Evolution of Feminist Theory - N Caleb Kath(1324104)

EVOLUTION OF FEMINIST THEORY

`Competition for resources is the foundation of evolutionary theory. It is the force that drives a species to survive.’

Charles Darwin (1859)

The dichotomy between sexes has been there from ages where women are seen as inferior to men, who were considered as protectors. History in itself is a testament of the division between genders and studies in Philosophy, Literature, Economics etc. These discourses are largely male-centric. Women in contrast to men are expected to be subservient towards their husband, look after the children and do the household chores even to this day. They are defined not as positive and independent entities like men, but rather looked at as negative and dependent towards men.

 During the middle Ages, women writers opposed the very structure of societies but their voices were suppressed. It is these inequalities which lead to the emergence of ` Feminism ‘in 18^th and 19^th century.

 Credentials were not given to Women’s literary works and women writers. In order to bring their works in the main stream, they had to take on pseudonyms of men to get their works published; one example was that of the Bronte sisters.  Another Feminist writer who revolutionised the literary tradition was Jane Austen with her iconic novel, Pride and Prejudice. Handful of scholars and philosophers portrayed the women in a positive light. One among such was Lacan in his depiction of women in Courtly love.

Women choices are constantly monitored by the society which expects them to be stooge towards Men. Their literary works were considered insipid and their self are defined in relation with men. The restriction Society imposed on Female gender goad the feminist writer to act as an ombudsman and fight against the prevailing system. Feminist writers from across the world sprout in and challenged patriarchal systems in their works. The theme they explored was on discrimination, sexual objectification, aesthetics etc. Simone de Beauvoir, to name some few stood in opposition of the image of the women in the home. She endowed an existentialist element to feminism with the publication of her book The Second sex where she questions the very source of women’s inequality.  Her study on The Second Sex became the foundation of Feminist Theory.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on 10 February 2014.

 

Jacques Lacan and Psycho-analysis

Koushambi dixit 1324133

Jacques Lacan and Psycho-analysis

Jacques Lacan (April 13, 1901 to September 9, 1981) was a major figure in Parisian intellectual life for much of the twentieth century. Sometimes referred to as “the French Freud,” he is an important figure in the history of psychoanalysis. His teachings and writings explore the significance of Freud's discovery of the unconscious both within the theory and practice of analysis itself as well as in connection with a wide range of other disciplines. Particularly for those interested in the philosophical dimensions of Freudian thought, Lacan's oeuvre is invaluable. Over the course of the past fifty-plus years, Lacanian ideas have become central to the various receptions of things psychoanalytic in Continental philosophical circles especially.

Lacan tends to associate (albeit not exclusively) the Imaginary with the restricted spheres of consciousness and self-awareness. It is the register with the closest links to what people experience as non-psychoanalytic quotidian reality. Who and what one “imagines” other persons to be, what one thereby “imagines” they mean when communicatively interacting, who and what one “imagines” oneself to be, including from the imagined perspectives of others—all of the preceding is encompassed under the heading of this register. Such a description indicates the ways in which the Imaginary points to core analytic ideas like transference, fantasy, and the ego. In particular, the Imaginary is central to Lacan's account(s) of ego-formation (as per the mirror stage—see 2.2 below).

As Lacan integrates his early work of the 1930s and 1940s with his structuralism-informed theories of the 1950s, he comes to emphasize the dependence of the Imaginary on the Symbolic. This dependency means that more sensory-perceptual phenomena (images and experiences of one's body, affects as consciously lived emotions, envisionings of the thoughts and feelings of others, etc.) are shaped, steered, and (over)determined by socio-linguistic structures and dynamics. With the growing importance of the Real in the 1960s and the Borromean knots of the 1970s, it becomes clear that Lacan conceives of the Imaginary as bound up with both of the other two registers (incidentally, the Imaginary and the Symbolic, when taken together as mutually integrated, constitute the field of “reality,” itself contrasted with the Real). In fact, it could be maintained that the Imaginary invariably involves category mistakes. More specifically, it is the register in which the other two registers are mistaken for each other: What is Real is misrecognized as Symbolic (for example, as in particular sorts of obsessional-neurotic and paranoid-psychotic symptoms, certain meaningless contingent occurrences at the level of the material world of non-human objects are viewed as though they were meaningful signs full of deep significance to be deciphered and interpreted) and what is Symbolic is misrecognized as Real (for example, as in psychosomatic-type “conversion symptoms,” unconscious mental conflicts encoded in language and ideas are suffered as bodily afflictions and ailments).

