Provides an account of Jacques Derrida's involvement in debates about the university. Derrida has long argued that philosophy simultaneously belongs and does not belong to the university. This book asks whether a broader tension between "belonging" and "not belonging" also forms the basis of Derrida's political thinking and activism.

This book provides a definitive account of Jacques Derrida's involvement in debates about the university. Derrida has long argued that philosophy simultaneously belongs and does not belong to the university. Philosophy must come from ?outside? the institution in which, nevertheless, it comes to define itself. Morgan Wortham asks whether a broader tension between ?belonging? and ?not belonging? also forms the basis of Derrida's political thinking and activism. Key questions about citizenship, rights, the nation-state and Europe, asylum, immigration, terror, and the ?return? of religion all involve assumptions about ?belonging, ? and they entail constitutional, legal, institutional, and material constraints that take shape on the basis of such ideas.