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Related to the structuralism and post structuralism in history and how it applies today
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StructuralismStructuralism and Post Structuralism
Culture Studies and Culture Studies and TheoryTheoryCulture 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 domain
StructuralismStructuralism• Ferdinand De Sassure – Swiss
LinguistCourse 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 designates- meanings 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 Linguistic Turn – Cultural StudiesStudiesLanguage 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
Structuralism
Cultural TextsCultural TextsAnything that generates meaning through
certain forms of representation is a ‘text’Cultural representations- books, music
videos, television programs, sports, politician’s 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 culture
Post Structuralism Post Structuralism Emerged in the late 1960’s
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 languageReality 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 ?
Similar to
structuralism
• 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 and Post Modernism 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 – socio- historical and linguistic specificity of truth
Industrial revolution - effects
Urban population
Universal Suffrage
• Socialism – trade unions
First and second world wars
Great Depression – 1930
Twentieth centuryTwentieth century Socio-Political Changes Socio-Political Changes
Modernity and the Modernity and the Enlightenment project 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 humanity’s forward path of progress
Enlightenment philosophy and the theoretical discourses of modernity – championed “reason” – source of progress in knowledge and society.
The Institutions of The Institutions of ModernityModernity• Industrialism - the transformation
of nature ; development of created environment – simple family-centered labor to strict impersonal division of labor – alterations in working habits- time organization – family life – leisure activity- women workers – change in gender roles- shift from rural to urban living
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The Institutions of The Institutions of ModernityModernitySurveillance – control of
information and social supervision - division of labor, supervision of activities, consolidation of hierarchy
Capitalism – Industrial organization of modernity – organized along capitalist lines- capital accumulation - cheap labor – new markets – new sources of profit – globalization – world economic order
2
3
The Institutions of The Institutions of ModernityModernityThe 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
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Modernism and Culture Modernism and Culture Modernism – human cultural forms
bound up with modernizationTradition – 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 Characteristics of ModernismModernismThe promise of technological and
social progress
Replacement of old traditions with new ones
Urban development
The unfolding of the self- no specific identity
Rejection of established formsRadical experimentation with new
forms Arts, architecture , literatureAvant-garde (innovative) literatureFragmentary forms, Discontinued
narration
Aesthetics of Aesthetics of Modernism Modernism
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
Russian Formalism- Practical Criticism (England) – New criticism (America) 1920’s – I.A.Richards, William Empson,
Concentrate on the words of the page
Close reading of the textClinical isolation from historical
processes, social or economic condition
Literary CriticismLiterary Criticism
Critique of Critique of Modernism/Enlightenment Modernism/Enlightenment projectprojectThe 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
• Modernism faded in the 1930’sIn the 1960’s resurgence – Post
modernism Innovation in arts , architecture,
literatureModernism – tone of lament, pessimism
despairPost modernist – liberating phenomenon,
escape from fixed systems of beliefHabermas, Lyotard,Baudrillard
POST MODERNISMPOST MODERNISM
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
• 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 can’t cry, women can’t be aggressive, etcAgainst national borders - globalization
Post Modernism – Cultural Post Modernism – Cultural Movement Movement
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
Reader – Response theoryReader – Response theory
• Beginnings – 1970’s• Our individual selfhood, gender, notion
of literature are all socially constructedAnti – essentialist – no fixed and
reliable truthThinking and investigation are largely
dependent on the ideology of the reader
Interpreting a text - Subjectivity and subject positions of the reader
Underlying Ideas in critical Underlying Ideas in critical theorytheory
Meaning within a literary work –unstable, multi-faceted ,ambiguous
Distrust Power- centered notionsWhat is literature? – Meaning of
‘text’ Politics is pervasive Language is constitutive Truth is provisional Meaning is contingent Human nature is a myth