With his choice of the word “imaginary,” Lacan indeed intends to designate that which is fictional, simulated, virtual, and the like. However, the phenomena of the Imaginary are necessary illusions (to put it in Kantian locution) or real abstractions (to put it in Marxian parlance). This signals two points. First, as one of Lacan's three basic, essential registers, the Imaginary is an intrinsic, unavoidable dimension of the existences of speaking psychical subjects; just as an analysis cannot (and should not try to) rid the analysand of his/her unconscious, so too is it neither possible nor desirable to liquidate the illusions of this register. Second, the fictional abstractions of the Imaginary, far from being merely “unreal” as ineffective, inconsequential epiphenomena, are integral to and have very concrete effects uThe Lacanian Symbolic initially is theorized on the basis of resources provided by structuralism. Tied to natural languages as characterized by Saussure and specific post-Saussurians, this register also refers to the customs, institutions, laws, mores, norms, practices, rituals, rules, traditions, and so on of cultures and societies (with these things being entwined in various ways with language). Lacan's phrase “symbolic order,” which encompasses all of the preceding, can be understood as roughly equivalent to what Hegel designates as “objective spirit.” This non-natural universe is an elaborate set of inter-subjective and trans-subjective contexts into which individual human beings are thrown at birth (along the lines of Heideggerian Geworfenheit), a pre-existing order preparing places for them in advance and influencing the vicissitudes of their ensuing lives.

According to Lacan, one of the (if not the) most significant and indispensable conditions of possibility for singular subjectivity is the collective symbolic order (sometimes named “the big Other,” a phrase to be unpacked further shortly—see 2.3 below). Individual subjects are what they are in and through the mediation of the socio-linguistic arrangements and constellations of the register of the Symbolic. Especially during the period of the “return to Freud,” the analytic unconscious (qua “structured like a language”) is depicted as kinetic networks of interlinked signifiers (i.e., “signifying chains”). Rendered thusly, the unconscious, being of a Symbolic (anti-)nature in and of itself, is to be interpretively engaged with via the Symbolic medium of speech, namely, the very substance of the being-in-itself of the speaking subject (parlêtre) of the unconscious. Furthermore, the Lacanian unconscious is structured like “un langage” and not “une langue.” Although both French words translate into English as “language,” the former (langage) refers to logics and structures of syntax and semantics not necessarily specific to particular natural languages, whereas the latter (langue), which also could be translated into English as “tongue,” does refer to the notion of a natural language. Hence, Lacan is not saying that the unconscious is structured like French, German, English, Spanish, or any other particular natural language.

pon actual, factual human realities.

References:

Pinto, Anil. "Introduction to Freud and Psychoanalysis." Class lecture and discussions. Christ University. India, Bangalore. 29 01 2014. Lecture.

Jacques Lacan , Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lacan/

Dramatury. I BA Theatre Studies. 29 Jan 2014

Lacan. Contemporary Critical Theory. MA English. 30 Jan 2014

Barthes' view on 'work' and 'text'

Barthes writes in his essay "From Work to Text" that the change in conception of language and literary work can be attributed to the development of other disciplines but mainly the disciplines of linguistics, anthropology, Marxism and psychoanalysis.

From the reading of the essay as translated by Stephen Heath, in the first paragraph Barthes writes about why the shift from 'work' to 'text' has occurred in literature. He feels that interdisciplinary studies are a major cause of this change. He questions the term 'text' and what it stands for and goes on to give us seven propositions about the text concerned with:

1.      Method

2.      Genres

3.      Signs

4.      Plurality

5.      Filiation

6.      Reading

7.      Pleasure

About method he says, that a work can be seen as it is a 'fragment of a substance' while a text is a process of demonstration. A work can be held in the hand while a text can only be held in language. Text is experienced only in the activity of production. When a reader engages with a work, it becomes a text. Genres remind us of how a work is liminal. However, a text cannot be bound by classification. The text can be approached and experienced in reaction to the sign. The signified in a work is evident while in a text it is secret, something to be unearthed. 'A work conceived, perceived and received in its integrally symbolic nature is a text.' The text has achieved an irreducible plural. There are infinite meanings in a text. A work is caught up in filiation; it is not seen in isolation. In a text, filiation is discarded. A work is like a composition (like a written book) but the text is about playing (reading the text). A work can be read without being involved but a text needs involvement and engaging. A work provides pleasure of consumption. A text provides jouissance (pleasure without separation).

Barthes concludes by saying that the theory of the text has to be a text itself and must coincide only with a practice of writing.

 

References

Barthes, Roland. "From Work to Text." Trans. Stephen Heath. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. By Vincent B. Leitch. New York, NY: Norton, 2001. N. pag. Print.

"Roland Barthes." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Jan. 2014. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.

 

Introduction to Sigmund Freud and Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939): He was born to Jewish parents in Moravia, now in Czech Republic. His later moved with his family to Vienna, where he got education and eventually secured a medical degree in psychiatry in1881. Within a year his interest turned towards the study of nervous diseases. He has since been credited with the development of new courses. He is one of the rare men who is both a Doctor and a philosopher.

