Post structuralism: More Quotes and Notes
by
e. smith sleigh
post–struc·tur·al·ism
noun\ˌpōs(t)-ˈstrək-chə-rə-ˌli-zəm, -ˈstrək-shrə-\
Definition of POST-STRUCTURALISM
: a movement or theory (as deconstruction) that views the descriptive premise of structuralism as contradicted by reliance on borrowed concepts or differential terms and categories and sees inquiry as inevitably shaped by discursive and interpretive practices
— post–struc·tur·al·ist adjective or noun
Use of POST-STRUCTURALISM
"Post-structuralism." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 15 July 2014.
In the Post-Structuralist approach to textual analysis, the reader replaces the author as the primary subject of inquiry and, without a central fixation on the author, Post-Structuralists examine other sources for meaning (e.g., readers, cultural norms, other literature, etc), which are are therefore never authoritative, and promise no consistency. A reader's culture and society, then, share at least an equal part in the interpretation of a piece to the cultural and social circumstances of the author.
Notable Post-Structuralists include Gilles Deleuze (1925 - 1995), Julia Kristeva (1941 - ), Umberto Eco (1932 - ), Jean Baudrillard (1929 - 2007) and Judith Butler (1956 - ) Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 - June 25, 1984) .
--from: The Basics of Philosophy/Movements
After his 1966 lecture, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Science", Jacques Derrida found himself identified as a key figure in the early Post-Structuralist movement, and was one of the first to propose some theoretical limitations to Structuralism, He pointed to an apparent de-stabilizing or de-centering in intellectual life (referring to the displacement of the author of a text as having greatest effect on a text itself, in favor of the various readers of the text), which came to be known as Post-Structuralism.
1. ...literature and history is impossible to sustain. In the wake of post-structuralism...
--Warner William Department of English, UCSB : 2003
2. the impact of formalism, structuralism, semiotics, post structuralism occurred almost simultaneously with the consolidation of graduate programs in literature in major universities.
...post structuralism occurred almost simultaneously with the consolidation of graduate programs in literature...
--Randal Johnson Notes on the Structures of Literary Authority in Brazil, 1945-1980/1"
Author: Published: Mester 24:1, 1995
3. Post-structuralism is among other things a kind of theoretical hangover from the failed uprising of '68Ma way of keeping the revolution warm at the level of language, blending the euphoric libertarianism of that moment with the stoical melancholia of its aftermath.
--Terry Eagleton Source/Notes:
Guardian (October 27, 1992)
4. Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.
--Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 - June 25, 1984)
5. The lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the ''outlaw,'' the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order.
-- Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 - June 25, 1984)
6. Foucault introduces The Archaeology of Knowledge with:
"…the questioning of the document. Of course, it is obvious enough that ever since a discipline such as history has existed, documents have been used, questioned, and have given rise to questions; scholars have asked not only what these documents meant, but also whether they were telling the truth, and by what right they could claim to be doing so, whether they were sincere or deliberately misleading, well informed or ignorant, authentic or tampered with. But each of these questions, and all this critical concern, pointed to one and the same end: the reconstitution, on the basis of what the documents say, and sometimes merely hint at, of the past from which they emanate and which has now disappeared far behind them; the document was always treated as the language of a voice since reduced to silence, its fragile, but possibly decipherable trace. Now... history...has taken as its primary task, not the interpretation of the document, nor the attempt to decide whether it is telling the truth or what is its expressive value, but to work on it from within and to develop it."
Thus Foucault requires that historians give up the, supposedly naive realist, presumption that the primary task of history is to surmise. "I have undertaken, then, to describe the relations between statements."
7. the opening words of Chapter Two. He continues by noting three consequences of this turn:
"[1] The problem now is to constitute series"; and "[2] discontinuity assumes a major role in the historical disciplines" and "[3] the theme and the possibility of a total history begin to disappear, and we see the emergence of something very different that might be called a general history. The project of a total history is one that seeks to reconstitute the overall form of a civilization, the principle material or spiritual - of a society, the significance common to all the phenomena of a period, the law that accounts for their cohesion - what is called metaphorically the 'face' of a period. Such a project is linked to two or three hypotheses; - it is supposed that between all the events of a well-defined spatial-temporal area, between all the phenomena of which traces have been found, it must be possible to establish a system of homogeneous relations: a network of causality that makes it possible to derive each of them, relations of analogy that show how they symbolize one another, or how they all express one and the same central core; it is also supposed that one and the same form of historicity operates upon economic structures, social institutions and customs, the inertia of mental attitudes, technological practice, political behavior, and subjects them all to the same type of transformation; lastly, it is supposed that history itself may be articulated into great units - stages or phases - which contain within themselves their own principle of cohesion. These are the postulates that are challenged by the new history when it speaks of series, divisions, limits, differences of level, shifts, chronological specificities, particular forms of rechanneling, possible types of relation."
