Post-structuralism
Literature in English ~ ASL
Structuralism VS Post-structuralism
 Post-structuralism
is a response to
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
 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 poststructuralist 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
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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
A broad historical description of intellectual
developments in continental philosophy and critical
theory
An outcome of Twentieth-century French
philosophy
The prefix "postmsilarutcurts fo lacitirc :“
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
. 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
 To
understand an object (e.g. one of
the many meanings of a text), we
need to study …
– the object itself
– 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
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...“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 degdol
[ ...ecaps naedilcuE a ni wohemosWords] signify
from the "world" and from the position of one
who is looking”.
Lévinas, 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
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Post-structuralist Writers
Jean Baudrillard
 Judith Butler
 Félix Guattari
 Fredric Jameson
 Sarah Kofman
 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
 Jean-François Lyotard
 Jean-Luc Nancy
 Bernard Stiegler
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Have fun!