Freud wrote Civilization and its Discontents in 1929. In it he talks about how the civilization and the individual have some fundamental tensions which cause friction. He points out that people crave for individuality and freedom while society/ civilization stresses on containing repression of instincts. Freud says that humans have some instincts which are characteristic to them like desire for sex, predisposition towards violence etc.

In this work he talks about 'the pleasure principle' and 'the reality principle'. He says that the pleasure principle is subordinated to the reality principle. He says that our ego (consciousness) wants to stay away from displeasure and try and achieve happiness but along the course does submit itself to reality. He calls this as sublimation, i.e. subordinating pleasure to reality.

However, because pleasure has been sublimated does not mean that it is no longer retained within us.  There remain many desires which are unfulfilled and settle in the unconscious. Yet they will find some way to be expressed. They cannot be repressed forever. They will find expression in one way or the other.

These 'other' ways which Freud suggests are: dreams, parapraxis and jokes.

1.      Dreams – according to Freud are some form of wish fulfillment. Repressed feelings and unfulfilled desires find an expression through these. They are attempts by the unconscious to resolve the conflict within it. He elaborates on this more in his essay Interpretation of Dreams.

2.      Parapraxes – are the slips of the tongue. It is more famously known as 'the Freudian slip'. Freud says that the slip of the tongue is quite real as it is the true expression of some repressed feeling. It is an outlet for unfulfilled desires. For eHe expands on this concept in his work, Psychopathology of Everyday life.

3.      Jokes – are another form of expression for what is subdued in the unconscious. Jokes have tendencies towards hidden meanings, hidden purpose etc.  He talks more about this in Jokes and their relation to the Unconscious.

 

Reference:

Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism: From Plato to the Present. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Print.

"Sigmund Freud." Wikipedia. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud.

Thornton, Stephen. "Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. N.p.. Web. 23 Jan 2014. http://www.iep.utm.edu/freud/.

Pinto, Anil. "Introduction to Freud and Psychoanalysis." Class lecture and discussions. Christ University. India, Bangalore. 20 01 2014. Lecture.

 

(Prepared by Ranjhani Iyer – 1324131)

Main differences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Theoretical differences:

Structuralism was a literary movement primarily concerned with
understanding how language works as a system of meaning production.
That is to say, structuralism asked the following question: How does
language function as a kind of meaning machine? To answer this
question, structuralism turned its attention to form. Focusing on the
form or structure of the literary work, and the particular use of
language in the work, would allow structuralists to think of language
as a kind of science.
The primary theorist framing the ideas associated with structuralism
was Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed the idea that language was
composed of arbitrary units that were void of concept or meaning until
they acquired meaning through a language system that relied on
differences between terms within their larger linguistic and social
contexts. One of structuralism's characteristic views is the notion
that language doesn't just reflect or record the world: rather it
shapes it, so that how we see is what we see.

Post-structuralism, on the other hand, is less singularly defined as a
movement than structuralism. Is post-structuralism a continuation and
development of structuralism or a form of rebellion against it?
Post-structuralists accuse structuralists of not following through the
implications of the views about the language on which their
intellectual system is based. Post-structuralism offers a way of
studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralist
premises. It argues that because history and culture condition the
study of underlying structures, both are subject to biases and
misinterpretations. A post-structuralist approach argues that to
understand an object (e.g., a text), it is necessary to study both the
object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object
A number of literary theories fall under the larger umbrella of
"post-structuralism," including "gender theory" and "reader-response"
theories. These theories recognize the overarching notion that meaning
does not exist outside of the text and that meaning is not fixed but
rather contingent and unstable. Post-structuralism evolved alongside
Jacques Derrida's theory of "deconstruction," which emphasized this
concept of unstable, unfixed meaning as it functioned in language.
According to Derrida, language is made up of units that do not contain
inherent meaning and relate to other units (or signifiers) through
their difference. Meaning, in deconstructionist theory, is therefore
constantly deferred, never landing in one place or becoming stable.
Post-structuralism emerges in this context, recognizing this lack of
fixed or inherent meaning and yet also acknowledging the need for
language to acquire meaning.

Some main differences can be listed as follows:
1. Origins: Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. It
believes that if we observe accurately, collect data systematically
and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable conclusions
about language and the world. Structuralism believes in this and also
in the method, system and reason as being able to establish reliable
truths. By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from
philosophy which has always tended to emphasize the difficulty of
achieving secure knowledge about things. They inherit the habit of
scepticism and intensify it.
2. Attitude to language: Structuralists accept that the world is
constructed through language in the sense that we do not have access
to reality other than through the linguistic system. By contrast,
post-structuralism is much more fundamental in insisting upon the
consequences of the view that, in effect, reality itself is textual.

