Philosophy:Post-structuralism

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Short description: Philosophical school and tradition
Postmodernism
Preceded by Modernism
Postmodernity
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Criticism of postmodernism

Post-structuralism is a philosophical movement that questions the objectivity or stability of the various interpretive structures that are posited by structuralism and considers them to be constituted by broader systems of power.[1] Although post-structuralists all present different critiques of structuralism, common themes among them include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, as well as an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Accordingly, post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media (or the world) within pre-established, socially constructed structures.[2][3][4][5]

Structuralism proposes that human culture can be understood by means of a structure that is modeled on language. As a result, there is concrete reality on the one hand, abstract ideas about reality on the other hand, and a "third order" that mediates between the two.[6]

A post-structuralist critique, then, might suggest that in order to build meaning out of such an interpretation, one must (falsely) assume that the definitions of these signs are both valid and fixed, and that the author employing structuralist theory is somehow above and apart from these structures they are describing so as to be able to wholly appreciate them. The rigidity and tendency to categorize intimations of universal truths found in structuralist thinking is a common target of post-structuralist thought, while also building upon structuralist conceptions of reality mediated by the interrelationship between signs.[7]

Writers whose works are often characterised as post-structuralist include Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean Baudrillard, although many theorists who have been called "post-structuralist" have rejected the label.[8]

History

Post-structuralism emerged in France during the 1960s as a movement critiquing structuralism. According to J. G. Merquior, a love–hate relationship with structuralism developed among many leading French thinkers in the 1960s.[4] The period was marked by the rebellion of students and workers against the state in May 1968.

In a 1966 lecture titled "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences", Jacques Derrida presented a thesis on an apparent rupture in intellectual life. Derrida interpreted this event as a "decentering" of the former intellectual cosmos. Instead of progress or divergence from an identified centre, Derrida described this "event" as a kind of "play."

A year later, Roland Barthes published "The Death of the Author", in which he announced a metaphorical event: the "death" of the author as an authentic source of meaning for a given text. Barthes argued that any literary text has multiple meanings and that the author was not the prime source of the work's semantic content. The "Death of the Author," Barthes maintained, was the "Birth of the Reader," as the source of the proliferation of meanings of the text.

Barthes and the need for metalanguage

In Elements of Semiology (1967), Barthes advances the concept of the metalanguage, a systematized way of talking about concepts like meaning and grammar beyond the constraints of a traditional (first-order) language; in a metalanguage, symbols replace words and phrases. Insofar as one metalanguage is required for one explanation of the first-order language, another may be required, so metalanguages may actually replace first-order languages. Barthes exposes how this structuralist system is regressive; orders of language rely upon a metalanguage by which it is explained, and therefore deconstruction itself is in danger of becoming a metalanguage, thus exposing all languages and discourse to scrutiny. Barthes' other works contributed deconstructive theories about texts.

Derrida's lecture at Johns Hopkins

The occasional designation of post-structuralism as a movement can be tied to the fact that mounting criticism of Structuralism became evident at approximately the same time that Structuralism became a topic of interest in universities in the United States. This interest led to a colloquium at Johns Hopkins University in 1966 titled "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man", to which such French philosophers as Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan were invited to speak.

Derrida's lecture at that conference, "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences", was one of the earliest to propose some theoretical limitations to Structuralism, and to attempt to theorize on terms that were clearly no longer structuralist.

The element of "play" in the title of Derrida's essay is often erroneously interpreted in a linguistic sense, based on a general tendency towards puns and humour, while social constructionism as developed in the later work of Michel Foucault is said to create play in the sense of strategic agency by laying bare the levers of historical change.

Post-structuralism and structuralism

Structuralism, as an intellectual movement in France in the 1950s and 1960s, studied underlying structures in cultural products (such as texts) and used analytical concepts from linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and other fields to interpret those structures. Structuralism posits the concept of binary opposition, in which frequently-used pairs of opposite-but-related words (concepts) are often arranged in a hierarchy; for example: Enlightenment/Romantic, male/female, speech/writing, rational/emotional, signified/signifier, symbolic/imaginary, and east/west.

