Books by Martin McQuillan

Demonising Disney is nothing new. Disney films have long been synonymous with a certain conservative, patriarchal, heterosexual ideology, occupying a centre-stage position at the heart of the evil empire. Deconstructing Disney takes issue with knee-jerk polarities, overturning classical oppositions and recognising that, just as the Disney 'text' has changed, so too must the terms of critical engagement. *BR**BR*This book is a sharply focused deconstruction of the political culture - and the cultural politics - of the Disney canon in the years since the emergence of the so-called New World Order. Eleanor Byrne and Martin McQuillan offer a critical encounter with Disney which alternates between readings of individual texts and wider thematic concerns such as race, gender and sexuality, the broader context of American contemporary culture, and the global ambitions and insularity of the last great superpower. The movies discussed include The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Pocohontas, Snow White, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Dumbo, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, Hercules and Mulan.

Love in the Post (2013) is inspired by Jacques Derrida's book The Post Card. Like the book, the film plays with fact and fiction, weaving together the stories of a scholar of literature and a film director, alongside insights from critics and philosophers. Theo Marks works in a university department that is soon to be closed. His wife Sophie, enigmatic and distant, is in analysis. Filmmaker Joanna struggles to make a film about The Post Card. These people are set on a collision course prompted by a series of letters that will change their lives. The film features a never before seen interview with Derrida, alongside contributions from Geoff Bennington, Ellen Burt, Catherin Malabou, J. Hillis Miller and Samuel Weber.Alongside the original screenplay, Martin McQuillan provides an extended commentary on Derrida's original text, the film and its making. Joanna Callaghan reflects on her practice as a filmmaker and her engagement with philosophy as a director. The volume concludes with interviews between McQuillan and five leading Derrida scholars.

This collection of essays thinks through deconstruction's relation to politics by explicating the text of Derrida in relation to political examples. Neither 'deconstruction' nor 'reading' nor 'politics' is left untouched in the encounters explored in this volume, dispelling the notion of a separation of deconstruction from the everyday.