Practical differences:

An initial problem here is that post-structuralism often claims that
it is more an attitude of mind than a practical method of criticism.
After all, in what sense could, say, Marxist or feminist or even
liberal humanist criticism be called a method? Only in the loosest
way, since none of these provide anything like a step-by-step
procedure for analyzing literary works. All they offer is an
orientation towards a characteristic central issue and a body of work.
The post-structuralist literary critic is engaged in the task of
'deconstructing' the text. This process can be roughly defined as
'applied post-structuralism'. It is often referred to as 'reading
against the grain' or 'reading the text against itself', with the
purpose of 'knowing the text as it cannot know itself'. (Terry
Eagleton's definitions) At the same time structuralists look for
features like parallels, echoes and reflections. The deconstructionist
looks for evidence of gaps, breaks and discontinuities of all kinds.

The structuralist seeks: The post- structuralist seeks:
Parallels/ Echoes Contradictions/ Paradoxes
Balances Shifts/ Breaks in: Tone
Viewpoint
Tense
Person
Attitude
Reflections/ Repetitions Conflicts
Symmetry Absences/ Omissions
Contrasts Linguistic qiurks
Effect: to show textual unity Effect: to show textual disunity
and coherence




References:

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory An Introduction to Literary and
Cultural Theory. 3rd. New Delhi
: Viva Books, 2012. Print.
Pinto, Anil. Class Lecture. Twentieth Century Critical Traditions.
Christ University. Bangalore,
India. 13 Jan. 2013.

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 13 January. Prepared by Dhanya
Zacharias, 1324128)

Notes on Foucault's What is an Author – Clare Joseph

In his essay What is an Author, Michel Foucault is not discussing authors and their works, rather, he is talking about the concept of work and the functional role of an author, that is, 'author function'.

He says that when people study concerns of a particular concept, more importance is given to the solid and fundamental role of the author, rather than the concept. Foucault lists the possible conditions under which the author was individualised in the western tradition. Did it happen because of the status given to the author when authenticity and attribution of texts were researched, or by inclusion of the author in systems of valorisation, or did it happen when the traditional stories about heroes gave way to different kinds of writing like an author's biography? However, this traditional notion of individualisation of the author has shifted.

To understand this shift, Foucault uses Samuel Beckett's notion of an author – "What matter who is speaking, someone said, what matter who is speaking." Foucault says that this shift has occurred because of two major themes that emerged:

• First, writing freed itself from the necessity of expression, that is, writing was not merely a result of the author's need to express. The meaning of the text was no longer confined within the writing of the text, but in it's exterior deployment. As a result, writing became an interplay of signs, regulated not by the author (the signified) but by the nature of work or text itself (signifier). Thus, the essential basis of writing was not the emotions under which it was composed or the subject inserted into language, but the creation of an opening where the writing subject disappears.

• Second, the relationship between writing and death. Traditionally, death was a guarantee to immortality (e.g. the Greek narratives where by death, the hero gains immortality. Contemporarily, this notion has been altered, and writing is now linked to sacrifice. The narrator is used to forestall death. Where work had the duty of creating immortality, it now had the right to kill its author. After writing, the author is dead, but through the text, the author lives. The author becomes a victim of his own writing, and through his absence, his presence is guaranteed.

Problematising "work"

Foucault questions the concept of work. He says, if we consider that an individual is not an author (when no individual has authority over the work), what do we make of the things written, said or communicated by an individual? Also, if we are dealing with an author, will his work include everything that he has ever written or said (like notes on someone's address or an appointment). He says we lack a theory to encompass the questions generated by a work and the empirical activity involved in publishing an author's complete works (which is questionable). If there is no understanding of what a work is, there can be unified meaning designated by a work. He argues that the thesis of ecriture makes it possible to continue the presence of an author, as it is not concerned with the act of writing or the authorial intentions and meanings within a text, but it elaborates the conditions of spatial dispersion and temporal deployment of any text. But ecriture has merely transposed the empirical characteristics of an author to a transcendental anonymity. Next, he problematises the use of an author's name. He says that an author's name is not just a proper name, but functional. It has functions other than signification (which a proper name is designated for). An author's name is functional in relation to his or her works as it can be used to classify a set of works and also establish homogeneity, filiation, reciprocal explanation, authentification, or of common utilisation. An author's name also characterises a particular manner of existence, circulation and operations of a discourse.

Foucault defines the four major characteristics of author function as follows:

• Author function is tied to the legal and institutional systems that circumscribe, determine and articulate discourses – an author needs to take responsibility while writing, hence, a particular text is attributed to an author.

• Author function does not operate uniformly in all discourses, at all times, and in any given culture – it is difficult to define an author function uniform across various discourses.

• Author function is not defined by the spontaneous attribution of a text to its creator, but through a series of precise and complex procedures.