Post-structuralism emerged in the 1960s, largely in France, as a challenge to structuralism in the humanities. No single cohesive work on post-structuralism exists, although there are those who are attempting to interpret Poststructuralism as you read this.
Barthes, Foucault, Derrida and Lévi-Strauss, along with others, all contributed to what every writer on the subject attempts to avoid calling a movement. There is no unified post-structuralist movement--anyone ready to start one--this action would be significant, in say literature or history.
Read more at http://quotes.dictionary.com/search/post+structuralism?page=1#2rCVi8YM1TiREhUd.99
Discourse and Disoccultation: An Interview with Timothy Reiss
Author: Thomas F. Bertonneau,
Published: Paroles gelées (1094-7294) 4:1, 1986
8. ...literature as such began under another thinker: Louis Althusser discussing a movement… in relation to post-structuralism...
From: Literary Theory: An Anthology (Paperback) by Julie Rivkin, Michael Ryan, 2004, reprint 2005 2nd ed. published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
9. Derrida, "Of Grammatology"
Further, it [writing as Derrida describes] inaugurates the destruction, not the demolition, but de-sedimentation, the de-construction, of all the significations that have their source in that of the logos. (Rivkin & Ryan p. 306)
10. Derrida, "Différance"
Since language...has not fallen from the sky, it is clear that the differences [between signs] have been produced; they are the effects produced, but effects that do not have as their cause a subject or a substance, a thing in general, or a being that is somewhere present and itself escapes the play of difference.... Differance is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each element that is said to be "present," appearing on the stage of presence, is related to something other than itself but retains the mark[s] of...past [and future] element[s].... (Rivkin & Ryan p. 394)
11. Cixous, “The Newly Born Woman”
It all comes back to man--to his torment, his desire to be (at) the origin…. Philosophy is constructed on the premise of woman’s abasement. Subordination of the feminine to the masculine order which gives the appearance of being the condition for the machinery’s function. (Rivkin & Ryan p. 350)
12. Johnson, “Writing”
When one writes, one writes more than (or less than, or other than) one thinks. The reader’s task is to read what is written rather than simply attempt to intuit what might have been meant. The possibility of reading materiality, silence, space, and conflict within texts has opened up extremely productive ways of studying the politics of language. If each text is seen as presenting a major claim that attempts to dominate, erase, or distort various “other” claims (whose traces nevertheless remain detectable to a reader who goes against the grain of the dominant claim), then “reading” in its extended sense is deeply involved in questions of authority and power. (Rivkin & Ryan p. 346)
13. Nietzsche, "On Truth and Lying in an Extra-moral Sense"
Only by forgetting the primitive world of metaphors, only by the congelation and coagulation of an original mass of similes and precepts pouring forth as a fiery liquid out of the primal faculty of human fancy, only by the invincible faith, that this sun, this window, this table is a truth in itself: in short, only by the fact that man forgets himself as subject, and what is more as an artistically creating subject: only by all this does he live with some repose, safety, and consequence. (Rivkin & Ryan p. 264)
14. Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you have nothing to say. Most of all, do not hide the fact you have nothing to say nor your total indifference to others. Let this emptiness, this profound indifference shine out spontaneously in your smile.
-- Jean Baudrillard
15. What the public wants is the image of passion, not passion itself.
--Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 - March 25, 1980)
16. Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.
-- Jean Baudrillard
17. Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.
--Michel Foucault (October 15, 1926 - June 25, 1984)
18. With the truth, you need to get rid of it as soon as possible and pass it on to someone else. As with illness, this is the only way to be cured of it. The person who keeps truth in his hands has lost.
-- Jean Baudrillard
19. Foucault introduces The Archaeology of Knowledge with:
"…the questioning of the document. Of course, it is obvious enough that ever since a discipline such as history has existed, documents have been used, questioned, and have given rise to questions; scholars have asked not only what these documents meant, but also whether they were telling the truth, and by what right they could claim to be doing so, whether they were sincere or deliberately misleading, well informed or ignorant, authentic or tampered with. But each of these questions, and all this critical concern, pointed to one and the same end: the reconstitution, on the basis of what the documents say, and sometimes merely hint at, of the past from which they emanate and which has now disappeared far behind them; the document was always treated as the language of a voice since reduced to silence, its fragile, but possibly decipherable trace. Now... history ... has taken as its primary task, not the interpretation of the document, nor the attempt to decide whether it is telling the truth or what is its expressive value, but to work on it from within and to develop it."
20. Notes on Post structuralism:
- the idea of totality the new history of literature
- the refusal of the grand narrative
- the subject of literary history may no longer stand -- that subject which once existed, no longer exists
-- end --
Post structural Poetry by e. smith sleigh: AN AMERICAN STILL LIFE
http://bit.ly/iionKS
also
The Nature Series: 2 collections
and
THESE THINGS ARE A ONE THING