Mal d’Archive calls into question our perception and interpretation of archives, highlighting the tensions between presence and absence, between what is preserved and what is effaced. In this book, Derrida emphasises the political nature of the archive. Controlling the archive means manipulating memory, making choices about what should be retained and what can be forgotten. But what happens when an archive is made up of what usually ends up in the bin?

A method of collective reading that originated in the workers’ struggle, surveying is a way for several people to discover a book, with a view to its critical appropriation.