POST-

STRUCTURALISM

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 integrate their

work into pre-existing bodies of knowledge.
CONT…..

Post-structuralism holds that the study of
underlying structures is itself culturally
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 way, 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 scientific rigor,
objectivity, and universal validity.

This countermovement denied the objectivity of
linguistic and cultural codes, language, and
categories of conceptualization.

Emphasized the instability of meanings,
categories, and the inability 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 relations which subordinate their
interests to those of men and the mechanisms
whereby women and men adopt particular
discursive positions as representative of their
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 experience is
located "inescapably within language.“

“Sex is itself constructed through language”, a
view most notably propounded in Judith Butler's
1990 book “Gender Trouble”.
 DECONSTRUCTIONISM

Central to post-structuralist thought is Jacques

Derrida‘s deconstructionism.

Deconstructionism blames the Western tradition
of thought for ignoring the limitless instability
and incoherence of language.

Proposed that language is not a transparent
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 their
articulation.
CONT………

Other major contributors are

Julia Kristeva

Roland Barthes

Gilles Deleuze
DISCOURSE

Historically and culturally located
interpretations of human existence, which
operate in our lives and constitute our belief
system.
ANALYZING LK ADVANI’S SPEECH
 DISCOURSES EXAMPLES

I would very much like to carry a

Family Discourse saree each for my wife, my
daughter and my daughter-in-law.
I was wonderstruck by what I saw.
I heard that this was once a land of
Patriotic discourse immense prosperity, which
attracted praise from visitors from
around the world.

After five years, the people of

Andhra Pradesh have an
Duty discourse opportunity – and also a
responsibility – to ask themselves
if they made the right decision.

Can India develop if we tolerate

Duty discourse this kind of corruption in
governance?
 DISCOURSES
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
EXAMPLES
What we did in those six years to
take the country forward is well
known. And what the UPA
government has done in the past
five years is also known.
How many in this gathering have
benefited from it? Those who have,
please raise your hands. Now, those
who haven’t benefited from it, raise
your hands. The people’s verdict can
be seen right here.
A future NDA government will
affect a big policy shift to give
agriculture, rural development,
small and medium enterprises, and
informal and unorganized sectors
their rightful place in India’s future
growth strategy.
ANALYZING OBAMA’S NOBEL PEACE PRIZE
SPEECH
 DISCOURSES
Comparative Discourse
Patriotic discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
EXAMPLES
Compared to some of the giants of
history who have received this prize -
Schweitzer 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 other countries -
including Norway - in an effort to
defend ourselves and all nations from
further attacks.
Still, we are at war, and I am
responsible for the deployment of
thousands of young Americans to
battle in a distant land. Some will kill.
Some will be killed. And so I come here
with an acute sense of the cost of
armed conflict - filled with difficult
questions about the relationship
between war and peace, and our effort
to replace one with the other.
 DISCOURSES
Historical discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
Political discourse
EXAMPLES
At the dawn of history, its morality was
not questioned; it was simply a fact, like
drought or disease - the manner in
which tribes and then civilizations
sought power and settled their
differences.
What I do know is that meeting these
challenges 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." As someone who stands here as a
direct consequence of Dr. King's life's
work, I am living testimony to the moral
force of non-violence. I know there is
nothing weak -nothing passive - nothing
naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi
and King.
.
 DISCOURSES
Patriotic Discourse
Family discourse
Political discourse(Naturalisation)
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 have 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 peoples' children and
grandchildren can live in freedom and
prosperity.
That war is sometimes necessary, and
war is at some level an expression of
human feelings.
THANK YOU