  Foucault uses Saint Jerome's argument to define author function. St. Jerome says that a text can be attributed to an author if it meets the standard level of quality of other works written by that author; has a coherent idea represented as in other works by the author; has a uniform style of writing and choice of words particular to the author; and those that do not include historical events and figures subsequent to the author's death. Foucault says that St. Jerome's characterisation might not be appropriate for modern critics to attribute authorship of a text, but it helps in defining the author function.

• It does not just refer to an actual individual but gives rise to multiple egos (multiple selves) and a series of subjective positions the individuals of any class may occupy – this arises out of the scission between, and the division and distance of the actual writer from the fictional narrator.

(Discussion on St. Jerome and his role: He is important not just because he translated the Bible to Latin, but because he throws a light on how texts transform demography of the people and what a particular text does to a civilisation. He translated Bible from Hebrew and Greek (Greek was powerful earlier) to Latin (the language spoken at Rome, which ruled Europe when St. Jerome translated Bible to Latin). Similarly, Martin Luther King said that an interpreter is not required and that people need self-interpretation. When he translated Bible from Latin to German (Germany was then powerful in Europe), Latin was overthrown by German, English and other European languages. Religious descent begins the rise of languages. The role of a translator is also functional.

Link to Foucault's essay: While we discuss what is an author and our changing relationship with text, we look at the shift in views over a period of time and how these texts (economic, political, religious texts) shape our society).

Two types of positions of an author:

• Transdiscursive position – Foucault says that even within the realm of a discourse, "a person can be the author of not only a book, but of a theory, tradition or a discipline within which new books and authors can proliferate" Such authors occupy a transdiscursive position (e.g. Homer, Aristotle, church fathers). These kind of authors are as old as our civilisation.

• Initiators of discursive practices – 19^th century Europe produced a singular kind of author, different from transdiscursive authors. They not only produced their own work, but they laid down the possibility and rules of forming other texts. They provided ground not only for analogies to be adopted by future texts, but also made possible differences – they created a space for differing views within the field of discourse they initiated. This, he says, is different from founding of any scientific endeavor.

Foucault however says that the distinction between initiation of discursive practices and founding of sciences is not readily identifiable, and there is no proof that these two procedures are mutually exclusive. His purpose behind bringing out this distinction was to show that "author-function" might be complex when we analyse each book or even a series of texts bearing a definite signature, but when we consider larger entities like groups of works or entire disciplines, author-function can be understood.

Author-function, according to Foucault, is one possible specifications of the subject and, it appears that the form, the complexity and even the existence of author-function is not permanent. The author as a centre was constructed to establish a unified meaning from the text, but now, text itself becomes meaning. The author does not have the authority over meaning – author or the unified subject is displaced from the centre, but not removed entirely. A text needs to be related through larger groups of texts or discourse.

References

Pinto, Anil and Vijayaganesh A.. "Michel Foucault's What is an Author – summary". Christ university. Bangalore. 10 January 2014. Lecture.

Foucault, Michel. "What is an Author.

What is an Author?

class notes prepared by Chitra Tracy Johnson

What is an Author?

Michel Foucault

 

January 7, 2014

Michel Foucault is an author who drew ideas and assumptions from all areas like Marxism, structuralism, sociology, history and so on. He is a post-structuralist author with affinities with to the theories we studied earlier.

Foucault begins his essay "What is an Author" by discussing the criticism he had on his previous work The Order of Things. In this work Foucault make an investigation into the condition of possibility under which human beings become an object of knowledge in some of the disciplines (Social Sciences). "For Foucault discourse is a body of thought and writing that is united by having a common object of study, a common methodology and a set of common term and ideas". This idea of Foucault allows him to talk elaborately on variety of texts irrespective of countries, historical periods, disciplines and genres. This is the reason why while discussing several naturalist without considering the periods in which they belonged he discussed Bulton and Darquin who belonged to the 18 and 19 centuries respectively and also to different nationalities. For him they were following "the functional condition of specific discursive practices" (Text para 3).  They belonged to the same discourse family.

            Critics questioned this association. He responds to this by asking why we are not concerned with the idea of authors at all than seeing discourse as the grouping of texts and ideas. Foucault quotes Samuel Beckett who says "What matter who's speaking" and says that this indifference is fundamental ethical principle of contemporary writing. For him writing is a play of language than an expression. So it is creating an opening where the writing subject entirely disagrees.  

Another important idea Foucault brings in the relation of writing and death.  The Greek narration and epics were designed to guarantee the immortality of the hero. So the Greek hero accepted an early death. But coming to modern times texts like Arabian Nights tries to reverse this equation and try to keep death away from the circle of existence. This concept of writing as a protection against death has been transferred to other cultures where writing is now linked to sacrifice and sacrifice of the life itself. It takes place in the everyday life of writer. The work which has the duty of creating immortality has now turned into a right to kill, kill the author himself. The link between writing and death is manifested in the total removal of the individual characterisation of the writer. The consequence of the removal of the authors is not fully explored.

