“What is Structuralism? How is it possible? And once the structures of Structuralism have been discovered, how is Poststructuralism possible?” Thus begins Don Palmer’s Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners. If Nobel or Pulitzer ever made a prize for making the most difficult philosophers and ideas accessible to the greatest number of people, one of the leading candidates would certainly be Professor Don Palmer. From his Sartre For Beginners and Kierkegaard For Beginners to his Looking at Philosophy, author/illustrator Don Palmer has the magic touch when it comes to translating the most brutally difficult ideas into language and images that non-specialists can understand. “In its less dramatic versions,” writes Palme, “structuralism is just a method of studying language, society, and the works of artists and novelists. But in its most exuberant form, it is a philosophy, an overall worldview that provides an account of reality and knowledge.” Poststructuralism is a loosely knit intellectual movement, comprised mainly of ex-structuralists, who either became dissatisfied with the theory or felt they could improve it. Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners is an illustrated tour through the mysterious landscape of Structuralism and Poststructuralism. The book’s starting point is the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Sausser. The book moves on to the anthropologist and literary critic Claude Lévi-Strauss; the semiologost and literary critic Roland Barthes; the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. Learn among other things, why structuralists say Reality is composed of not Things, but Relationships Every “object” is both a presence and an absence The total system is present in each of its parts The parts are more real than the whole The book concludes by examining the postmodern obsession with language and with the radical claim of the disappearance of the individual – obsessions that unite the work of all these theorists.

Content Description #Includes bibliographical references and index.

"This guide discusses the nature and development of structuralism and semiotics, calling for a new critical awareness of the ways in which we communicate and drawing attention to their implications for our society. Published in 1977 as the first volume in the New Accents series, Structuralism and Semiotics made crucial debates in critical theory accessible to those with no prior knowledge of the field, thus enacting its own small revolution. Since then a generation of readers has used the book as an entry not only into structuralism and semiotics, but into the wide range of cultural and critical theories underpinned by these approaches." "Structuralism and Semiotics remains the clearest introduction to some of the most important topics in modern critical theory. An afterword and fresh suggestions for further reading ensure that this new edition will become, like its predecessor, the essential starting point for anyone new to the field."--BOOK JACKET.

John Sturrock’s classic explication of Structuralism represents the most succinct and balanced survey available of a major critical movement associated with the thought of such key figures as Lévi-Strauss, Foucault, Barthes, Lacan and Althusser theory. A classic work in literary and cultural theory. Reissued to coincide with calls for a return to structuralism. Includes a new introduction by Jean-Michel Rabaté, which explores developments in the reception of structuralist theory in the past five to ten years.

The use of the word 'structuralism', not only as a title for the present book but also as a valuable indication for outstanding philosophical and cultural developments of our century, may embarrass the English reader. The same might be the case regarding some of the philosophical thoughts developed in connexion with this structuralism. Emphasis is namely not on a set of technical operations using ideas and conceptions closely linked up with 'structural' or 'systematical' analyses, system and in formation theories, biology, psychology and even literary criticism. On the contrary, the concept of structuralism here defmitely refers to a holistic approach, not unlike existentialism or phenomenology. Many philosophical implications of this structuralism are however quite different from those contained in existential philosophies. The first difference applies to philosophy itself: no existential thinker will doubt or deny that the thoughts developed are genuine philoso phical thoughts. Structuralism however does not take that decision before hand, and thus no longer restricts itself to the traditionallaws and habits of philosophical reasoning. It presents itself on the one hand as a holistic attempt to interpret reality among lines of philosophical argumentation, bu t tries to do so without the decision that this argumentation leads to philoso phy. Structuralism therefore presents itself as a specific activity, a modus operandi in reality itself.

Content Description #Includes bibliographical references and index.