The second part of my essay on Stranger than Fiction is up.

I have a post on “the gift” in Stranger than Fiction over at the Church & Postmodern Culture: Conversation blog. It is the first of two parts, this part focussing on Derrida’s concept of the gift and applied to this movie. Based on Derrida’s Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, I ask myself: how would Derrida look at this movie? So, I took a creative whack at it.

The post is edited down considerably from its original, leaving out some of the more technical Heideggerian stuff. I actually did quite a lot of reading in Heidegger before I even started reading Derrida (I think one can’t really understand quite a bit of Derrida without this), but for length and technical readability, I have left it aside for now. However, if you would like the full version with all the references and whatnot, feel free to ask me.

On Wednesday, I plan on posting the second part, which explores John Milbank’s work on the gift through his first main essay on the subject called “Can a Gift Be Given?: Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysic.”

Let me know what you think, and if you do, please leave a comment over there, not here. There.