Text messages: Gadamer, Derrida and how we read
The literary phenomenon of “deconstruction” is regarded by many as an irresponsible fad that has now become passé. Fortunately, most of the wild, irresponsible readings of texts that went under the banner of “deconstruction” are passé. Yet in the same way that the historical performance movement has so deeply influenced classical music that it has become virtually the norm, the work of Jacques Derrida and Hans-Georg Gadamer has so affected our ways of reading texts that we are no longer aware of it.