hello and welcome to today's ah module on
literary theory and literary criticism in
today's lecture in this part today's lecture
we'll be looking and post structuralism so
what is post structuralism post structuralism
can perhaps been seen as a response to structuralism
structuralism itself is an intellectual movement
that developed in europe from the early to
mid ah to the mid twentieth century it argued
that the human culture may be understood by
means of a structure the structure differs
from concrete reality and from abstract ideas
as well and this structure is something that
that's modeled on language that is on structural
linguistics
post structuralist authors all present um
different critics of structuralism but a very
common theme would perhaps be the rejection
of the idea that structures are self sufficient
and this is something that is borrowed from
structuralism itself post structuralism also
presents an interrogation of the binary oppositions
that constitute these very structures writers
whose work are often are characterized as
post structural include names such as jacques
derrida michel foucault gilles deleuze judith
butler jacques lacan jean baudrillard julia
kristeva etcetera although many of these theorist
who have been called post structuralist have
outright rejected the label a major theme
of post structuralism is the idea of instability
in the human sciences now this instability
is seen as something that emerges from the
complexity of humans themselves and also the
impossibility of fully escaping structures
in order that we might study them and thus
we get the label post structuralism
post structuralism is not a school but rather
a group of approaches that are informed by
some common understandings now not all of
these common ground understandings will be
shared by every practitioner of post structuralism
post structuralism is thus not really a theory
but a set of theoretical possessions which
all have at their core a self reflexive discourse
which is aware of the tentativeness the slipperiness
the ambiguity and the complex interrelations
of texts and meanings there may be some sharp
differences about what post structuralism
includes for instance it may or may not be
seen as having a very strong ideological component
depending upon who ah makes this assumption
let's take a brief look at the history of
post structuralism itself
post structuralism emerged in france during
the nineteen sixty's as a movement critiquing
structuralism according to j g merquior a
love hate relationship with structuralism
developed amongst many leading french thinkers
in the nineteen sixty's now we describe this
as a kind of love hate relationship because
structuralism post structuralism can be seen
as something that borrows from structuralism
or even something that resists some of the
assumptions of structuralism thus the love
hate relationship the period was marked by
this the period the the sixty's was marked
by political anxiety as students and workers
alike rebelled against the state in May nineteen
sixty eight in france this revolt nearly caused
the downfall of the french government at the
same time the support of the french communist
party for the oppressive policies of the urged
while soviet union u s s r contributed to
a popular disillusionment with the orthodox
marxism as s result there was an increased
interest in alternative radical philosophies
philosophies such as feminism western marxism
anarchism phenomenology and nihilism all of
these disparate ah disparate ah prospectives
they are critical of dominant western philosophy
and culture
post structuralism offered a means of justifying
these criticisms by exposing the underlying
assumptions of many western norms two key
figures in the early post structuralist movement
were were perhaps jacques derrida and roland
barthe in an nineteen sixty six lecture titled
structure sign and play in the discourse of
the human sciences jacques derrida presented
a thesis on an apparent rupture in the intellectual
life of the times derrida integrated this
event this rupture as a decentering of the
formal intellectual space now although roland
barthe was originally a structuralist during
the nineteen sixty's he increasingly favoured
post structuralist views in nineteen sixty
seven ah we should remember that derrida's
own lecture was given in nineteen sixty six
in nineteen sixty seven barthe published the
death of the author order in which he announced
a very significant metaphorical event this
event was the death of the author as an authentic
source of meaning for a given text barthe
argued that any literary text has multiple
meanings and that the author was not the prime
source of the works semantic content
the death of the author thus ah barthe pointed
out was was the beginning was the was the
birth of the reader and this is the source
of the proliferation of meanings of ah any
text as we already mentioned post structuralism
was consequent on a structuralism so in order
to understand post structuralism better we
need to understand some core principles of
structuralism itself structuralism is not
concerned so much with what ah what things
mean but rather how they mean it is a science
designed to show that all elements of human
culture including literature are understandable
as parts of a system of science this science
of science is called semiotics or alternatively
