Post-Structuralism

1. Post-Structuralism “Structuralityof structure”

2. Concept birthed from Ferdinand de Saussure • French Linguist • Signifier and Signified • Signs are arbitrary thus meaning comes from their relationships to other signs. • Culture must be understood in terms of the overarching systems or structures. • Meaning is produced through cultural practices, phenomena and activities • To understand a cultural system you must analyze underlying structure of rituals, religion, language, etc. • Can be reductionist > no difference Structuralism

3. Structuralism erroneously gives a centre to meaning. • Center = balance and limited freeplay (possibility of meaning) • Episteme = Centre • Episteme: body of ideas which shape the perception of knowledge at a particular period of time. • Example: The world is flat. The sun circles the earth. • This gives structure to perception • Structuralism is teleological: Its beginnings dictate its ends. Derrida’s Attack

4. "From the basis of what we therefore call the center (and which, because it can be either inside or outside, is as readily called the origin as the end, as readily arche as telos), the repetitions, the substitutions, the transformations, and the permutations are always taken from a history of meaning [sense]-that is, a history, period-whose origin may always be revealed or whose end may always be anticipated in the form of presence … If this is so, the whole history of the concept of structure, before the rupture I spoke of, must be thought of as a series of substitutions of center for center, as a linked chain of determinations of the center” Derrida’s Attack

5. The rupture of the centre came about through repetition, the continual deferral of meaning and the central destruction of centre. • Derrida uses the phrase "structurality of structure" and "interpretations of interpretation" to perform this deferral of meaning ad infinitum. • Derrida desires to rupture meaning by rupturing its structure and thus destabilizes meaning Derrida’s Attack - Rupture

6. “This moment was that in which language invaded the universal problematic; that in which, in the absence of a center or origin, everything became a system where the central signified, the original or transcendental signified, is never absolutely present outside a system of differences. The absence of the transcendental signified extends the domain and the interplay of significations ad infinitum.” Derrida’s Attack - Rupture

7. Does this mean there is no meaning left in the world and language? • No! • Rather meaning becomes infinite or continually deferred through endless signification • No stability • Différance • Misspelling of French word différence • Play on meaning “to defer” and “to differ” • Tree: meaning deferred through opposition/difference • No transcendental signified • Differs from: leaves, bark, branch, sap, log, grass, blink, etc. • Meaning exists but can change with historical, linguistic, socio-cultural contexts. • Intention does not = meaning. Meaning After Derrida

8. Post-Structuralist artistic endeavours seek to: • Destabilize meaning • Reader replaces Author • Intentionality destroyed • Meaning becomes infinite due to infinite contexts • Deconstruction • Problematizes structures • Dualism “male/female”, “rich/poor” • Understand the cultural/social/linguistic/etc. constructions which create these dualism and expose the illusion of singular meaning. • Judith Butler and male/female dualisms in Gender Trouble. Post-Structuralism & Art

9. Post-Structuralist Critique of Language • Intertextuality • Texts continually refer to other texts • Open Text • Reader creates meaning rather than intentionality • Language as Signifying Chain • Continual Deferral of Meaning Jeff Derksen - Interface

10. Political • Content • Reference and Incorporation of both State and Corporate ideologies • Resistance to such ideologies (highly ironized) • Form • Technique of shifting meaning from the author to the reader is the textual politics (the interface) of modern society. • Reader internalizes meaning creating structures of the interface which are dominated by socio-cultural elites. • Media/Popular Culture/Politicians/Business Leaders/Religion/Etc. Jeff Derksen - Interface