Inheriting Deconstruction: Rhetoric and Composition's Missed Encounter with Jacques Derrida

Against the backdrop of the passionate and conflicting assessments of Jacques Derrida that followed his 2004 death, this article reviews rhetoric and composition’s scholarly appropriation of deconstruction during the 1980s and early 1990s. Contending that the field primarily used deconstruction in the service of refutation, this article positions deconstruction as a style of inheritance that could allow for a more productive encounter with theory.