Post structuralists believe there is never one, definitive outcome. This view
of learning is full of creativity, opportunity, and forward movement.
Field Statement Two (Draft 1 – April 20th 2004)
--James K. Rowe
Political and Social Thought
Social Forces and Political Change
Field: Theories for Social Change
Topic: Poststructuralism
Title: ‘Why Poststructuralism is a Live Wire for the Left’
see p. 29:
--Bey, Hakim. 1991. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism.
Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia.
-"This essay is inspired by the vision of academic theory as “an activity conducted alongside those who struggle for power” --Foucault, 1977b, 208.
-Foucault, Michel and Gilles Deleuze. 1977b. “Intellectuals and Power,” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault. Ed. Donald Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
-Rowe: My sense then, is that this period of relative calm on the academic left is occasion for a collegial rethinking of theory’s role in social movement.
-To contextualize my argument, I then outline and historicize the positions of post-structuralism’s critics positions that still hold sway on the left and make acceptance of post-structural insights difficult.
My primary interlocutor in this regard is Barbara Epstein in her “Why Post-structuralism is a Dead End for Progressive Thought” incarnation (1995). I conclude my essay by demonstrating how post-structural insights into theory and practice can further intensify left struggles.
“It must be useful,” writes Deleuze, “It must function. And not for itself. If no one uses it, beginning with the theoretician himself (who then ceases to be a theoretician), then the theory is worthless or the moment is inappropriate” (ibid).
--Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Shizophrenia.
University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis.
Shaw, Karena. 2004. “Whose Knowledge for What Politics.” Review of International Studies:
-The basic tenets of post-structural theory – anti-essentialism, the celebration of difference, “the rejection of metanarratives, the insistence that everything must be understood as socially constructed, the rejection of any claims of truth or value” – make it, for Epstein, a dangerous intellectual framework upon which to build analysis and movement aimed at the present’s many injustices (1995, 84).
-Post-structuralists' perception is completely unmoored from the objective world.
There is neither the time or space to prove the value of the agitative elements of post-structural theorizing frustrating thinkers like Epstein.
Post-structuralism operates on a few basic tenets which revolve around the concept that literature and art can never reach full closure.
-Indeed, post-structuralists find pride in the ability to create totally unexpected outcomes from an analysis, but there is never one definitive outcome.
According to post-structuralist theory, literature can have no singular meaning for a number of reasons:
- The first reason is that no two readers will be alike. Each person flipping through the pages will bring his or her own life experiences to the work, and with that, his or her own interpretation of the meaning of words and themes.
- Another reason for this stance against singular meaning goes along with the word “différance,” which refers to the process of words deriving meaning from other words. Because words are essentially meaningless symbols that can never fully represent the ideas they are meant to convey, they are always at a distance to what they signify and are open to a multitude of interpretations through sheer lack of specificity.
- Through a process called erasure, Derrida proved the theory of différance, taking words and notions out of context and revealing their “traces.”Traces are basically indicators of what a word or concept is not.
- Color, for example, only exists as a concept because humans differentiate it from size and shape, and is therefore defined as being a property other than shape or size. This concept of traces can be applied to more complicated subjects for analysis.
Many critics of Post-structuralism have said that it boils down to sense of negativism, since everything is essentially meaningless and therefore lacking any reason to exist. Still others preach against the theory for its lack of structure and “anything goes” attitude, but half of the fun of analyzing literature with Post-structuralist methods is the high likelihood of unexpected results. If you continue to apply traces to works of literature, you are sure to find interesting correlations, and make your report/essay/whatever that much more engaging.
Post structuralism is not necessarily simple, simplistic nor does it contain simplicity. Post-structuralism is anti-metanarrative, anti-structure.
--e. smith sleigh author, poet, post-structuralism blogger, pioneer of the online discussion about post-structuralism as it relates to literature and education
http://esmithsleigh.weebly.com/