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    Structuralism, Post Structuralism N Post Modernism

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    Structuralism analyzes culture and representations through studying underlying structures and systems of meaning. It was influenced by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's work analyzing language. Post-structuralism emerged in the 1960s and criticized structuralism, arguing that meaning is unstable, open to many interpretations, and structures can be deconstructed. It marked a shift from focus on the author to the reader's role in constructing meaning. Postmodernism further questioned concepts like objective truth and universal progress championed by modernism.

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    Structuralism, Post Structuralism N Post Modernism

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    Structuralism analyzes culture and representations through studying underlying structures and systems of meaning. It was influenced by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's work analyzing language. Post-structuralism emerged in the 1960s and criticized structuralism, arguing that meaning is unstable, open to many interpretations, and structures can be deconstructed. It marked a shift from focus on the author to the reader's role in constructing meaning. Postmodernism further questioned concepts like objective truth and universal progress championed by modernism.

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    Related to the structuralism and post structuralism in history and how it applies today

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    structuralism, Post Structuralism n Post Modernism

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    Structuralism analyzes culture and representations through studying underlying structures and systems of meaning. It was influenced by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's work analyzing language. Post-structuralism emerged in the 1960s and criticized structuralism, arguing that meaning is unstable, open to many interpretations, and structures can be deconstructed. It marked a shift from focus on the author to the reader's role in constructing meaning. Postmodernism further questioned concepts like objective truth and universal progress championed by modernism.

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    250 views31 pages

    Structuralism, Post Structuralism N Post Modernism

    Uploaded by

    phoenix102
    Structuralism analyzes culture and representations through studying underlying structures and systems of meaning. It was influenced by linguist Ferdinand de Saussure's work analyzing language. Post-structuralism emerged in the 1960s and criticized structuralism, arguing that meaning is unstable, open to many interpretations, and structures can be deconstructed. It marked a shift from focus on the author to the reader's role in constructing meaning. Postmodernism further questioned concepts like objective truth and universal progress championed by modernism.

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    Structuralism

    and

    Post Structuralism

    Culture Studies and Theory


    Culture studies cultural representations/artifacts, identity, social relations and negotiations for power Power relations between classes, genders, castes, races, nations, ethnicities Uses aspects of contemporary literary and cultural theory to analyze power and its manifestations in the cultural

    Structuralism
    Ferdinand De Sassure Swiss Linguist Course de Linguistic Generale (1916) Translated into English - 1959 Diachronic / Synchronic study Sign - signifier and signified A sign is not a link between a thing and a name, but between a concept and a sound pattern - Sassure

    No inherent connection between a word and what it designatesmeanings to words arbitrary maintained by convention Meanings of words are relational Meaning attributed to the object or idea by the human mind (terrorist /freedom fighter) Langue and parole - Study of Semiotics

    Meaning is produced through the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis Syntagmatic linear combination of signs to form sentences Paradigmatic field of signs (i.e. synonyms) from which a given sign is selected

    Linguistic Turn Cultural Studies

    Language is the means and medium through which we form knowledge about ourselves and the social world.

    Language constructs the very nature of our perception of reality.


    Language gives meaning to material objects and social practices

    Cultural Texts
    Anything that generates meaning through certain forms of representation is a text Cultural representations- books, music videos, television programs, sports, politicians speeches, our identities become texts constructed in language through the process of relationality and difference A wedding or a sport becomes a text grammar, difference and relations Like language culture works through a system of relations and differences.

    Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes-study of myth (message) Literature, media, fashion, any social event - becomes a Text Culture made up of structural networks carries significance shown to operate in a systematic way Any cultural act placed within a wider structure of values, beliefs key for understanding that particular

    Post Structuralism

    Emerged in the late 1960s Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida The Death of the author The Birth of the reader - readerly /writerly 1966- Derrida Structure, Sign and play in the Discourse of Human Sciences

    World is constructed through language Reality accessible only through the linguistic medium Derrida - reality itself is textual - open to varied interpretations. No ultimate meaning to a word. Meaning of a word is not only based on difference, but also on deference (respect) Verbal sign floats meanings- fluid slippage and spillage Dictionary stabilizes meanings ?

