Unlike Jacques Derrida, who was haunted by specters of Karl Marx, I am haunted by specters of JKA Smith. My first glimpse of Smith’s ghostly presence came in 2005, when an anonymous reader for my soon-to-be published book on postmodernism berated me for never mentioning The Fall of Interpretation. As I checked Smith’s text out […]
I’m profoundly grateful to these scholars for taking time to carefully, critically, and charitably engage the second edition of The Fall of Interpretation—and in the summer, of all things! This kind of constructive engagement is a real gift to an author, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to continue the conversation by replying to […]
What is “interpretation”? James K. A. Smith has issued a second edition of his first book on its “fall.” Clarifying what exactly interpretation is for Smith is a priority for those who might benefit from reading it, and his later work. We can clearly identify two dimensions to interpretation: first, the ontological conditions for interpretation […]