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.
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)
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 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 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)
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
Teaching
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