structure, sign and play

Alright, now i'm starting to get this. After todays lecture i have a better understanding of the material. I think it would be best to start with the idea of the "center". What it does or stands for is something within the text as well as on the outside. It gives meaning to the material without being the material, it controls it from the outside but relates to the inside. It seems pretty abstract but it makes sense if you think about it.

The Nature/culture idea helps to explain it. With nature it is cross cultural, worldwide. But in culture it's inherint within that culture and doesn't nessecarily go along with other cultures. It follows the idea of Hegemony which is basically another word for culture.

As we move forward and get into the idea of play it gets a little more confusing. Play is just disrupting presence which is the stability of the center. So by disrupting the center you are finding meaning?

I think Bricologe is interesting, it still uses the idea of nature/culture but doesn't credit it as being philosophical. Levi strauss says it's unstable making it less credible. And finally supplement, I know what one is but i don't know what it does in the way we use it. If it insures presence then why does Levi strauss use center as a lost presence? I'm a little confused when it comes to this idea.

a few questions

In structuralism there is a "center" where we find meanings for words. In poststructuralism there is no "center" where does the meaning come from. I am also a little confused about decontruction, is that finding the meaning by looking for the opposite of the word to define it?

take apart my baby’s heart

To attach the word post to a previous body of theory is to relate whatever the main concept was to what it is has changed into or what it means now. The example we used in class described it pretty good. There was 9/11 and after 9/11 a post 9/11 was created. Using post 9/11 to show how terrorism affects us after 9/11 relates our ideas that we had prior to 9/11.

Post-structuralism protests against structuralism in a sense that instead of everything describing everything in a structure through contrastd, post-structuralism opposes it. So the meaning of words is binary, the word is described as what it isn't rather than what it is in post-structuralism. I find this a little confusing because I think words can have more than one opposite with a different meaning.

Structuralism has similar concepts to post-structuralism mainly in a sense that everything still falls into this large structure that constructs language. They both incorporate the idea of the sign and the idea of no essential value. This helps us understand deconstruction using the idea that it's decentering. The is no center, it's a variation in language that fluxuates.

It seems like decontruction is the break down of structuralism, it's a way to look at language in opposition of structuralism.

Structuralism and Saussure

"Signs function not through their intrinsic value but through their relative position"
This quote is basically saying thatthe function of a sign has it's function because of other signs and their relativity to that sign. like in the barry's reading a hut is a hut because you compare it to a house or a shed. If there were fewer words for shelter the meaning of hut would change.
This idea affects how we interpret the world around us through literature. If we weren't exposed to these ideas and didn't have words to describe reality I think that everything would be confusing.

In a basic view of structuralism most of it makes sense, everything falls into this big language structure that contructs reality. It doesn't represent a prexisting reality. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't incorporate a defenition through economic and social structure, it's mainly based on a sign with no essential value. It doesn't matter what is currently happening in society which i'm against because new words are made up all the time.

I don't know how to get blog roller

I could use some help i have blog roller i just don't know how to get it onto my blog, i'm also a little confused as to what i'm supposed to do with the blog roller..... help please.

On Barry, "Stop and Think"

Basically the main tenet of marxist criticism is that literature is influenced by social and political circumstances in which it is produced. This understanding of marxist criticism interacts with liberal humanism opposingly. Most of the tenets of liberal humanism disagree with that fact. If you look at the first tenet of liberal humanism it says that it transcends historical and cultural moment, it's timeless. Marxist criticism is almost the opposite, it's saying that it's not timeless, it's about the present and what is currently happening.
Although there are similarities with social and political circumstances throughout time there are major differences also. Liberal humanism is a verbal analysis, it doesn't deal with the politcal.
So i can't really answer how they relate and interact with each other, I feel like they don't at all.

blog-1

Hey everyone,
I'm Chad Lenkowski a student in Critical Theory & The Academy class at good old Emmanuel College. I've never blogged before, i'm what they call computer illiterate for the most part. I'm not sure how I feel about blogging but i'm open to knew things. I hope to create a blog that is interesting to anyone who reads it.
My theory on "theory" is that I don't really have one perticular theory about anything, I like to look at things from different points of view. By taking this course I hope to develope a better understanding of theory.