Post-structuralism is mostly a French phenomenon. I think it is difficult to fully appreciate how big Sartre was in France and this new wave of philosophy avoided Sartre altogether. They did not even attempt patricide; they just left the Sartrean house altogether. You have Foucault say some nasty things about Sartrean subjectivity (and he’s got it all wrong); Derrida avoided Sartre like the plague even though he talked about pretty much anyone under the sun. Those who were influenced by him – Lacan and Levinas for instance – did not give him much credit (partly because it was assumed that everyone knows where they’re coming from).

American post-structuralism ignored these problems and overplayed the rejection of Sartre by Foucault and Derrida.

The revitalization, it seems to me, has its roots in 1) re-reading the text to begin with and seeing, as Nik Fox and may others have argued, that Sartre shares a great deal with the post-structuralists. 2) In Sartre’s work on race and postcolonialism, stuff that is now popular and 3) I genuinely believe that Sartre’s emphasis on freedom and liberation is a breath of French air against the heavily localized and sometimes confusing post-structuralist political philosophy.