Post-structuralism rejects the structuralist notion that the dominant word in a pair is dependent on its subservient counterpart, and instead argues that founding knowledge on either pure experience (phenomenology) or on systematic structures (structuralism) is impossible,[9] because history and culture actually condition the study of underlying structures, and these are subject to biases and misinterpretations. Gilles Deleuze and others saw this impossibility not as a failure or loss, but rather as a cause for "celebration and liberation."[10] A post-structuralist approach argues that to understand an object (a text, for example), one must study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object.[11] The uncertain boundaries between structuralism and post-structuralism become further blurred by the fact that scholars rarely label themselves as post-structuralists. Some scholars associated with structuralism, such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, also became noteworthy in post-structuralism.[12]

Authors

The following are often said to be post-structuralists, or to have had a post-structuralist period:


Criticism

Some observers from outside of the post-structuralist camp have questioned the rigour and legitimacy of the field. American philosopher John Searle suggested in 1990: "The spread of 'poststructuralist' literary theory is perhaps the best-known example of a silly but non-catastrophic phenomenon."[44][45] Similarly, physicist Alan Sokal in 1997 criticized "the postmodernist/poststructuralist gibberish that is now hegemonic in some sectors of the American academy."[46]

Literature scholar Norman Holland in 1992 saw post-structuralism as flawed due to reliance on Saussure's linguistic model, which was seriously challenged by the 1950s and was soon abandoned by linguists:

