This document provides an overview of structuralism and post-structuralism in cultural theory. It discusses key thinkers including Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Will Wright. It examines how structuralism views language and meaning as defined by relationships and differences. Post-structuralism rejects the idea of an underlying structure determining meaning, arguing that meaning is constantly evolving. Theorists like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault are discussed in relation to how they viewed binaries, discourse, and power.

1. The material is taken from:
Cultural Theory and Popular Culture
An Introduction - John Storey
STRUCTURALISM &
POST-STRUCTURALISM

2. STRUCTURALISM &
POST-STRUCTURALISM
I
II
III
FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE
ROLAND BARTHES: MYTHOLOGIES
CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS, WILL WRIGHT AND
THE AMERICAN WESTERN
IV POST-STRUCTURALISM

3. FERDINAND DE SAUSSURE
• Ferdinand consider the language as a thing in it
self.
• The meaning depends on the differences and
relationship.
• Structuralists argue that the language
constructs the sense of reality.
• Structuralism has two basic ideas from
Saussure’s work: relation between text &
practices, and the meaning as the result of
relationship of selection and combination by
underlining the structure.

4. Claude Lévi-Strauss: Structur
alism

5. Will Right: Sixguns And
Society

6. Inside Society Outside Society
Good Bad
Strong Weak
Civilization Wilderness
Structuring oppositions in the
Western

7. The Classic Western
1. The hero enters a social group.
2. The hero is unknown to the society.
3. The hero is revealed to have an exceptional ability.
4. The society recognizes a difference between themselves and the hero; the hero is
given a special status.
5. The society does not completely accept the hero.
6. There is a conflict of interests between the villains and the society.
7. The villains are stronger than the society; the society is weak.
8. There is a strong friendship or respect between the hero and a villain.
9. The villains threaten the society.
10. The hero avoids involvement in the conflict.
11. The villains endanger a friend of the hero.
12. The hero fights the villains.
13. The hero defeats the villains.
14. The society is safe.
15. The society accepts the hero.
16. The hero loses or gives up his special status.

8. Mythologies
By Roland Barthes

9. Primary signification 1. Signifier 2.Signified
Denotation 3. Sign
Secondary Signification I. SIGNIFIER II.SIGNIFIED
Connotation III. Sign
Primary and Secondary Signification

10. Three possible reading perspective on
understanding the image:
• The one who produces the myth
• The socialist reader
• The myth-consumers

11. Text Amplifying the Potential Connotatio
n of Images
Rock-a-day Johnny ‘My Baby Done M
e Wrong’ from the album
Dogbucket Days.
Rock-a-day Johnny ‘Drugs Kill
My Best Friend’

12. Post-Structuralism
Post structuralism reject the idea of an underlying structure u
pon which meaning can rest secure and guaranteed. Meanin
g is always in process.
The theorists of post-structuralism suggest that the situation i
s more complex than this: signifiers do not produce signified,
they produce more signifiers.

13. Jacques Derrida
Post-structuralism is virtually
synonymous with the work of Jacque
s Derrida.
For Derrida, the binary opposition, so
important to structuralism, is never a
simple structural relation; it is always
a relation of power, in which one term
is in a position of dominance with
regard to the other.

14. Discourse and Power: Michel
Foucault
One of the primary concerns of Miche
l Foucault is the relationship between
knowledge and power and how this r
elationship operates within discourse
s and discursive formations.
Discourses work in three ways: they
enable, they constrain, and they cons
titute.

15. The panoptic machine
According to Bentham, the panopticon is ‘
A new mode of obtaining power of mind ov
er mind, in a quantity hitherto without exa
mple: and that, to a degree equally without
example’ (Bentham 1995: 31).
According to Foucault, Bentham’s panopti
con is, therefore, profoundly symptomatic
of a historical shift, from the eighteenth ce
ntury onwards, in methods of social
control.

16. D
D
Thank You
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