even semiology
the goal of structuralist practices is therefore
to discover the codes the structures and processes
involved in the production of meaning itself
structuralism claims that human culture itself
is fundamentally a language which is to say
that it is a complex system of signifieds
and signifiers we know that signifieds are
concepts for example the idea of a cat we
understand a cat to be a small furry four
legged animal that is sometimes kept as a
household pet so this idea of the cat would
be the signified whereas the phonetic utterance
c a t can be is is the signifier now signifiers
can be of many kinds signifiers can be verbal
as in the example that we just like at or
it can even be a literature or it may even
be non verbal as in the case of ah a face
painting or fashion or tattooing etcetera
what quickly became apparent with this understanding
is that science and words don't have meaning
ah in and of themselves but they they they
generate meaning only in relation to other
science and ah entire systems and thus we
have the arrival of a post structuralism
this is to say to go back to our previous
example we don't have a fundamental understanding
of what a cat is this is because the word
and the concept are not intrinsically linked
which is to say that i would probably understand
what a cat is by understanding how it is different
from a cat ah from a rat or a bat how it is
not a cat ah rat or a bat so post structuralism
basically ah both contest and sub words structuralism
and formalist principles while structuralist
were convinced that systematic knowledge is
possible post structuralist claim to know
only the impossibility of this knowledge they
counter the possibility of knowing a text
systematically and they do it by revealing
the grammar behind a text form and meaning
this is based on an understanding that all
signifieds are also signifiers and thus it
becomes impossible to fully know a text and
with that we come to deconstruction
the post structuralist is chiefly engaged
in the task of deconstructing a text or a
particular or accepted reading of the text
this is a this very process is called deconstruction
deconstruction can be roughly defined as perhaps
applied post structuralism deconstruction
is often referred to as reading against the
grain or reading the text against itself as
terry eagleton tells us another way of describing
this would be to say that deconstructive readings
uncover the unconscious rather than the conscious
dimensions of the text all other things that
an ordinary reading of the text would go slower
or fails recognize are brought to the fore
friend through the practice of deconstruction
for example let's look at a practical way
of deconstructing the the novel huckleberry
finn now this novel is sometimes thought to
be more often thought to be a very important
work on human rights this is because through
huckleberry finn's eyes we see the devastation
of slavery and yet towards the end of the
novel we understand that though huck finn
and tom sawyer realize that jim is jim ah
who is their friend who is black that jim
is no longer a slave and free they continued
to pretend that he is a slave we see that
he is locked up and degraded in multiple ways
thus what we see here is that the novel may
not really be a celebration of human rights
but it's very opposite thus the novel is taken
apart and its inconsistencies are displayed
to us we would also be perhaps deploying a
deconstructive reading if we were to make
the argument that a film like brokeback mountain
which was celebrated and widely touted to
be a very a revolutionary gay film about gay
cowboys if we were to say that such a film
is not a gay film that would be ah adapting
a very deconstructive ah reading of the novel
it would require us to watch intricately the
as various aspects that function or inform
the film and see how it doesn't really contribute
much to gain us or gay ah agency it might
be seen as something that goes back to the
epistomology of the closet
both these would be practical ways of deconstructively
reading a text thus this practice of reading
has been called oppositional reading which
is to say reading the text with the aim of
unmasking the internal contradictions or inconsistencies
[inconsisties/inconsistencies]-inconsistencies
within the text this aims is to show the disunity
which underlies its apparently unity we should
note here that the aim of new criticism by
contrast had been precisely the opposite of
this practice which is to show the unity of
the work beneath the apparent disunity and
while deconstruction aims to show the disunity
of any text this disunity is understood to
be a product of language the very nature of
language itself 
deconstructive criticism posits an undecidability
of meaning for all text the text reveal contradictory
discourses and gaps within itself this is
because language itself is unstable and arbitrary
the critic doesn't undermine the text the
text already is capable of dismantling itself
its own rhetoric suburbs or undermines its
ostensible or ah surface level meaning
jacques derrida opposed what he called the
metaphysics of presence which is the claim
in literature or philosophy that we can find
some full rich meaning outside of our ah or
prior to language itself this decentering
of text reveals incompatibilities rhetorical
