The publishing house Passagen Verlag was founded in 1985 in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 by Peter Engelmann

Peter Engelmann

Peter Engelmann was a German American educationist, writer and founder of the German-English Academy , today University School of Milwaukee).- Biography :...

. The primary intention of the publisher was the translation of Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida

Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...

's work into German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

. Around the author Derrida, Peter Engelmann developed a program, which gathers relevant authors and authoresses of all disciplines, who identified themselves with the program deconstruction

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a term introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1967 book Of Grammatology. Although he carefully avoided defining the term directly, he sought to apply Martin Heidegger's concept of Destruktion or Abbau, to textual reading...

 ("Dekonstruktivismus") and "postmodernism

Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...

" (Postmoderne). Peter Engelmann was honoured by the French State in February 2004 with the title "Commandeur dans l´ordre des Arts et des Lettres" for his work as publisher.

The Passagen Verlag, the name Passagen

Passagen

Passagen, is a Swedish web portal started in 1994 by Ken Ceder, Lars-Erik Eriksson and Mattias Söderhielm at Telia, and was launched in October 1995. Until 1999, it was Sweden's second largest web site. It provides community service for adults like blogs, homepages, forums, chat, and free e-mail...

 being an allusion to Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin was a German-Jewish intellectual, who functioned variously as a literary critic, philosopher, sociologist, translator, radio broadcaster and essayist...

's most important text Passagenwerk, publishes besides Derrida authors such as Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition...

, Gianni Vattimo

Gianni Vattimo

Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.-Biography:...

, Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard

Jean Baudrillard was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and post-structuralism.-Life:...

, Paul Feyerabend

Paul Feyerabend

Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades . He lived a peripatetic life, living at various times in England, the United States, New Zealand,...

, Peter Eisenman

Peter Eisenman

Peter Eisenman is an American architect. Eisenman's professional work is often referred to as formalist, deconstructive, late avant-garde, late or high modernist, etc...

, Jacques Lacan

Jacques Lacan

Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...

, Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau

Ernesto Laclau is an Argentine political theorist often described as post-Marxist.He studied History in Buenos Aires, graduating from the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires in 1964, and received a PhD from Essex University in 1977.Since the 1970s he has been Professor of Political Theory at the...

, Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe

Chantal Mouffe is a Belgian political theorist.-Work:Chantal Mouffe studied at Louvain, Paris and Essex and has worked in many universities throughout the world . She has also held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and the CNRS...

, Sarah Kofman

Sarah Kofman

Sarah Kofman was a French philosopher, born in Paris.Kofman began her teaching career in Toulouse in 1960, and worked with both Jean Hyppolite and Gilles Deleuze. Her primary thesis, later published as Nietzsche et la métaphore, was supervised by Deleuze...

, Gerhard Anna Concic-Kaucic, Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....

, Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

, Clifford Geertz

Clifford Geertz

Clifford James Geertz was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology, and who was considered "for three decades...the single most influential cultural anthropologist in the United States." He served until...

, Ginka Steinwachs, Dennis Cooper

Dennis Cooper

Dennis Cooper is an American novelist, poet, critic, editor and performance artist.-Career:Cooper grew up the son of a wealthy businessman in Arcadia, California. His first forays into literature came early, focusing on imitations of Rimbaud, Verlaine, de Sade, and Baudelaire...

, etc.

External links

• http://www.passagen.at
• http://www.literaturhaus.at/buch/verlagsportraits/passagen.html