So when he is saying that the author is dead he is saying that author is deconstructed shown that only a part of the structure a subject position and not the centre. By declaring the death of the author Foucault is deconstructing the idea that the author is the origin of something original and replay it with the idea that the author is the product of function of writing of the text.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on7 January 2014.

Foucault, Michel. What is an Author? Print.

Notes prepared by Chitra Tracy Johnson

 

What is an Author? Michel Foucault ( Christina Alex)

What is an Author?

Michel Foucault

Date: 9 January 2014

·         In this essay, Foucault is concerned with the author and the work. It was looked upon as a single entity.

·         The task of criticism is to establish the link between the author and the work.

·         The understanding of language is extended to literary theory through structuralist approaches.

Author	Work/ Text
Signified	Signifier
Unified subject	Language
Reference point

·         Foucault discusses the relationship between writing and the necessity of expression.

·         Traditional/ Classic writers believed in the concept of inspiration: the idea of a muse.

·         Writers like Coleridge and Wordsworth have talked about the compulsion that a writer experiences to put down thoughts into words.

·         An example is The Rime of The Ancient Mariner where the narrator is compelled to tell his tale to a passer-by.

·         This can be regarded as a continuation of the story-telling tradition.

·         Secondly, Foucault talks about the concept of writing and death.

·         A writer lives through his work or in other words, attains immortality with his work.

·         Foucault
suggests
that
his
examples,
that
the
idea
of
perpetuating
or


·         postponing
death
in
the
case
of
the
Greek
epic
and
the
Arabian
tales
 were
metaphosed
by
the
Western
society

·         The idea of the power of the narrator to forestall death through story-telling.

·         This further problematises the notion of the author as an unimportant part of the work.

·         Waiting for Godot is an example of a text where there is no unified meaning in the text and hence it requires us to look for the author in the text.

·         New Critics, Formalists, Structuralists, etc looked for a meaning in the text even after doing away with the concept of the author.

·         These tendencies were prominent in the 20^th century.

·         Writing was removed from expression.

·         Hence, the author disappears and there occurs a removal of the unified subject.

·         Here the question of what happens when you remove a reference point comes up.

·         Writing is a signifying system; meaning is relational and based on difference.

·         It reflects the notion of a simple and self-contained identity; circularity of meaning as opposed to a linear one.

·         Text does not indicate the intention of the author; author expresses through a unified language which reader interprets.

·         This linear trend has changed recently.

·         The author as a transcendental anonymity.

·         The focus shifted to the text/discourse. Foucault states that everything is a discourse.

·         The author still exists, even after having claimed to have disappeared. He is still behind the text because we want a unified meaning from a text.

·         The author's name is not just a name, it is functional as it performs a function.

·         Foucault
points
out
that
the author's
proper
name
equals
a
description. He uses the example of Aristotle to conclude that hearing a particular name leads to associating that name to that person's famous works.

·         The way Foucault describes the author is very restricted/ limited.

Reference:

Lecture by Asst.Prof. Vijayaganesh, Christ University, Bangalore on 9 January 2014.

Foucault, Michel. What is an Author? Print.

Notes prepared by Christina Alex.

From Work to Text and Death of the Author

1324118

Annie Isabel Jaison

13/12/2013, Friday

From Work to Text and Death of the Author

·         From Work to Text and Death of the Author are two of Roland Barthes' most important works. A text is an 'object of study' according to Barthes.

·          A text is called so because it is woven from the material available, i.e. words. In a text, the words are being stitched and unstitched constantly.  In the essay 'From Work to Text', Barthes juxtaposes the making of a text to the making of a work. Work has an author and text has a scribe. (The word 'scribe' emerged from 'script' which emerged from 'scripture'. 'Scribe' means 'one who writes).

·         Barthes is of the opinion that an author's words are never his own. His work is inspired by a muse.

·         He gives us an idea of the movement of a text to a work - there is no place for the author, in his place the reader is born. We never know what the author meant while creating his 'work', we only know what various readers have interpreted.

·         Here, Barthes is not denying the existence of the author. He is saying that it is not just the author that is creating a work- the language is not his, the ideas are not his- he is just stitching the ideas and words together.

·          In a way he is just a mediator who merges ideas and language together presents it before the readers. This is where the concept of 'Death of the Author' emerges.

·          As text started travelling out of the culture it was written for, it was interpreted even more vividly by a vast number if readers, thus backing the idea of 'Death of the Author'.

References:

1.      Roland Barthes, Death of the Author (1968)

2.      Roland Barthes, From Work to Text (1971)

Shift From Structuralism to Poststructuralism by Anuradha Acharjee (1324119)

There is seen to be an ''exact'' shift from structuralism to poststructuralism. The basis of Structuralism is Linguistics and Structuralism puts emphasis on 'how to look at language'. The notion is same between the structuralists and poststructuralists but there was a change or shift in the attitude of the Poststructuralists which made them different. From 1973, one can see the pressure of the text on yhe writers and the readers. Barthes Structuralist perspective changed and became Poststructuralist.