Saussure's views are not held, so far as I know, by modern linguists, only by literary critics and the occasional philosopher. [Strict adherence to Saussure] has elicited wrong film and literary theory on a grand scale. One can find dozens of books of literary theory bogged down in signifiers and signifieds, but only a handful that refers to Chomsky."[47]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lewis, Philip; Descombes, Vincent; Harari, Josue V. (1982). "The Post-Structuralist Condition". Diacritics 12 (1): 2–24. doi:10.2307/464788. 
  2. ↑ Bensmaïa, Réda (2005). "Poststructuralism". in Kritzman, L.. The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought. Columbia University Press. pp. 92–93. ISBN 9780231107907. https://books.google.com/books?id=bREQibN9i-sC. 
  3. ↑ Poster, Mark (1988). "Introduction: Theory and the problem of Context". Critical theory and poststructuralism: in search of a context. Cornell University Press. pp. 5–6. ISBN 9780801423369. https://books.google.com/books?id=-OnWAAAAMAAJ. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Merquior, José G. 1987. Foucault, (Fontana Modern Masters series). University of California Press. ISBN:0-520-06062-8.
  5. ↑ Craig, Edward, ed. 1998. Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, vol. 7 (Nihilism to Quantum mechanics). London: Routledge. ISBN:0-415-18712-5. p. 597.
  6. ↑ Deleuze, Gilles. [2002] 2004. "How Do We Recognize Structuralism?" Pp. 170–92 in Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953–1974, translated by D. Lapoujade, edited by M. Taormina, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents series. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e). ISBN:1-58435-018-0. pp. 171–73.
  7. ↑ Harcourt, Bernard E. (12 March 2007). "An Answer to the Question: "What Is Poststructuralism?"". Chicago Unbound - Public Law and Legal Theory 156: 17–19. https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1029&context=public_law_and_legal_theory. 
  8. ↑ Harrison, Paul (2006). "Poststructuralist Theories". in Aitken, Stuart; Valentine, Gill. Approaches to Human Geography. London: SAGE Publications. pp. 122–135. doi:10.4135/9781446215432.n10. ISBN 9780761942634. https://freegeobook.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/0761942637.pdf. 
  9. ↑ Colebrook, Claire (2002). Gilles Deleuze. Routledge Critical Thinkers. Routledge. p. 2. ISBN 9781134578023. https://books.google.com/books?id=dDi6guWdpfIC. "Post-structuralism responded to the impossibility of founding knowledge either on pure experience (phenomenology) or systematic structures (structuralism)." 
  10. ↑ Colebrook, Claire (2002). Gilles Deleuze. Routledge Critical Thinkers. Routledge. p. 2. ISBN 9781134578023. https://books.google.com/books?id=dDi6guWdpfIC&pg=PA2. "In Deleuze's case, like many other post-structuralists, this recognised impossibility of organising life into closed structures was not a failure or loss but a cause for celebration and liberation." 
  11. ↑ Raulet, Gerard (1983). "Structuralism and Post-Structuralism: An Interview with Michel Foucault". Telos 1983 (55): 195–211. doi:10.3817/0383055195. 
  12. ↑ Williams, James (2005). Understanding Poststructuralism. Routledge. doi:10.1017/UPO9781844653683. ISBN 9781844653683. 
  13. ↑ Muth, Katie R. (2011). "Postmodern Fiction as Poststructuralist Theory: Kathy Acker's "Blood and Guts in High School"". Narrative 19 (1): 86–110. ISSN 1063-3685. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41289288. 
  14. ↑ McWhorter, Ladelle (2017), "Post-structuralism and Race: Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault", The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race (Routledge), doi:10.4324/9781315884424-9, ISBN 978-1-315-88442-4, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315884424-9/post-structuralism-race-ladelle-mcwhorter, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  15. ↑ "V. Postmodern & Poststructuralist Theories | Cultural Politics". https://culturalpolitics.net/index/cultural_theory/postmodern. 
  16. ↑ Translation, International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and (30 January 2021). "A Critical Analysis of the Post-structuralist Thought with Reference to 'The Death of the Author' by Roland Barthes | International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation" (in en-US). International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation 4 (1): 195–197. doi:10.32996/ijllt.2021.4.1.18. https://al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/ijllt/article/view/1017. 
  17. ↑ Relations, E.-International (2017-04-25). "Interview - Wendy Brown" (in en-US). https://www.e-ir.info/2017/04/25/interview/. 
  18. ↑ Barvosa-Carter, Edwina (2001-04-01). "Strange Tempest: Agency, Poststructuralism, and the Shape of Feminist Politics to Come" (in en). International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies 6 (1): 123–137. doi:10.1023/A:1010150325561. ISSN 1573-8167. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010150325561. 
  19. ↑ Pourgouris, Marinos (September 2010). "Rey Chow and the hauntological spectres of poststructuralism" (in en). Postcolonial Studies 13 (3): 275–288. doi:10.1080/13688790.2010.508832. ISSN 1368-8790. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13688790.2010.508832. 
  20. ↑ Mitrano, Mena, ed. (2022), "Poststructuralism: Faith and Lacan", Literary Critique, Modernism and the Transformation of Theory (Edinburgh University Press): pp. 215–238, ISBN 978-1-3995-1324-1, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/literary-critique-modernism-and-the-transformation-of-theory/poststructuralism-faith-and-lacan/17E690910E891B494A048DC0E3D1BAB3, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  21. ↑ "Repoliticizing the Left: An Interview with Jodi Dean". https://read.dukeupress.edu/the-minnesota-review/article-abstract/2013/81/79/47941/Repoliticizing-the-LeftAn-Interview-with-Jodi-Dean. 
  22. ↑ Williams, James, ed. (2005), "Poststructuralism as philosophy of difference: Gilles Deleuze's Difference and Repetition", Understanding Poststructuralism, Understanding Movements in Modern Thought (Acumen Publishing): pp. 53–78, doi:10.1017/UPO9781844653683.003, ISBN 978-1-84465-032-3, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/understanding-poststructuralism/poststructuralism-as-philosophy-of-difference-gilles-deleuzes-difference-and-repetition/8F9EC47224EAB5F5BAA5B0339B9EF937, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  23. ↑ "Post-structuralism - Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy" (in en). https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/post-structuralism/v-1#:~:text=Post-structuralism%20is%20a%20late,de%20Saussure's%20work%20on%20linguistics.. 
  24. ↑ Nöth, Winfried (2017-08-21), "Umberto Eco: Structuralist and Poststructuralist at Once" (in en), Umberto Eco in His Own Words, De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 111–118, doi:10.1515/9781501507144-014, ISBN 978-1-5015-0714-4, https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781501507144-014/html, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  25. ↑ Fiske, John (January 1986). "MTV: Post-Structural Post-Modern" (in en). Journal of Communication Inquiry 10 (1): 74–79. doi:10.1177/019685998601000110. ISSN 0196-8599. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/019685998601000110. 
