POSTSTRUCTURALISM

Team Members
Bhairab Kelvin Prabhas Sandeep
STRUCTURALISM VS. POST-STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism was a fashionable movement in France in the 1950s and 1960s, that
studied the underlying structures inherent in cultural products (such as texts).
Emphasized logical and scientific results. Many structuralists sought to integr
ate their work into pre-existing bodies of knowledge.
CONT..
Post-structuralism holds that the study of underlying structures is itself cultu
rally conditioned and therefore subject to myriad biases and misinterpretations.
To understand an object , it is necessary to study both the object itself, and
the systems of knowledge which were coordinated to produce the object. In this w
ay, post-structuralism positions itself as a study of how knowledge is produced.
HISTORY
Emerged as a reaction against the claims of 1960s French structuralism to scient
ific rigor, objectivity, and universal validity. This countermovement denied the
objectivity of linguistic and cultural codes, language, and categories of conce
ptualization. Emphasized the instability of meanings, categories, and the inabil
ity of any universal system of rules to explain reality.
CONTD
Post structuralism theorizes the relation between language, subjectivity, social
organization, and power. It helps us to understand why women tolerate social r
elations which subordinate their interests to those of men and the mechanisms wh
ereby women and men adopt particular discursive positions as representative of t
heir interests. For post-structuralists there is no God, Truth, or Beauty, only
gods, truths, and beauties.
INFLUENTIAL CHARACTER
Mary Joe Frug suggested that one "principle" of postmodernism is that human expe
rience is located "inescapably within language. Sex is itself constructed thro
ugh language, a view most notably propounded in Judith Butler's 1990 book Gend
er Trouble.
DECONSTRUCTIONISM
Central to post-structuralist thought is Jacques Derridas deconstructionism. De
constructionism blames the Western tradition of thought for ignoring the limitle
ss instability and incoherence of language. Proposed that language is not a tran
sparent medium that connects one directly with a "truth" or "reality.
Michel Foucault's in his book The Archaeology of Knowledge analyses Statement
, the basic unit of discourse. In contrast to classic structuralists, Foucault
does not believe that the meaning of semantic elements is determined prior to th
eir articulation.
CONT
Other major contributors are Julia Kristeva
Roland Barthes
Gilles Deleuze
DISCOURSE
Historically and culturally located interpretations of human existence, which op
erate in our lives and constitute our belief system.
ANALYZING LK ADVANIS SPEECH
DISCOURSES
EXAMPLES I would very much like to carry a saree each for my wife, my daughter a
nd my daughter-in-law. I was wonderstruck by what I saw. I heard that this was o
nce a land of immense prosperity, which attracted praise from visitors from arou
nd the world. After five years, the people of Andhra Pradesh have an opportunity
and also a responsibility to ask themselves if they made the right decision
. Can India develop if we tolerate this kind of corruption in governance?
Family Discourse
Patriotic discourse
Duty discourse
Duty discourse
DISCOURSES
EXAMPLES What we did in those six years to take the country forward is well know
n. And what the UPA government has done in the past five years is also known. Ho
w many in this gathering have benefited from it? Those who have, please raise yo
ur hands. Now, those who havent benefited from it, raise your hands. The people
s verdict can be seen right here. A future NDA government will affect a big pol
icy shift to give agriculture, rural development, small and medium enterprises,
and informal and unorganized sectors their rightful place in Indias future grow
th strategy.
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
ANALYZING OBAMAS NOBEL PEACE PRIZE SPEECH
DISCOURSES
EXAMPLES
Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize Schweitze
r and King; Marshall and Mandela - my accomplishments are slight. The other is a
conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty three o
ther countries including Norway - in an effort to defend ourselves and all natio
ns from further attacks. Still, we are at war, and I am responsible for the depl
oyment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will ki
ll. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of a
rmed conflict - filled with difficult questions about the relationship between w
ar and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.
Comparative Discourse
Patriotic discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
DISCOURSES
EXAMPLES
At the dawn of history, its morality was not questioned; it was simply a fact, l
ike drought or disease - the manner in which tribes and then civilizations sough
t power and settled their differences. What I do know is that meeting these chal
lenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and
women who acted so boldly decades ago. "Violence never brings permanent peace.
It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." A
s someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King s life s work, I a
m living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing w
eak -nothing passive - nothing nave - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King
.
Historical discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse
.
DISCOURSES
EXAMPLES
The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than
six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. We hav
e borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out
of enlightened self-interest - because we seek a better future for our children
and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peopl
es children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity. That war is s
ometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings.
Patriotic Discourse
Family discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
THANK YOU