Structuralists look at language as a sign system which is natural and has no essence. Each woed is a sign and gives a particular meaning. The nature of meaning is relational and arbitrary. Structuralists basically look for a stable meaning in everything or various concepts they come across. The new version, still being stable, gives a better understanding of the reality. In Poststructuralism, there are no signifieds, only signifiers. E.g. When the word tree is uttered, everybody does not get the same concept or meaning in their minds.

So th basic differences one may find in Poststructuralism is that there are a chain of signifiers, no signifieds. The concept of having a fixed or constant meaning is nullified. All this leads to anxiety about language and Poststructuralists cannot believe that language is reliable to communicate at the first place. They believe that texts also communicate certain meaning.

The time frame of Structuralim and Poststructuralism is demarcated as such, from 1930s to 1940s structuralism existed appoximately and from 1960s onwards, it was Poststructuralism in the scenario. It happened in france first and then in England.

Earlier, there used to be a God centred society. There was a gap between language and reality. It was later found out that reality is just a construct and there was no one to one correspondence. Poststructuralism however, widened this gap. According to Poststructuralism, there is nothing like unified eternal reality in the world. Reality itself is textual and everything is a construct. Then during REnaissance Humanism when man was made the centre of the society, all these absolute facts were subverted. This can even be proven by Literature. Also, rationality and reasoning power or man was developed and Science was born.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there was a war between religion and science. This can be best understood by reading Mathew Arnold's works, how man was caught between the two worlds. The First World War eradicated the notion of moving forward to a perfectly perfect, materialistic life. Also, European countries were emerging at that time. After the Second World War, faith was lost in everything.

Fragmentation in writing can be seen very clearly in T.S. Eliot's works. There is a fragmented and disordered structure. The shift had continued till thousands of years, undoing of whatever you have learnt so far.

There is no fixed meaning in the text. Feminism also incorporated some of these ideas. Male language per se was replaced with feminine viewpoints. Gynocriticism emerged where woman becomes the centre of the society and everything is for women. Classical feminism is seen to be replacing the centre and it all emerged against a male dominated society.

Structuralism was a step by step process, based on methodology and linguistics whereas Poststructuralism had a sceptical nature and was based on philosophy. Structuralists had a coherent and structured style of writing but Poststructuralists wrote with a lot of puns, allusions, metaphors, multiple interpretations. Their writing was basically constituted with a play of words.

Poststructuralists believe that language or reality is a construct. The Structuralists know this but they live with it without questioning anything. They do not want to look at the uncertainity and totality of meanings. Reality id textual for Poststructuralists. The writers do not follow a linear mode of narration.

References :
1.class taken on 20th December' 2013 by Mr. VijayaGanesh.
2. A basic reading of 'The Death of the Author' by Roland Barthes and some other preceeding texts.

Notes prepared by Anuradha Acharjee (1324119)

Roland Barthes: The Death of the Author (Ayushi Malhotra 1324121)

Text as said by Roland Barthes is not a line of words releasing a single theological meaning but a multi-dimensions space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. It is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. A text is woven and draws to what we have as text and juxtaposes work with the text. Work is completed by the author whereas text by the scribe. The author has an ownership and a copyright and it together associates the idea of "author" which coincides with the birth of the capitalist.

Barthe gives us a shift from work to text where he says that there is no author. In place of author "reader" is born. Reading creates meaning and then author becomes the source of that meaning. Once the author is removed reference is given to the writer. If we take out the author the scripter remains. The word "author" like other words "father" "mother" etc. only performs a function. These notions have a meaning attached to it. Once the author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes futile. If there is no author then there is no meaning of the text. The reign of the author has been the reign of the critic. A critic's role was to discover what was originally intended by the author and consequently the death of the author is the death of the critic as well. In the multiplicity of writing, everything has to be disentangled and not deciphered. In precisely this way literature, by refusing to assign a "secret" or an ultimate meaning to text, liberates what may be called an anti-theological activity, an activity that is truly revolutionary as it refuses god for science law and religion.

Barthes essay deals with the addresses the power of the author in reading and analysing writing. The total existence of writing is focused on the reader and not the writer. The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up the writing are inscribed without any of them being lost. The reader holds more responsibility to the text than the author. The complexity of different connotations and experiences that come from the author to the text are flattened by the time it reaches the reader. The reader comes empty handed and is impersonalized with the text. Barthe makes a point that the origin of the work may lie with the author but its destination is with the reader.

Classic criticism has never paid any attention to the reader; writer is only person in literature. Barthe concludes by saying that the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the author.