    Binary oppositions one item privileged over the other man /woman , master /servant, light/dark , teacher /student This hierarchy can be reversed Cultural act structure - structure itself is not fixed subject to constant interpretations Intellectual event rupture read against the grain

    Signifier at war with the signified Text - looks out for gaps ,inconsistencies varied interpretations

    A text will always have some elements which will work against it
    Deconstruction -Oppositional readings multiple meanings Structuralism constructs a structure - Post Structuralism deconstructs and reconstructs that structure

    Modernism and Post Modernism


    Modernism cultural formations and cultural experiences of modernity associated with the enlightenment philosophy of Rousseau, Weber, Habermas- universal truths through reason Post Modernism Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault, Rorty sociohistorical and linguistic specificity of truth

    Twentieth century Socio-Political Changes


    Industrial revolution - effects Urban population

    Universal Suffrage
    Socialism trade unions

    First and second world wars


    Great Depression 1930

    Modernity and the Enlightenment project


    Enlightenment philosophy writings of eighteenth century writers Voltaire , Rousseau, Hume Enlightenment thought marked by belief that Reason can demystify and illuminate the world against religion ,myth and superstition Dismissed religion, tradition & emotion Stressed on science & rationality

    Modernity associated with the emancipatory project enlightenment reason lead to universal truths foundation for humanitys forward path of progress Enlightenment philosophy and the theoretical discourses of modernity championed reason source of progress in knowledge and society.

    The Institutions of Modernity


    1

    Industrialism - the transformation of nature ; development of created environment simple familycentered labor to strict impersonal division of labor alterations in working habits- time organization family life leisure activity- women workers change in gender rolesshift from rural to urban living

    The Institutions of Modernity


    Surveillance control of information and social supervision - division of labor, supervision of activities, consolidation of hierarchy 3 Capitalism Industrial organization of modernity organized along capitalist lines- capital accumulation cheap labor new markets new sources of profit globalization world economic order
    2

    The Institutions of Modernity


    The Nation- state and military power nation state is a relatively recent modern contrivance layman did not participate in the consolidation of the nation- state container of power constituted by political apparatus a. State military power b. Political ambition c. Emotional investments in national identity
    4

    Modernism and Culture


    Modernism human cultural forms bound up with modernization Tradition values stability and fixed nature of values ,lifestyle ,idenitity Modernity is premised on perpetual revision of knowledge change of values , idenitity a process

    Characteristics of Modernism

    The promise of technological and social progress Replacement of old traditions with new ones Urban development The unfolding of the self- no specific identity

    Aesthetics of Modernism

    Rejection of established forms


    Radical experimentation with new forms Arts, architecture , literature Avant-garde (innovative) literature Fragmentary forms, Discontinued narration

    Prose written like a poem novel written like a poem poem free verse - haiku poems Sentences plucked from newspapers Rejection of chronological plots, closed endings War literature ravages of war Existentialism introspection of self Nihilism-sense of nothingness and extreme despair All these were expressed in art & literature Absurd theatre Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter , - Waiting for Godot meaningless dialogues, no linearity of plot, cyclic plot

    Literary Criticism

    Russian Formalism- Practical Criticism (England) New criticism (America) 1920s I.A.Richards, William Empson, Concentrate on the words of the page Close reading of the text Clinical isolation from historical processes, social or economic condition

    Critique of Modernism/Enlightenment project

    The idea of universal truth impossible Nietzsche reason and truth only interpretations consequence of power whose interpretation count as truth Foucault exploration of historical conditions in which knowledge of a certain field is constructed discourse discontinuous ruptures in the historical understanding of madness, sexuality examines prisons, schools, hospitals operations of power and discipline

    POST MODERNISM
    Modernism faded in the 1930s In the 1960s resurgence Post modernism Innovation in arts , architecture, literature Modernism tone of lament, pessimism despair Post modernist liberating phenomenon, escape from fixed systems of belief Habermas, Lyotard,Baudrillard

    Habermas- public sphere, supported intellectuals, project enlightenment Lyotard-in 1982-wrote fiercely against Habermas Enlightenment Project Jean Baudrillard- distinction btw real and unreal is diminished on-screen with the advent of TV, internet, etc. This is called hyper-reality Book-Simulacra-Simulations

    Post Modernism Cultural Movement

    Against traditional authority- power /culture/education/morals/religion No absolute truth- truth is provisional facts/falsehood No grand narrative pluralistic society

    A pluralistic society is one which thrives on the theory that reality consists of two or more elements. Pluralists believe that various religious, cultural, social and racial groups should be allowed to thrive in a single society together.

    Against social constructivism. eg. Men cant cry, women cant be aggressive, etc Against national borders - globalization

    Reader Response theory


    Louis Rosenblatt- The Reader, the Text ,the Poem Transactional reading( 1978) David Bleich Subjective Criticism (1978) Negotiations Stanley Fish Is there a Text in this class? The authority of Interpretive communities(1980) Subjective /subject position Experiences-perceptions more informed, more richer

    Underlying Ideas in critical theory


    Beginnings 1970s Our individual selfhood, gender, notion of literature are all socially constructed Anti essentialist no fixed and reliable truth Thinking and investigation are largely dependent on the ideology of the reader Interpreting a text - Subjectivity and subject positions of the reader

    Meaning within a literary work unstable, multi-faceted ,ambiguous Distrust Power- centered notions What is literature? Meaning of text

    Politics is pervasive Language is constitutive Truth is provisional Meaning is contingent Human nature is a myth

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