In this compelling and timely treatise, cultural theorist and educator Peter Trifonas puts forth the first book-length study of Jacques Derrida's 'educational texts': that is, those writings most explicitly concerned with the ethics and politics of the historico- philosophical structures constituting the scene of teaching. OThe Ethics of WritingO engages these aspects of Derrida's work on the institution of education, especially as it relates to the philosopher's association with the GREPH (Groupe de Recherches sur l'Enseignement Philosophiques) and the public movement to protect the teaching of Philosophy in France. Trifonas addresses the importance of deconstruction as a means of carrying-out analyses of pedagogical institutions and structures for the purpose of achieving ethical reforms of educational policy and curricular initiatives. More specifically, the text examines how deconstruction allows us to re-think the socio-historical and ethico-philosophical aspects of pedagogical practices and policies, including pedagogical theories that have had direct bearing on the ethical and cultural ideals forming the reason of Western educational systems and the exclusion of its 'Others.'

Peter Trifonas’ book is a wonderfully concentrated framing of the ineluctable educational gambit run by Derrida’s unsettling practice of theory. We can do no better in following writing’s reasoning machinery, as given and illusive as it is, than by pursuing Trifonas’ relentlessly political and ethical questioning of the knowing institutions by which we live. -- John Willinsky, University of British Columbia, author of Technologies of Knowing
Peter Trifonas stages an encounter between Jacques Derrida and education in The Ethics of Writing. Highly controversial and provocative, deconstruction takes on conventional wisdom in all its established forms and domains. True to this critical spirit, Trifonas forces us to rethink writing and education. -- Douglas Kellner, UCLA; author of Media Culture and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy

Peter Trifonas is assistant professor of English education, social & cultural studies, global education, and transformative pedagogies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.