Poststructuralism Flashcards
Bakhtin, Eagleton, DERRIDA, Miller
Bakhtin is interested in
the contextual character of
linguistic utterances.
Linguistic material is not enough to determine….
if a
word or sound is gloomy, ironical, threatening, etc.
Meaning depends on…
prior utterances in the dialogue,
the life of language as praxis.
Utterances are
ideologically saturated and resonate
with things said previously and anticipate replies.
Heteroglossia
refers to the presence of two or more expressed viewpoints in a text or other artistic work.
Poststructuralism is
an umbrella term for various
scholars working in the 1960s and 1970s who
challenged the Structuralist methodology, yet did
not offer an alternative methodology of their
own.
Poststructuralism was directed against…
the
Structuralist faith in binaries as a manifestation
of the production of meaning through difference.
Poststructuralism brings out
a critique of
logocentrism.
Logocentrism
has faith in the centrality of the logos
(“divine word”, “the transcendental signified”).
Logocentric philosophers provide for…
the expression
of the logos through a sensuous incarnation into
the physical/material world.
Logos
is a transcendental signified, the idea of the essence of meaning to which the sign points
For poststructuralists, the logic of logocentrism
operates….
through binaries
A binary is
a set of two related terms, in which the
first term (which is perceived to be closer to the
logos) is privileged over the second.
In any binary….
one term is given privilege over the other, one term has something that the other one lacks
Poststructuralism questions the integrity of
structuralist reasoning:
structuralism seemingly
extends a critique of logocentrism, yet reinforces
it through the rule of the binarist logic.
For Derrida - the notion of the centre
is paradoxical
poststructurialists are concerned with
conceptual paradoxes
Philosophical discourse is dominated b
phonocentrism
Phonocentrism derives from
a reasoning that
gives privilege to speech as having a direct and
natural relation with self-presence and meaning.
Philosophical statements seek
to be structured by
logic, reason, and truth, rather than the rhetoric
of the language in which they are expressed.
Logocentrism
refers to the orientation of philosophy
toward an order of meaning (thought, truth,
reason, logic, etc.) conceived as existing in itself,
as a foundation.
Pharmakon
means ‘a drug’, both medicine and poison
The transcendental signified
refers to the logos, the
idea of the essence of meaning to which the sign
points, underlies the Western philosophical
thought.
Human subjectivity is
paradoxical
Arche-writing
a notion which refers to the
conceptual principle of meaning-making that
speech shares with writing and which therefore
dismantles the entailing dichotomies of presence/
absence, natural/artificial, interior/exterior, etc.
Deconstruction
derives from “de” + “con” +
“structure”, which is suggestive of simultaneous
‘destruction’ and ‘creation’.
Deconstruction is a method
of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language which emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression.
Structuralism believes
in the foundation of deep
structures (e.g. morphology of the folktale,
semiotic square) underlying the formation of
meaning.
Deconstruction challenges
the idea of the ‘essence’,
‘centre’ and deep structure.
to be “para”
s to be on the boundary between inside and outside and thus to be part of both
Parasite
- Any organism that grows, feeds, and is
sheltered on or in a different organism while
contributing nothing to the survival of its host; - A person who habitually takes advantage of
the generosity of others without making any
useful return.
The host
1) shares the food with the parasite; 2) is
the substance consumed by the parasite.
Miller observes that
A host is a guest, and a
guest is a host
a deconstructive reading
is
a rhetorical exercise that takes the text to its
limits
A deconstructive reading is always
encrypted in
all readings as a possibility.
this is what literary critics do …
they take texts apart, make texts sacrificial objects. all poems are parasites that feed on other poems.
In learning the poem by heart we….
partake of the
Other, expose ourselves to danger (i.e. spikes),
but also deprive the poem of its singularity.
The productive tension between….
singularity and
generality organises the structures of the literary
system.
In Derridean terms, literature is…
an institution that
questions its own institutionality
Derrida’s thinking about literature deconstructs….
the dichotomy literary/non-literary.
Différance
is both the positive state of being different, and the act of differing, producing differences
Sossourean idea -> signifier and the signified cannot be stabilized…
cannot be fixed. signifiers are always on the move.
In Derridean terms, meaning is
disseminated
rather than transferred.
Dissemination
suggests an act of signification
whereby meaning is spread around by way of
unlocking the stable relation of signifier to
signified.
The relationship between signified and signifier
is
unhooked in the stream of signification whereby
signifiers are constantly deferred to other signifiers.
Aporia
Greek for ‘wayless’. a final impase, a paradox
Deconstructive analysis shows
how the
text undermines its own rhetorical structure,
dismantles, deconstructs itself,
results in aporia.
Aporia invalidates…
ideas about any single, fixed, or ‘correct’ meaning
Aporia is not
a negative state that should call for a
nostalgic longing for meaning or presence.
For Derrida aporia marks
the joyous affirmation of
the play of the world and of the innocence of
becoming
Aporia frees us
from being bound to any fixed
truths or origins.
Deconstruction makes us aware of
the
seductiveness of writing, its simultaneous
desire for presence (i.e. meaning) and its
failure to make it tenable.
Derrida does not seek to destroy traditional
criticism, but seeks…
to show how texts
deconstruct themselves and thus open
themselves up to new interpretations.
Poststructuralism criticises the idea…
of the
author as an individual person and an
originating source of literary meaning.
Poststructuralism questions the idea of…
“human
nature” as the represented subject and common
frame of reference for literary depictions.
Poststructuralism emphasises …
that language
cannot point outside of itself.
Poststructuralism champions the idea…
that
languages produce (rather than reflect) meaning.
Postructuralism brings…
difference and deferral into
the foreground in order to disrupt any notion of
stability or unity of meaning.
. Poststructuralism challenges…
the structuralist
reliance on fundamental structures – a final, allembracing explanation is impossible because we
cannot step out of the discourse in which we are
implicated.
Poststructuralists show….
that what counts as the
deep or central meaning of a text depends on
where you stand.
Poststructuralists see the text…
as always
unfinished, full of loopholes and
contradictions. Reading is always potentially a
misreading.
Structuralism sought facts about texts. For
Poststructuralism…..
there are no facts, only
interpretations.
Poststructuralism criticises structuralism for…
its dependence on the logic of binaries and
seeks to expose its theoretical premises, but in
effect is dependent on structuralist claims as
the premise of its own theoretical agenda.
