College: Hughes Hall
Email: sjmb5@cam.ac.uk
Supervisor: Prof. Ian James
Research Topic: ‘Techniques of writing, techniques of living: towards existential grammatology, with and after Derrida’
Research
How has the practice of writing changed us as a species? Samuel's research approaches this question through the conceptual vocabulary of two major traditions of 20th c. continental philosophy: existential philosophy (Heidegger, Sartre) and grammatology (Derrida). Building on precursors who highlighted the coherence and progression between them (C. Howells, B. Baugh, S. Martinot), this project combines methods focusing on the individual and on the species, to appreciate how our existential condition has emerged in the longer technological history of humanity.
Samuel tries to establish whether the practice of writing, as rethought by Derrida, may play a special, or perhaps even an essential role, in our condition as existential beings - i.e., as beings who experience finite time, angst, the necessity to create meaning, the challenges of subjectivity, agency, freedom, engagement, authenticity, responsibility, etc. The development of a ‘phenomenology of writing’, at the heart of our very manner of being as humans, brings us to consider an even more organic integration of these traditions: could writing constitute the practical entry, the unveiling performance of our condition as agential subjects? This would open to the formulation of an ‘existential grammatology’, a manner of living one’s life that is enlightened and empowered by the lessons learnt through one cardinal practice, writing.
This double lens on the concept of writing is a powerful prism to reassess the dominant problematics of subjectivity in modernity (Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Levinas, Girard). As it suggests a practice at the heart of past and future avenues for the empowerment of the human, this project engages deeply with the dialogue between existential philosophy, paleo-anthropology and the philosophy of technology (Leroi-Gourhan, Simondon, Ong, Goody, Stiegler). And, as this practice is a textual one, Samuel’s research sheds a new light onto the core propositions of literary studies in and around post-structuralism (fiction, textuality, inter-textuality, narrativity, etc). Combining all these approaches through a single trajectory, existential grammatology aims to formulate, ultimately, a theory of empowerment (social, political, creative), which would not be a theory of freedom.
About
Samuel Buchoul has been a researcher and teacher for over a decade. He taught Philosophy, as a certifié instructor, in the French secondary system, from 2018 to 2023. He experimented with pedagogical methods to integrate the principles and values of grammatology and existential philosophy. A special focus was placed on the performative self-assertion of each student through oral and writing practices (reversed classroom and essay writing in film and philosophy). He has founded several initiatives of open education in philosophy, literature and the social sciences, in India, in France and online - they include the Institute for the Study of Texts, and the Atelier des Pratiques Théoriques. Samuel spent eight years in India, contributing to several cultural projects and institutions, as editor, columnist, photographer and web designer, and completing two Masters of Arts (Buddhist Studies, Delhi University, 2012, and Philosophy, Manipal University, 2014). His M.A. thesis in Philosophy attempted a creative reinterpretation of Derrida and Levinas to formulate a new metaphysics of foreignness. Alongside over a hundred other texts, the latter is available on his publication website, Samvriti.
Publications
- Articles (peer-reviewed journals & book chapters) -
- ‘De l’utilité: metaphysics as a writing tool.’ Labyrinth (forthcoming, 2025)
- ‘Homo Scribens : vers une bio-graphie qui ne recherche plus rien’, in Repenser la logique du vivant après Jacques Derrida (Éditions Hermann, 2024)
- ‘Herodotus, First Orientalist?’ InterViews: An Interdisciplinary Journal in Social Sciences, 1 (2014), pp. 7-29.
- ‘The Non-Self of Girard.’ Contagion: A Journal of Religion and Culture, vol. 20, no. 1 (2013), pp. 101-116. (doi: 10.14321/contagion.20.2013.0101)
- Articles (other journals) -
- ‘Around Our Corner: Terror Attacks and Hindu Cosmology,’ Cahiers de la Fondation: Indialogues (India-Europe Foundation for New Dialogues), vol. 8, no. 3, 2015, pp. 8-11.
- ‘Inflecting the Foreigner’s Discourse (or: why we need unnecessary stories),’ Cahiers de la Fondation: Indialogues, vol. 5, no. 3, 2014, pp. 14-16.
