Further Research:


Bibliography

A useful 'way in' to difficult subjects is provided by the 'Introducing' series published by Icon Books and the 'For Beginners' series published by Steerforth Press (previously published by Writers and Readers publishing inc.)

These provide an excellent overview of their subjects in a lively and intelligent way. They use a comic book format which is effective and yet does not trivialise or over-simplify the subject matter.

It must be stressed however that they should be used to provide the basis for further reading and research and not be the only source you use.

Here, for example, are some that are relevant to this lecture:

Collins, Jeff and Bill Mayblin, (2005). 'Introducing Derrida', Icon Books
Jacques Derrida is the most famous philosopher of the late 20th century. Yet Derrida has undermined the rules of philosophy, rejected its methods, broken its procedures and contaminated it with literary styles of writing. Derrida's philosophy is a puzzling array of oblique, deviant and yet rigorous tactics for destabilizing texts, meanings and identities. 'Deconstruction', as these strategies have been called, is reviled and celebrated in equal measure.

Powell, Jim, (2007), 'Derrida For Beginners', Steerforth Press

There are, of course, others in the series (Barthes, Postmodernism etc.) and I recommend you seek them out.

Orality and Literacy
visit this page

Nominalism (Realism, Conceptualism)
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/417400/nominalism

Saussure
Third Course of Lectures on General Linguistics (excerpts)

Peirce
http://www.peirce.org


Structuralism
Sturrock, John, (2002) , 'Structuralism', WileyBlackwell

Structuralism as a school of thought hit its stride during the radical movements of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in France, although it had its roots back at the beginning of the 20th century. Structuralists look at the foundational structures implicit in all productions of a culture, and undertake an analysis of the many parts that create something, to get a better understanding of the creation. Linguistics was one of the first fields to use structuralism to its advantage, and its application quickly spread to other fields. The basic premise of structuralism is that all things have a structure below the level of meaning, and that this structure constitutes the reality of that thing. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-post-structuralism.htm)


Semiology (Semiotics)
Semiotics for Beginners (Daniel Chandler)
Elements of Semiology by Roland Barthes


Levi-Strauss
Biography (please ignore adverts!)
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966), 'The Savage Mind', Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Lévi-Strauss, C., Translated by J. Weightman and D. Weightman, (1970), 'The Raw and the Cooked', New York: Octagon Books

Barthes
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/rbarthes.htm

Barthes R., (1968), 'Elements of Semiology', Hill and Wang: New York
Barthes R., (1981), 'Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography', Hill and Wang: New York
Barthes R., (1985), 'The Grain of the Voice: interviews 1962-1980', Jonathan Cape: London
Barthes R., (1977), 'Image, Music, Text', Hill and Wang: New York
Barthes R., (1975), 'The Pleasure of the Text', Hill and Wang: New York

Post Structuralism
about Post Structuralism

Post-structuralism grew as a response to structuralism’s perceived assumption that its own system of analysis was somehow essentialist. Post-structuralists hold that in fact even in an examination of underlying structures, a slew of biases introduce themselves, based on the conditioning of the examiner. At the root of post-structuralism is the rejection of the idea that there is any truly essential form to a cultural product, as all cultural products are by their very nature formed, and therefore artificial.

This concept of non-essentialism was famously expanded upon by Foucault in his History of Sexuality, in which he argues that even gender and sexual orientation are contrived formations, and that our concept of essentialist notions of gender or sexuality is flawed. For example, he argues that the entire class of homosexuality is in fact quite recent, built up by cultural norms and an interplay between different groups in society, but with no more essential a quality than, for example, the idea of beauty.

One of the pivotal moments in the history of post-structuralism occurred in 1966, when Derrida delivered a talk at John Hopkins University. Derrida was respected as one of the great thinkers of structuralism, and so was invited to speak on the subject at length, as it was just beginning to receive a great deal of attention in the American intellectual community. Derrida’s lecture, 'Structure, Sign, and Play in the Human Sciences', was a sharp critique of structuralism, pointing out its inherent limitations, and laying out some basic principles for a new language of discourse.

Post-structuralism is importantly different from postmodernism, although the two are often considered one and the same by the general subject. Although there are certain areas of overlap, thinkers from one school almost never identify themselves with the other school of thought.

Postmodernism importantly seeks to identify a contemporary state of the world, the period that is following the Modernist period. Postmodernism seeks to identify a certain juncture, and to work within the new period. Post-structuralism, on the other hand, can be seen as a more explicitly critical view, aiming to deconstruct ideas of essentialism in various disciplines to allow for a more accurate discourse. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-post-structuralism.htm)


Derrida
Biography
Of Grammatology
Jacques Derrida On Love and Being


Foucault
http://www.michel-foucault.com

Kristeva
Introduction
Overview and links
http://www.lacan.com/kristeva.htm

Baudrillard
Simulacra and Simulations


Other Reading:

Adams, LS., (1996), 'The Methodologies of Art: An Introduction, HarperCollins

Berger, J., (1972), 'Ways of Seeing', London
'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world within words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.' (Berger 1972: 7)

Cuddon, JA., (1991), 'Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory', Penguin  

Williams, R., (1985), 'Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society', Oxford University Press

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Please send further links/references for inclusion to: p1ramsay@plymouth.ac.uk