contradictions and undecidability within text
which means that what this lends to deconstruction
is often ah an element of playfulness let's
look at some other key assumptions of deconstruction
what used to be the centurion ah centurion
ah difference in structuralism becomes derridean
defrance in ah post structuralism now defrance
is a french word it's a french coinage which
is basically an amalgam of the words differ
and defer to be to be so it implies something
that that requires that is under that needs
to be understood as different but also something
that has to be perpetually deferred something
that is very elusive and not available to
status and meaning
now linguistics difference creates the effect
of a decidable definite meaning however in
language meaning is actually deferred from
one interpretation to another in an endless
play or movement so which is to give you an
often quoted example if i where to define
what a village is i might define a village
as ah a um as a small town however that doesn't
tell me anything about the village it has
just transferred my understanding of what
a village should be by juxtaposing it with
that of a town so in order to understand a
village i am forced to confront the illusiveness
of a meaning that takes me now to understanding
a town thus meaning is perpetually ah deferred
and there's an endless play or movement
the structures of a binary opposition that
are essential to a logo centric language are
actually hierarchies and they are not defined
simply by differences alone but by privileging
one term at the expense of another a simple
look at binaries such as beautiful or beautiful
and ugly white and black man and women etcetera
will tell us this analogy deconstruction demonstrates
not only that such hierarchies can be inverted
or reversed but also that the whole opposition
can be undermined or even collapsed since
the first term in this in these binaries are
defined by excluding the second it requires
the second for its own meaning one cannot
be taught without the other
deconstructive critics distinguish between
the text that tries to close off the endless
play of signification and push forward a very
specific interpretation such a text is called
a readerly text and the text that opens itself
to many different meanings becomes a writerly
text one that puts the writers um that that's
a text that puts one in the writers or the
producers possession encouraging the creation
of one's own play of meanings 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 there is particularly important
to analyses how the meanings of a text shift
in relationship ah shift in relation to certain
variables usually involving the position or
the identity of the reader himself or herself
for example these can be positions like the
readers class his race or even his or her
sexual identity without a central fixation
on the idea of the author post structuralist
examine other sources for meaning such sources
may include readers cultural norms other literatures
and so on these alternative sources are never
really authoritative though and even they
like the idea of the author promise no consistency
we'll now take a final look at the position
of language and decentering in post structuralist
thought
post structuralist theory can be tied to um
can be tied to a move against modernism or
enlightenment ideas such as those offered
by philosophers like immanuel kant rene descartes
john locke etcetera it is also a move against
western religious beliefs such as neoplatonism
or catholicism an early pioneer of this kind
of resistance was the philosopher friedrich
nietzsche in his essay on truth and lies in
an extra moral sense which is which came out
in eighteen seventy three nietzsche rejects
even the very basis of our knowledge making
language as a of our knowledge making language
as any form of a reliable system of communication
essentially post structuralism holds that
we cannot trust in the formula that a sign
is composed of a signifier plus a signified
there is a breakdown of certainty between
the sign and signifier which leaves language
systems hopelessly inadequate for relaying
meaning so that we are as the reader famously
points out in an eternal free play or instability
decentering is an approach that concerns itself
with the ways and places where systems frameworks
definitions ah and all certainties a certainties
break breaks down
post structuralism maintains that frameworks
and systems for example the structuralist
systems that we ah have are merely fictions
constructs that cannot be trusted to develop
meaning or to establish or give order with
decentering the very act of seeking order
or a singular truth a truth with the capital
t becomes upset because we understand that
there exist no singular universal unified
truth post structuralism holds that there
are many truths that frameworks um that the
that frameworks must bleed and that structures
must become unstable or decentered moreover
post structuralism is also concerned with
power structures or hegemony's and how these
elements contribute to and maintain structures
to enforce semblance of hierarchy therefore
post structuralist theory carries implications
far beyond literary criticism itself
and with that we conclude today's module in
the next module ah you will ah the next module
will be taken by doctor aysha see you
