#allography

The reader, who is always alive, returns or repays in his reading the credit which the (dead) author has extended himself. As Derrida repeatedly remarks, it is the other who signs the text. "Nothing returns to the living," rather what the reader/writer spends returns to the text and the (dead) author. There is a play of life and death, then, beyond the resistance of the state: the intertwining of thanatography (the writing of the author who dies but is encrypted in his text) and allography (the writing of the other who signs the text through his reading, thereby taking upon himself the political responsibility for it.) In spite of Hegel's confidence the author and reader are never present to one another, and repayment on investment returns either too late or elsewhere.

"The reader, who is always alive, returns or repays in his reading the credit which the (dead) author has extended himself. As Derrida repeatedly remarks, it is the other who signs the text. "Nothing returns to the living," rather what the reader/writer spends returns to the text and the (dead) author. There is a play of life and death, then, beyond the resistance to the state: the intertwining of thanatography (the writing of the author who dies but is encrypted in his text) and allography (the writing of the other who signs the text through his reading, thereby taking upon himself the political responsibility for it). In spite of Hegel's confidence the author and reader are never present to one another, and repayment on investment returns either too late or elsewhere."