Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction in Culture

The reaction that loosened structuralism's stable systems, insisting that meaning is never fixed but endlessly deferred, and that texts undo their own oppositions.

Definition

Post-structuralism is the body of thought that, accepting structuralism's linguistic premises, denies that structures are stable or closed, stressing the play and deferral of meaning. Deconstruction is Derrida's practice of showing how a text's own logic subverts the hierarchical oppositions it relies on.

Scope

This topic covers the post-structuralist turn as it bears on cultural theory: Derrida's deconstruction and critique of the metaphysics of presence, Barthes's death of the author, and the resulting emphasis on the instability of meaning. It does not cover Foucault's genealogy of power, which is treated in its own area.

Core questions

• Why can meaning never be finally fixed?
• How does deconstruction unsettle binary oppositions?
• What follows for authorship and interpretation when the author dies?

Key theories

Différance and the deferral of meaning

Derrida argued that meaning arises from differences and is endlessly deferred, so no sign rests on a stable, present ground, undoing the structuralist dream of closed systems.

The death of the author

Barthes proclaimed that a text's meaning lies not in its author's intention but in its reading, dispersing authority from author to reader and language.

History

Around 1967 to 1968 a generation that had absorbed structuralism turned against its assumption of stable structures. Derrida's deconstructive readings and Barthes's later essays dissolved the fixed sign and the authoritative author, reshaping how culture and texts were read and feeding into the broader cultural turn.

Debates

Productive instability versus relativism

Champions see the deferral of meaning as opening critical possibilities; critics charge that it courts an anything-goes relativism that disables political judgement.

Key figures

• Jacques Derrida
• Roland Barthes
• Julia Kristeva

Seminal works

• derrida1976
• barthes1977
• during2007

Frequently asked questions

Is post-structuralism the opposite of structuralism?

Not exactly. It accepts structuralism's starting point that meaning is differential and language-like, but rejects the idea that the resulting structures are stable or closed.