Legacy MattersThe late philosopher Jacques Derrida was considered the father of deconstruction which, to greatly oversimplify, holds that the meaning of words depends on the assumptions of the people who wrote them. I find the theory impossible to understand, others have called it bewildering, but it has been exceptionally influential in this post-modern age because it questions the concept of universal truth and whether anyone can know anything for sure.
At the end of his career, Derrida was a professor at the University of California at Irvine, and signed an agreement in 1990 to donate his archives to them.
Shortly before his death, he threatened to pull the plug on his agreement because he didn't like the way the University was investigating a Russian studies professor who was accused of sexually harassing a graduate student. The professor was a vampire expert who taught a popular class on vampires and signed his e-mails with a colon to symbolize Dracula bite marks, used his position as the student's advisor to manipulate her into a series of sexual encounters...invited the woman to his apartment to view photos of Moscow.. plied the student with Transylvanian wine and opera music
So when Derrida's heirs didn't turn over the archives, the university sued his widow.
A Philosophical View of Sex from the LA Times is all about the contest between the widow and the university.
My second favorite line after "he signed his emails with a colon to symbolize Dracula bite marks" is a quotation from an unnamed blogger Given that Derrida's philosophical legacy is the notion that words have no meaning, shouldn't the bright minds at UC Irvine have realized that 'an agreement he signed' might not be worth much?"
I just googled the entire quote and found the John Miller, the national political reporter for the National Review said it. No wonder the LA Times didn't name him.