

In this article I will reconstruct the different paradigms of reading Benjamin's Zur Kritik der Gewalt proposed by Jacques Derrida and Werner Hamacher around 1989. First, it will analyze how differently both authors define violence in the terms of the performativity of language: Derrida as a “differential force” and Hamacher with the concept of “afformative”. Secondly, how these concepts of performativity consider two contrasting political examples of the Kritik: the “police” and the “proletarian general strike”. Finally, how the close dialogue between Derrida and Hamacher, beyond the Benjaminian Kritik, interrogates the ethical-political scope of the method of deconstruction.