The commitment of research: reading-writing as openness to the new

Abstract

I respond to the provocation of this issue focusing on the action [reading] to theorize it in its openness to what is not present, as the texts are never present to be read. Using the Derridian quasi-concepts of trace and specter, I understand “reading” as a long exercise of responding to the otherness of the text. I defend that it is necessary to refuse the representational tradition of reading, to continuously deconstruct the metaphysical colonial legacy of what does it mean to read. Mostly, I argue that this process requires more and not less readings of what one seeks to deconstruct—a long preparation that is the research-event.