Post-structuralism

Three ideas dropped with the world “Post” were:-
1. 'Post' represented time which meant after
For example – India after independence is post-independent India.
2. 'Post' represented the idea itself.
For example – Raja Rao, R K Naranyan are looked at as post colonial writers but most of their post colonial writing stated in the pre-independent era itself (1930s).
3. Result of experience – represented the unconscious shift in ideas.

For example – Post globalisatuib could be used to suggest a state created due to the experience of globalisation

1942 the issue was termed as Babri Masjid.
1990 the same issue was termed as Ram Janmabhuma.
Now it’s known as the disputed site issue.

Ideas in sciences cease to exist once proved wrong. This does not happen in Social scines and humanities. The ideas of Plato, Shakespeare and various thinkers continue to exist.

Post-Structuralism has borrowed ideas from early philosophers like Nietzsche. Thus in a way post-structuralism started even before structuralism. The new thinking in philosophy, sociology and literature in the works of Jacques Derrida, Ronald Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Jean Baudrillard and Michel Foucault gave a new dimension in the study of post-structuralism.

The relation between post-structuralism and post-modernism is similar but the two are not the same. Post-structuralism is the theory of reading and analysis, thus there can never be post-structuralist poetry, post-structuralist play or a post-structuralist painting. On the other hand post-modernism is concerned with the practicality of theory or the theory of doing. Post-modernism unlike post-structuralism can have a post modern architecture, post modern painting, or a post modern novel. Post-structuralism and post modernism does not have a certain standard to measure anything therefore challenging the "center". Nietzsche’s famous remarks, “There are no facts, only interpretation” undercuts and questions commonsensical questions and assumptions. Post-structuralism inherits the habit of skepticism and intensifies it. They distrust the very notion of reason and the idea of human being as an independent entity where by defining and individual as an entity of social and linguistic intermingling.