Post-structuralism Literature in English ~ ASL

Structuralism VS Post-structuralism  Post-structuralism is a response to structuralism structuralism  Structuralism was an intellectual movement in France in the 1950s and 1960s that studied the underlying structures in cultural products (such as texts) and used analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and other fields to interpret those structures. It emphasized the logical and scientific nature of its results. Structuralism

 Post-structuralism offers a way of studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralist premises. It argues that because history and culture condition the study of underlying structures, both are subject to biases and misinterpretations. A post- structuralist approach argues that to understand an object (e.g., a text), it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object.

Introduction  A major theme of poststructuralism is instability in the human sciences, due to the complexity of humans themselves and the impossibility of fully escaping structures in order to study them human scienceshuman sciences  A broad historical description of intellectual developments in continental philosophy and critical theory  An outcome of Twentieth-century French philosophy  The prefix "post “ : critical of structuralism  Structuralism: culturally independent meaning  Post-structuralists: culture as integral to meaning

Introduction  A ‘ rebellion against ’ structuralism  A critical and comprehensive response to the basic assumptions of structuralism  Studies the underlying structures inherent in cultural products (such as texts)  Utilizes analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology, anthropology and other fields

 The author's intended meaning is secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives. Also the author's identity as a stable "self" with a single, discernible "intent" is a fictional construct. Post-structuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having a single purpose, a single meaning, or one singular existence.

 Instead, every individual reader creates a new and individual purpose, meaning, and existence for a given text. To step outside of literary theory, this position is generalizable to any situation where a subject perceives a sign. Meaning (or the signified, in Saussure's scheme, which is as heavily presumed upon in post-structuralism as in structuralism) is constructed by an individual from a signifier signifiedSaussuresignifiersignifiedSaussuresignifier

. This is why the signified is said to 'slide' under the signifier, and explains the talk about the "primacy of the signifier."  A post-structuralist critic must be able to use a variety of perspectives to create a multifaceted interpretation of a text, even if these interpretations conflict with one another. It is particularly important to analyze how the meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables, usually involving the identity of the reader (for example: class, racial, or sexual identity)

Introduction TTTTo understand an object (e.g. one of the many meanings of a text), we need to study… –t–t–t–the object itself –t–t–t–the systems of knowledge which were coordinated to produce the object

Introduction  Post-structuralism: a study of how knowledge is produced  Reader's culture = reader ’ s society (in the interpretation of a piece)

Basic Assumptions  Concept of "self" as a singular and coherent entity: a fictional construct  An individual = Conflicting tensions + Knowledge claims (e.g. gender, class, profession, etc.)  To properly study a text, the reader must understand how the work is related to his own personal concept of self  Self-perception:critical in one's interpretation of meaning

Basic Assumptions  The meaning the author intended – secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives  Rejects the idea of a literary text having one purpose, one meaning or one singular existence  To utilize a variety of perspectives to create a multifaceted (or conflicting) interpretation of a text  To analyze how the meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables (usually the identity of the reader)

Concepts (1): Destabilized Meaning  Reader as the primary subject of inquiry (instead of author / writer)  Such displacement: the "destabilizing" or "decentering" of the author  Disregarding an essentialist reading of the content  Other sources are examined for meaning (e.g. readers, cultural norms, other literature, etc.)  Such alternative sources promise no consistency

Concepts (1): Destabilized Meaning  “...language refers to the position of the listener and the speaker, that is, to the contingency of their story. To seize by inventory all the contexts of language and all possible positions of interlocutors is a senseless task. Every verbal signification lies at the confluence of countless semantic rivers. Experience, like language, no longer seems to be made of isolated elements lodged somehow in a Euclidean space... [Words] signify from the "world" and from the position of one who is looking. ” L é vinas, Signification and Sense, Humanism of the Other, tr. Nidra Poller L é vinas, Signification and Sense, Humanism of the Other, tr. Nidra Poller

Concepts (2): Deconstruction  Rejects that there is a consistent structure to texts, specifically the theory of binary opposition  Post-structuralists advocate deconstruction  Meanings of texts and concepts constantly shift in relation to myriad variables  The only way to properly understand these meanings: deconstruct the assumptions and knowledge systems which produce the illusion of singular meaning

Post-structuralist Writers  Jean Baudrillard  Judith Butler  F é lix Guattari  Fredric Jameson  Sarah Kofman  Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe  Jean-Fran ç ois Lyotard  Jean-Luc Nancy  Bernard Stiegler

Have fun!