Structuralism and Poststructuralism For Beginners [Paperback]

US“In its less dramatic versions,” writes author Dan Palmer, “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 Beginnersis an illustrated tour through the mysterious landscape of these two theories. The book’s starting point is the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure. The book moves on to the anthropologist and literary critic Claude Levi-Strauss; the semiologist and literary critic Roland Barthes; the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan; the deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. 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 of these theorists.Donald Palmer is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the college of Marin in Kentfield, California. Currently he is visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is also author of:
Kierkegaard For Beginners
Sartre for Beginners
Looking at Philosophy, Mayfield Publishing Co.
Does the Center Hold?, Mayfield Publishing Co.