Sarah Kofman II

Abstract

This is the first of two chapters examining Kofman’s collaborations with major figures Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, as part of a ‘group of four’ who engaged with another across multiple endeavours lasting two decades and more. Such communal and/or political activities undertaken by philosophers in 1970s France are contextualized, and the chapter explores the resonances of the group’s formulation ‘philosophy in-deed’, linking this with Kofman’s thinking of effectivity, worldhood, materiality, life. We look at an early jointly authored text produced in these conditions, Mimesis: disarticulations (1975), as well as giving an account of dynamics within the group and of these well-known figures’ itineraries through institutional settings (including drawing on archival resources and correspondence never previously discussed).