Post Structuralism
Definitions and Key Terms
- Post structuralism is the critical theory and philosophical movement that denies the validity of the structuralism movement and questions universal claims of objective knowledge. In post structuralism, culture is considered inseparable from meaning.
- In post structuralism, the text is seen not as a closed system of meanings, but a weaving of codes. A major determinant of meanings is intertextuality. The author's authority is dismissed, and the reader is an active producer of meanings.
Post Modernism: A time after the modernist movement where the cultural, intellectual, or artistic state is missing a clear central hierarchy. Post modernism emphasizes complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, diversity and interconnectedness. Post structuralism can be considered a movement to come out of post modernism
Binary Opposition: Also known as “binary system” and similar to a “dichotomy”, it is a pair of theoretical opposites, such as male/female.
Structuralists proposed that binary oppositions give structure to texts.
In post structuralism,binary opposition is seen as one of several influential characteristics of Western thought where one of the two opposites assumes a role of dominance over the other. Post structuralists feel that this is wrong and is a false dichotomy. Thus, post structuralism calls for the “deconstruction” of binary opposition.
Deconstruction: Not completely synonymous with post structuralism, but very similar. Where post structuralism is the philosophical development, deconstruction is the application of this philosophy as a textual strategy.
Methods of deconstruction include:
-Exploring specific tensions within a text
-Questioning ideas that are claimed to be self-evident
-Analyzing key terms, motifs and characters are defined by binary opposition within a text and then revealing how these oppositions rely on one another and are unstable.
-Looking at how a text destabilizes, surpasses and sometimes completely changes the author's intended meaning.
Intertextuality: The relationship between different texts