 

References:

Class notes by Anil Pinto taken on 19^th December 2013

Roland Barthe: The Death of the Author

The Death of the Author: critical summary: Roland Barthes

Notes prepared by Ayushi Malhotra

The Death of the Author by Roland Barthes (Anushka Chowdhury 1324120)

 

Barthes's 'The Death of the Author' illustrates the movement from work to text. According to him in the place of author the reader is born as only reading enables the textual understanding of meaning and reality. He gives importance to the plurality of meaning, thereby establishing the concept of multiple texts.

While Barthes begins the essay with an example taken from Balzac's novella Sarrasine, from the second paragraph, he starts discussing the importance of language and marginalizes the author. Barthes argues that for effective and productive reading of a text one has to suspend the preconceived ideas about the author and even about human psychology. Associating the author with the text limits the scope of his work. The author, in modern times, takes up the role of a mediator or a medium for the transfer of meaning through language. According to Barthes, it is not a conscious decision but his role is to assemble all the available resources and tell the tale. He also points out that the idea of an individual author is a modern one and a societal construct "…emerging from the Middle Ages with English empiricism, French rationalism and the personal faith of the Reformation..."

In the next section, Barthes highlights how different authors project the author. Though the sway of the author remains to be powerful, some writers have attempted to loosen it, challenging the centrality of author. Mallarmé recognized that it is "language which speaks, not the author." Valéry stressed the "essentially verbal condition" of literature. Proust distorts the relation between the writer and his characters. And surrealism, "contributed to the desacralization of the image of the Author" by stressing the disappointment of expectations of meaning. Whereas, Linguistics has shown that diction is an empty process as "…the author is never more than the instance writing…language knows a 'subject', not a 'person', and this subject empty out- side of the very enunciation which defines it."

Barthes also discusses how the removal of the author transforms the modern text. According to him, there is no author but only an idea of the author, much alike the idea of a teacher-whoever performs the function of teaching can become a teacher. The concept of the scriptor has replaced the author, who neither precedes nor 'fathers' the text. A scriptor is rather born simultaneously with the text. In writing, the modern scriptor traces a field with no origin, or at least one which has "no other origin than language itself, language which ceaselessly calls into question all origins". Therefore, it benefits someone economically to be called a scriptor to avoid labeling. It is liberating for a writer as it does not carry the burden of the author. However, the question still continues to bother that whether it is so easy to deny the role of the individual who crystallizes it all and gives it a definite shape.

 

References:

·         Original text: The Death of the Author

·         Classroom discussions and the lecture

·          M.A.R. Habib's "A History of Literary Criticism—From Plato to the Present"

·         The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

·         http://www.rlwclarke.net/courses/LITS3304/2004-2005/09ABarthesDeathoftheAuthor.pdf

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 18 December 2013 by Dr.Anil Pinto. Prepared by Anushka Chowdhury)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post Structuralism

Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of mid-20th-century French and continental philosophers and critical theorists who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s. A major theme of post structuralism is instability in the human sciences, due to the complexity of humans themselves and the impossibility of fully escaping structures in order to study them.

Post-structuralism is a response to structuralism. Structuralism is an intellectual movement developed in Europe from the early to mid-20th century. It argued that human culture may be understood by means of a structure modeled on language (i.e., structural linguistics) that differs from concrete reality and from abstract ideas a "third order" that mediates between the two. Post-Structuralists authors all present different critiques of structuralism, but common themes include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of the structures that structuralism posits and an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute those structures. Writers whose work is often characterized as post-Structuralists include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jacques Lacan, Jean Baudrillard, and Julia Kristeva, although many theorists who have been called "post-Structuralists" have rejected the label.

 

Structuralism accuse the post-structuralism for not following through the implications of the views on language on which their intellectual systems are based. Structuralism holds that the language not really reflects and records the world but it shapes.Post structuralism opposes this view saying that we are entering into a world of absolute uncertainty because man has no access to anything that is beyond linguistic processing and theorist standard to measure anything. The fixed intellectual reference points are permanently renewed by properly taking on board what structuralism said about language. So post Structuralists anxiety over language is important to know  their concern. They say that the urge for language leads to go beyond in our traction and may cause confusion. It can express things we did not intent. The filler words like " I mean " etc. shows that the linguistic urge is not in our control always. To understand post-structuralism basic knowledge of structuralism and language (deviation towards structuralism) they criticize Structuralists conviction. Language is a system of rules but not applied to any other systems. Structuralists believe in common stable meaning.post structuralism do not deviates  from this. Sign stand its own. Meaning is arbitrary, language is not natural fixed signifier- structuralism . Post structuralism subvert the notion of structuralism.

References

·          Classroom discussions and the lecture

(Notes of the lecture delivered on 10 December 2013 by Ass.Prof.Vijayaganesh prepared by Ani Mariam Philip)

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-structuralism