Love of Life: Deconstruction, Biotech the Survival of Indefinite Life

E-ISSN： 1757-1634|40|2|156-180

ISSN： 1757-1634

Source： Oxford Literary Review, Vol.40, Iss.2, 2018-12, pp. : 156-180

Disclaimer: Any content in publications that violate the sovereignty, the constitution or regulations of the PRC is not accepted or approved by CNPIEC.

Previous Menu Next

Abstract

Derrida's concept of survival, born out of Benjamin's work on translation in The Task of the Translator, has become a fixed element of readings of his work in recent years. Of particular interest in his final seminars on The Beast and the Sovereign and The Death Penalty, survival might be said to do to the concept of life what writing had done to that of speech. In this essay, I explore how the Derridean concept of survival, far from excluding dreams of immortality, in fact opens them. By putting deconstruction into contact with biotechnological fantasies of brain uploading and biological immortality, this essay asks what deconstruction's love of life might be able to teach us about the desire for immortal life in general, and biotechnological ventures, such as Dmitri Itskov's 2045 Initiative, in particular.