Institution and Passivity
is based on course notes for classes taught at the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. Philosophically, this collection connects the issue of passive constitution of meaning with the dimension of history, furthering discussions and completing arguments started in
The Visible and the Invisible
and
Signs
(both published by Northwestern). Leonard Lawlor and Heath Massey's translation makes available to an English-speaking readership a critical transitional text in the history of phenomenology.