I recently bought ‘A short introduction to post-structuralism’ in a last dicth hope to cure a persistent skepticism on my part concenrning the scholarly work done in the last 50 years by ‘literary types’, especially those inspired by the likes of de beauvoir and Foucault.
I remain more agitated thane ever by concepts like ‘post-structuralism’. I would imagine that to any trained philosopher, the discipline appears at once churlish and fraught with vagueness. To me, it certainly did at any rate.
In essence, the book I bought has only served to remind me of the awful vagueness which surrounds scholarly work in the field of literature like a dark misty haze.
Last year, I asked a supposed 'expert post structuralist academic in my university department, who also happened to be a feminist (surprise surprise) to explain why and how she viewed a passage from Homer’s Iliad as being an example of ‘Sexual politics’ and her only response (amazingly) was to ask me why I thought it might be?!
She avoided the question.
My position: literature scholars (trendy post structuralists and the like) need to find ways of reinventing their subject to breathe life into it. Unfortunately, applying systems of analysis to literature is, as far as I can see both boring and nonsensical.
Post-structuralism and its kin in terms of literary movements strike me as a bit of a waste of time.
you know I honestly have no clue what post-structuralism means in a literary context. The best parts of strucutralism in my opinion are the anthropological and historical linguistic parts. The majority of post structuralism that I’ve ever read has been Giles Deleuze and Rene Girard. Girard is mostly ignored (unless you’re reading Cormac McCarthy - who’s birthday was yesterday, remind me to post something silly) and literary critics who try and use Deleuze don’t have the first clue what he’s talking about. I have three books on my shelf that are explanations of Deleuzian thought by literary theorists and they don’t explain a damn thing. Why? because they either try and apply the wrong damn thing from Deleuze to what they are discussing or they completely don’t understand the fella. (Frankly I have only tackled Capitalism and Schizophrenia. I am not ready to read the stuff previous to 1968 yet. Fortunately nobody tries to use anything else of D and G to crack open meaning. )
now, using a well read Copy of Capital to try and understand a book, that’s fun. Trying to use any number of other schools of literary analysis can also be fun and productive. (check out bakhtin - he’s very interesting). I think the fundamental problem with post-struc literary theory as it’s found in universities today is that there’s this idea that writing is action and that writing an article about how woman are oppressed in the Last of the Mohicans is the equivalent to going to Uzbekistan and founding a program that give micro loans to women or teaches them how to read the Koran. this is just bullshit and gives academia a worse name.
also, don’t read the dumbass commentary on the thinkers. you have to struggle through Foucault, Lacan, levi-Strauss, Derrida, Deleuze, Rorty(well, he’s not much of a struggle thank god) etc. It’s their followers who are dumbasses
I keep hearing people arguing about the vagueness of the work of the continental tradition, yet the more I read it, the more I’m convinced of the opposite.
Now I do not have the preparation to hold an argument at certain level, but yet all the authentic experiences I have just point me to the opposite.
They are not post-structuralists, as I was talking about continental philosophers. but in this case I’m referring to the works of Foucault, Heidegger’s being and time, but also the less known Gianni Vattimo, Emanuele Severino and Adriano Fabris.
Deleuze and Guattari are pretty damn concrete - complicated as all hell, but very concrete.
I would also say Foucault is VERY concrete.
Look, the problem Is that most americans don’t take the time to read their way through all of the structuralism to understand what’s going on. To understand Post-structuralism, you have to have read Freud, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Marx to begin with and then You’ve got to read all whole bunch of other author’s - Saussure, Lacan, Levi-Strauss would probably be the first group I’d be reading (Well, I have read Saussure about four times and some of Levi-Strauss - he’s a lot of fun to read, actually)
The Easiest way I think to figure out PoStruck is to read the follwing things
Secrets of the Soul - the Cultural History of Psychoanalysis
Fernand Dosse’s two volume history on structuralism
and
Lacan’s Ecrits, Levi-Strauss Sauvage Mind, Saussure’s General Course.
Six books - not that bad!
Does anybody disagree with my characterization of Postmodernism being different than Post structuralism? the difference being that Pomo’ism is centered on Philosophy and Literature and PoStruck is centered on Psychology and the Social Sciences
Well, the definition of post-modernity is a very debated one, but I believe that it’s essential characteristics as the name states is its attempt to get beyond modernity.
In this sense, derrida, foucault, davidson, quine, heidegger, habermas, wittgenstein, can be all defined “po-mo”.