Mourning as queer methodology: A conversation between Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler
George Petropoulos
Abstract
This article focuses on the notion of impossible mourning in the work of Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler. Despite the differences in their approach, both philosophers rethink the responsibility for the other and the duty of mourning. I examine how their conversation allows us to reconsider mourning as a queer methodology and a theoretical tool of cultural critique. In other words, I discuss what agonistic mourning (Athanasiou 2017) entails and how it can help us question the dominant intelligibility, determining which lives are worth mourning and which not, and by extension, which lives are worth living.