- Other online publications -
- ‘Of pebbles, springs and fates (Rilke, determinism and creativity),’ Readers’ Break, 2019
- ‘Love Stories (Derrida’s letters)’, IST Blog, 2017
- ‘Empty Echoes (Derrida, Artaud and the body)’, IST Blog, 2017
- ‘Writer-in-Progress’ (series on creativity, time and agency), Samvriti, 2016
- ‘De l’Infini: a Foreigner’s Metaphysics,’ Samvriti, 2014
- ‘After Anatta: Towards a Girardian Ethics,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Phenomenologies of Time: Husserl, Heidegger and Levinas,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Behind the Glim: the ‘Enlightenment era’ as seen from India,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Levinas: For the Feminine Other,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Herodotus, First Orientalist?,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Two Frenchmen in the Orient: Flaubert and I,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘An Ethics of Love: Levinas and the Experience of Romance,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘The Language of Foreignness,’ Samvriti, 2013
- ‘Reason and the Senses: A Dialogue Between Buddhism and Christianity,’ Samvriti, 2012
-Earlier book projects/manuscripts -
- La gêne d’être au monde. En découvrant l’existence avec La Grande Bellezza
- De l'Infini: A Foreigner’s Metaphysics
Conference papers and invited talks
- '"French thought" and the pharmakon of relativism', Society for French Studies Annual Conference, Bristol, UK (2025)
- Title TBA, Oxford French Graduate Seminar, Oxford, UK (2025)
- Writing and existence: Sartre, Derrida and the challenge of value.’ Interfaceing (‘From the Invention of Writing to the Emergence of Artificial Intelligence: Cultural Approaches to Information Technology’), Taipei, Taiwan (2024)
- ‘The textual play of freedom: Derrida and Sartre.’ UK Sartre Society, Oxford, UK (2024)
- ‘From Freedom to Writing: the curious case of value.’ Society for French Studies Annual Conference, Stirling, UK (2024)
- ‘Sartre, Derrida et la création de valeurs : entre liberté et écriture.’ Colloque Groupe d’Études Sartriennes, Paris, France (2024)
- ‘Angst, serenity and the différance of Derrida.’ Derrida Today Conference, Athens, Greece (2024)
- ‘Sartre meets Derrida: agency and writing as reprise’, FGRS Seminar, University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK), 8 February 2024.
- ‘Homo Scribens : vers une bio-graphie qui ne recherche plus rien,’ Colloque ‘Plus d’une discipline : actualité de La vie la mort,’ Paris 8 Université (Paris, France), 9 October 2021.
- ‘Derrida and Law,’ invited talk at the Law Center, Jawaharlal Nehru University (Delhi, India), 13 January 2016.
- ‘Negation and Action: Buddhism, Agency and Creativity,’ Transcultural Encounters Forum’ workshop, at FIND (Rome, Italy), 13 November 2015.
- ‘Derrida and (Art) Appreciation and Derrida and Art (Appreciation),’ two invited talks at the Department of Art History and Appreciation, Jamia Milia Islamia University (Delhi, India), 19 & 26 March 2015.
- ‘The Scandalous Anchor: A Girardian Reading of Pornography,’ Annual Conference of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingoldstadt (Munich, Germany), 23 July 2014.
- ‘From Anatta to Interdependence: Buddhist Philosophy and Mimetic Theory,’ Annual Conference of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, International Christian University (Tokyo, Japan), 5 July 2012.
Teaching
At Cambridge:
- FRB3 Translation into French (2024-2025) (main instructor)
- FR12: Ethics and experience: literature, thought, and visual culture of the French speaking world (1900 to the present) (2024-2025) (supervisor)
- Critical Theory (2024-2025) (seminar leader) - modules on Graeber; Althusser; Stiegler, Smail
Secondary education:
Full time Philosophy teacher in the final year of high school (Terminale) in France (120 hrs per class per year) (2018-2023) Grading of the national philosophy exam (baccalauréat). Also taught the ‘Humanities’ (Première) and the ‘Moral and civic education’ courses (Seconde, Première, Terminale).
Open education initiatives:
- ‘Différer et disséminer : vers une pédagogie de la trace. Savoirs, institutions et métaphysique derridienne’ (ATP, 2020-21)
- ‘Writing a Spiritual Autobiography: Augustine’s Confessions’ (IST, 2017-2018)
- ‘Romantic Boredom, Boring Romances: Madame Bovary (Flaubert)’ (IST, 2017)
- ‘Derrida’s Of Grammatology: (Hi)stories of Writing’ (IST, 2017)
- ‘The Early Derrida: Down the Play’ (IST, 2017)
- ‘Becoming a Philosopher : Descartes’ Method’ (IST, 2017)
Public outreach programmes (convenor):
- Readers’ Break - 99 public discussions on works of philosophy, literature and the social sciences (Delhi and online, 2015-2019)
- Writing Derrida - 15 public discussion on texts of Jacques Derrida (Delhi, 2014-2016).
Scholarships/Prizes
- Pigott Studentship and Cambridge Trust Scholarship, University of Cambridge (2023-2026)
- Odette de Mourgues fund, travel grant (2024), Hughes Hall travel fund (2024), Cambridge Trust travel fund (2024), Society for French Studies research support scheme & Post-graduate travel subsidy (2024)
- Raymund Schwager, S.J., Memorial Award, graduate essay competition, COV&R Conference, Tokyo, Japan (2012)
- Annual International Conference of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion (COV&R), travel grant, COV&R Conference, Tokyo, Japan (2012)
- Summer School Mimetic Theory Scholarship, Leusden, Holland (2012)
- ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations) Orientation Grant, independent research scholarship, Delhi, India (2012)
Other activities and roles
- Co-convenor of the Cambridge French Graduate Research Seminar (FGRS) (2024-2025)
- Book review editor for Implications Philosophiques (French online journal)
Personal websites