  26. ↑ Williams, James, ed. (2005), "Poststructuralism, history, genealogy: Michel Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge", Understanding Poststructuralism, Understanding Movements in Modern Thought (Acumen Publishing): pp. 105–132, doi:10.1017/UPO9781844653683.005, ISBN 978-1-84465-032-3, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/understanding-poststructuralism/poststructuralism-history-genealogy-michel-foucaults-the-archaeology-of-knowledge/9D0E23D08B58AF31FAB4D5C02A3F1B00, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  27. ↑ Kintz, Linda (2003). Hanssen, Beatrice. ed. "Ethically Challenged: The Impasse between Poststructuralism and Critical Theory". Comparative Literature 55 (4): 338–349. doi:10.2307/4122573. ISSN 0010-4124. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4122573. 
  28. ↑ Arrigo, Adam J. Duso , Bruce A. (2017), "Post-structuralism and criminology", The Routledge Companion to Criminological Theory and Concepts (Routledge): pp. 357–361, doi:10.4324/9781315744902-80, ISBN 978-1-315-74490-2, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315744902-80/post-structuralism-criminology-adam-duso-bruce-arrigo, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  29. ↑ Berg, Maggie (1991). "Luce Irigaray's "Contradictions": Poststructuralism and Feminism". Signs 17 (1): 50–70. doi:10.1086/494713. ISSN 0097-9740. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174445. 
  30. ↑ Williams, James, ed. (2005), "Poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistics: Julia Kristeva's Revolution in Poetic Language", Understanding Poststructuralism, Understanding Movements in Modern Thought (Acumen Publishing): pp. 133–152, doi:10.1017/UPO9781844653683.006, ISBN 978-1-84465-032-3, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/understanding-poststructuralism/poststructuralism-psychoanalysis-linguistics-julia-kristevas-revolution-in-poetic-language/0970F1E0A63560DE58ECF39D08DEFD85, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  31. ↑ "Teresa de Lauretis" (in en). https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095708188. 
  32. ↑ bloomsbury.com. "Nietzsche and Metaphor" (in en). https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/nietzsche-and-metaphor-9780485120981/. 
  33. ↑ Marta, Jan (1987-03-01). "Lacan and post-Structuralism" (in en). The American Journal of Psychoanalysis 47 (1): 51–57. doi:10.1007/BF01252332. ISSN 1573-6741. PMID 2437811. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01252332. 
  34. ↑ Fynsk, Christopher (2007). "Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, 1940–2007" (in en-GB). Radical Philosophy (144). ISSN 0300-211X. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/obituary/philippe-lacoue-labarthe-1940-2007. 
  35. ↑ Jacobs, Thomas (2018-10-02). "The Dislocated Universe of Laclau and Mouffe: An Introduction to Post-Structuralist Discourse Theory" (in en). Critical Review 30 (3–4): 294–315. doi:10.1080/08913811.2018.1565731. ISSN 0891-3811. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08913811.2018.1565731. 
  36. ↑ Williams, James (2005), "Poststructuralism as philosophy of the event: Jean-François Lyotard's Discours, figure", Understanding Poststructuralism (Routledge): pp. 79–103, doi:10.4324/9781315712192-4, ISBN 978-1-315-71219-2, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315712192-4/poststructuralism-philosophy-event-jean-fran%C3%A7ois-lyotard-discours-figure-james-williams, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  37. ↑ Weate, Jeremy (2003). "Achille Mbembe and the Postcolony: Going beyond the Text". Research in African Literatures 34 (4): 27–41. doi:10.2979/RAL.2003.34.4.27. ISSN 0034-5210. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4618326. 
  38. ↑ "The Political Philosophy of Poststructuralist Anarchism By Todd May". https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01045-2.html. 
  39. ↑ Leggett, Will (March 2013). "Restoring society to post-structuralist politics: Mouffe, Gramsci and radical democracy" (in en). Philosophy & Social Criticism 39 (3): 299–315. doi:10.1177/0191453712473080. ISSN 0191-4537. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0191453712473080. 
  40. ↑ Fagan, Madeleine (2013). Ethics and Politics after Poststructuralism: Levinas, Derrida and Nancy. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-8513-4. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt5hh2xg. 
  41. ↑ admin. "Avital Ronell" (in en-US). https://egs.edu/biography/avital-ronell-2/. 
  42. ↑ Turner, Ben (2017-01-02). "Ideology and Post-structuralism after Bernard Stiegler" (in en). Journal of Political Ideologies 22 (1): 92–110. doi:10.1080/13569317.2016.1253135. ISSN 1356-9317. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569317.2016.1253135. 
  43. ↑ Mongia, Padmini (1996), "Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Poststructuralism, Marginality, Postcoloniality and Value*", Contemporary Postcolonial Theory (Routledge), doi:10.4324/9781003135593-14, ISBN 978-1-003-13559-3, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781003135593-14/gayatri-chakravorty-spivak-padmini-mongia, retrieved 2023-05-18 
  44. ↑ Searle, John. (1990). "The Storm Over the University." The New York Review of Books, 6 December 1990.
  45. ↑ Searle, John (6 December 1990). "The Storm Over the University". The New York Review of Books (New York). ISSN 0028-7504. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/12/06/the-storm-over-the-university/. Retrieved 6 June 2020. 
  46. ↑ Sokal, Alan. 1997. "Professor Latour's Philosophical Mystifications." (Originally published in French in Le Monde, 31 January 1997; translated by the author.)
  47. ↑ Holland, Norman N. (1992) The Critical I, Columbia University Press, ISBN:0-231-07650-9, p. 140.

Sources

  • Angermuller, J. (2015): Why There Is No Poststructuralism in France. The Making of an Intellectual Generation. London: Bloomsbury.
  • Angermuller, J. (2014): Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis. Subjectivity in Enunciative Pragmatics. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
  • Barry, P. Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2002.
  • Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967.
  • Cuddon, J. A. Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theory. London: Penguin, 1998.
  • Eagleton, T. Literary theory: an introduction Basil Blackwell, Oxford,1983.
  • Matthews, E. Twentieth-Century French Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996.
  • Morland, Dave (2004). "Anti-capitalism and poststructuralist anarchism". Changing Anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age. Manchester University Press. pp. 23–38. ISBN 0-7190-6694-8. https://archive.org/details/changinganarchis00bowe. 
  • Ryan, M. Literary theory: a practical introduction. Blackwell Publishers Inc, Massachusetts,1999.
  • Wolfreys, J & Baker, W (eds). Literary theories: a case study in critical performance. Macmillan Press, Hong Kong,1996.

External links



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