I am simply saying that it is not possible, without inconsistency, to defend human rights with one hand and deconstruct the idea of humanity with the other. - Tzvetan Todorov

The above is quoted in Barbara Johnson's introduction, one where she confesses thinking about the subject of the lectures: "the consequences of the deconstruction of the self for the liberal tradition. Does the self as construed by liberal tradition still exist? If not, whose human rights are we defending?" She was musing over such and looked across the aisle on a plane and saw someone reading Needful Things by Stephen King. The Cixous and Said pieces were my favorites. Cixous in particular regards it as necessary to bear witness, to give form while acknowledging the contortions and interrogations involved in such a project: a discipline which can undermine itself. It is quaint to see in all these pieces from 1992 a universal opposition to torture. Things have certainly changed. Was it Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez who asserted that was torture possible in the absence of organ failure? Said -- in an excellent reading of Dr. Johnson -- widens the mirror to Mathew Arnold and the benevolent face of imperialism. This proved a welcome detour.