Contemporary continental thought is marked by a move away from the “linguistic turn” in twentieth-century European philosophy, as new materialisms and ontologies seek to leave behind the thinking of language central to poststructuralism as it has been traditionally understood. At the same time, biopolitical philosophy has brought critical attention to the question of life, examining new formations of life and death. Within this broader turn, Derridean deconstruction, with its apparent focu...

“The sinking of the plane was like a magician’s trick. It was there and then it was gone, and there was nothing left in our big, wet, darkening world but the three of us and a piece of rubber that was not yet a raft.”In 1942, three men on an antisubmarine patrol flight became lost and pitched into the Pacific. The plane sank beneath them, carrying most of the survival gear down with it. For thirty-four scorching days and shivering nights, they faced the ocean terrors on a four-by-e...