Writing about monsters, Derrida states:
A monster is always alive, let us not forget. Monsters are living beings. The monster is also that which appears for the first time and, consequently, is not yet recognized. A monster is a species for which we do not yet have a name, which does not mean that the species is abnormal, namely, the composition or hybridisation of already known species. Simply, it shows itself [elle se montre] – that is what the word monster means – it shows itself in something that is not yet shown and that therefore looks like a hallucination, it strikes the eye, it frightens precisely because no anticipation had prepared one to identify this figure. (Derrida 1992, p.386)
We are interested in creative and critical writing as a kind of ‘species for which we do not yet have a name’, as hybrid, hallucination, monster; what un-named and un-nameable figure emerges from the crossing between forms, and where will it lead us?
Jacques Derrida, ‘Passages – from Traumatism to Promise’ in Points: Interviews, 1974-1994 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992)