Ah, Derrida. Encountering his work is less like reading and more like puzzling—why did he use that word, and what does he mean? How will he analyze (i.e. deconstruct) this word, and how many languages will he use to do it?

Archive Fever was originally a lecture given in 1994. The setting is important because it shows Derrida’s prescience:

[E]lectronic mail today, even more than the fax, is on the way to transforming the entire public and private space of humanity, and first of all the limit between the private, the secret (private or public), and the public or the phenomenal. (17)

As you might expect, Derrida covers a plethora of seemingly disjointed themes in his deconstruction of archē. As the subtitle suggests, Freud (and in particular, his death drive) suffuses Derrida’s ruminations. The nature of Judaism (circumcision as a visible archival mark), human remembering, and etymological reflection are all pulled together in Derrida’s mind.

The translator’s brief essay at the end of the University of Chicago Press edition of Archive Fever is an unexpected bonus. Eric Prenowitz uses Derrida’s concept of archive fever to explore his role as a translator.

Derrida, Jacques. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Eric Prenowitz. U of Chicago P, 1996.