Abstract

Love in the Post (2013) is inspired by Jacques Derrida’s book The Post Card. Like the book, the film plays with fact and fiction, weaving together the stories of a scholar of literature and a film director, alongside insights from critics and philosophers.

Theo Marks works in a university department that is soon to be closed. His wife Sophie, enigmatic and distant, is in analysis. Filmmaker Joanna struggles to make a film about The Post Card. These people are set on a collision course prompted by a series of letters that will change their lives.

The film features a never before seen interview with Derrida, alongside contributions from Geoff Bennington, Ellen Burt, Catherin Malabou, J. Hillis Miller and Samuel Weber.

Alongside the original screenplay, Martin McQuillan provides an extended commentary on Derrida’s original text, the film and its making. Joanna Callaghan reflects on her practice as a filmmaker and her engagement with philosophy as a director. The volume concludes with interviews between McQuillan and five leading Derrida scholars.

A rich compendium of documents, including the transcript of Love in the Post , critical essays and reflections, and interviews with Geoffrey Bennington and Samuel Weber, among others, this original and provoking volume will be of interest to scholars and students not only in film studies, but also philosophy and literature. The book provides valuable new perspectives for thinking about film and deconstruction, and about Derrida's work (especially the Envois) in general.
Nicholas Royle, Professor of English, University of Sussex
Martin McQuillan is professor of Literary Theory and Cultural Analysis and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Kingston University, UK, where he is also Co-Director of The London Graduate School. He is a literary theorist, cultural critic and author and editor of many books and essays including Roland Barthes (or the profession of cultural studies) (Palgrave, 2011), Deconstruction After 9/11 (Routledge, 2009) and Deconstruction Reading Politics (Palgrave, 2008).

Joanna Callaghan is senior lecturer in filmmaking at the University of Sussex, UK. She is a practising filmmaker and director of production company Heraclitus Pictures.

Contributors: Geoffrey Bennington, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Emory University, USA; Ellen Burt, Professor of French and Italian, UC Irvine, USA; Catherine Malabou, Professor of Philosophy, Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, UK; J. Hillis Miller, Distinguished Research Professor of Comparative Literature, UC Irvine, USA; Samuel Weber, Avalon Foundation Professor of Humanities, Northwestern University, USA
Love in the Post is the book of the film of the book of the postcard of the . . . bonfire, or at least of what Derrida characterizes as a ‘catastrophic’ overturning. Joanna Callaghan and Martin McQuillan reassign to The Post Card, as did their film, their own mischievous sense of order. Their addition of reflections on making the film, a series of commentaries and extended interviews makes a splendid sequel to this grand philosophical adventure.
David Wills, Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University