Das harte Geschlecht: Derrida reading heidegger in Geschlecht III

This article suggests that the deconstruction of Heidegger’s reading of Holderlin in the Letter on Humanism is a precondition for what Derrida attempts to do in his commentary of Heidegger’s reading of Trakl in Geschlecht III. This preliminary deconstruction, through a constellation of Holderlinian motifs (“homeland,” “return home,” “Occident,” “Greece,” “Germany”), controls the topology of Geschlecht III and determines Derrida’s approach to the themes of “nationality” and “philosophical nationalism”.