01 Tuesday Jan 25

Lizzie Greene's Notes for 1/25/11-Post-Structuralism
Before being immersed in the frothy brew of post-structuralism, the class signed up for presentation groups. These presentations will account for a significant part of the grade in the class, and will be based on the group’s performance as a whole. Then, the class really kicked off with a Modern Family quote- “Slow Down Your Neighbors”. We discussed the different interpretations of the phrase, including the confusion due to the lack of punctuation. Next, using the structuralist method, we developed a list of binaries from the statement, classifying words and ideas into harsh statements of good and evil.

However, then the lecture pivoted away from the familiar and into the realm of post-structuralism, starting with one of the men who came up with its founding principles, Jacques Derrida, who only recently died in 2004. A rebel in the eyes of the Structuralists, he questions the system of binaries, this prioritizing one category of words over another. He uses terms such as transcendental significance, transcendental signified, logocentrism, and phonocentrism to extrapolate on his theme of the difference in speech and writing. Derrida’s main term, difference, illustrates that writing does not copy speech, rather that like any translation, the former cannot have the same meaning as the latter. Going even further, his Law of Supplementarity, states that writing is potentially dangerous supplement to speech, but also states the idea of categories being unable to keep from bleeding into each other, combining meaning and understanding of them. Another Post-Structuralist, Roland Barthes, also questions the idea of pinning meaning down, and wants to create a more flexible interpretive system. He believes that the text should be interpreted based on the readers’, not the author’s perception, that the text can operate independently of an author.

Next, having defined in a nutshell the basics of Post-Structuralism, we discussed the differences between the former and Structuralism. The latter more decidedly uses scientific, abstract language, neutrally explaining the opposition of binaries, understandable due to the fact that it originated in the field of linguistics. However, the former delves more into the philosophical side of the debate, rather skeptical, emotional, using word tricks like puns, and focusing on the blur between words, this bleeding of meaning.

Lastly, the class ended with a study of poetry in groups, in particular, applying the different techniques of the two aforementioned methods. “Lord Randall” gave excellent examples of the bleeding of categories due to the different titles his mother addresses him by, and the words which are repeated at least three times in the ballad. “To His Coy Mistress” humorously had a great many obvious binaries of infinity and time, which, in the Post-Structuralist method of discerning the meaning of the text, pointed to the possible lies of the lover to his beloved, in the thought of praising her for eternity, but asking her then to sleep with him now.

Courtney Cherico's notes for 1.25 Class Today’s class period began with an explanation of the class presentation projects on different types of theory, followed by each student choosing their group for the project. After that, a pop culture reference of “Slow Down Your Neighbors” (from the TV show “Modern Family”) was displayed, and a discussion of how to read this sign took place. The conclusion was that the meaning of this sign can only be known once the speaker reveals his or her intentions behind the speech act/sign. Post-structualists believe there is a privileging of speech over writing, because the presence of the author can yield answers about the text that the text cannot answer alone. Post-structuralism is a theory in which text is read without intellectual reference points, and with a “decentered” universe. The preference of speech over writing is an example of post-structuralist author Jacques Derrida’s idea of hierarchies, and post-structuralists such as him (also known as deconstructionists) are keen on questioning these hierarchies, often displayed in binary oppositions (e.g. male over female, light over dark). Some key terms in relation to Derrida include “transcendental signified”, or, an external point of reference upon which one may build a concept or philosophy; this produces an ultimate meaning, and is “the origin of origin”. A good example of a transcendental signified is God, with Him serving as the “center”, or origin, and man, animal, and reptile all following behind him in that order. “Differance” was also presented as a way of saying that the meaning of a word can be endlessly differed according to post-structuralists, giving in to their habit of finding wordplay, puns, and textual dissimilarities in texts. Furthermore, a quote from Derrida’s “Structure, Sign and Play...” states that wordplay continues if “there is something missing from it: a center which arrests and grounds the play of substitutions” (117). After the introduction to Derrida, the class briefly conversed about Roland Barthes’s belief that the writing must be viewed without knowledge or help from the author. Both of these men are post-structualists and their ideas (philosophy-based, emotive writing, complete with blurring of images and collapse of definition) differ greatly form those of structuralists, who are based upon the idea of Linguistics, and read text with an abstract, neutral, and scientific eye. There are three stages of deconstruction: the verbal, textual, and linguistic. Using these stages, the class read “Lord Randal”, a poem from our “100 Best-Loved Poems” book, and found textual repetitions, holes in the plot, and double-entendrees, as post-structuralists would do. Conversely, the class also found structuralist binary oppositions such as “lover/son”, “life/death”, “health/poison”, and “lord/lady”. Looking at this poem using both theories produced an array of questions, mainly, who was poisoning Lord Randal, and why is his mother viewing him sexually as well as relationally? Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” was also read and discussed, with the conclusion that this poem was more about the passing of time than the coyness of a mistress.