CLS4200

Structuralism and semiotics

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

12 points - 3 hours per week - First semester - Clayton - Prohibitions: CRT4200

Objectives On successful completion of this subject, students will have acquired a knowledge of the semiotic model of meaning, elaborated by psychoanalytic and phenomenological theory as well as philosophy of language. Using this knowledge as a tool, students will be able to analyse cultural texts and sign systems by employing the methodology of reading texts through other texts (or the procedure of deconstruction).

Synopsis The subject will show students how to turn literary structuralist theory into a workable tool of critical analysis. Structuralism and semiotics as critical systems will be traced back to their historic origins, the Russian Formalist school, C S Peirce and F de Saussure. The critique/heritage of structuralism in poststructuralism and deconstruction will also be examined, with special emphasis on the work of Julie Kristeva.

Assessment Essays (9000 words): 100%

Prescribed texts

Bakhtin M The dialogic imagination U Texas P
Barthes R Image music text Fontana
Culler J Theory and criticism after structuralism Routledge
Eco U The role of the reader: Explorations in the semiotics of the text Indiana U P
Elam K The semiotics of theatre and drama Methuen
Halle M (ed.)Semiosis: Semiotics and the history of culture Michigan Slavic Contributions
Julien P Jacques Lacan's return to Freud New York U P
Kristeva J Revolution in poetic language Columbia U P
Kristeva J Desire in language Columbia U P
Lacan J Écrits: A selection Norton
Lemon L T and Reais M J Russian formalist criticism: Four essays Nebraska U P
Lotman Iu, Ginsburg L and Uspenskii B The semiotics of Russian cultural history ed. A D and A S Nakhimovsky, Cornell U P
Lotman Iu The structure of the artistic text tr. R Vroon, Ann Arbour Michigan Slavic Publications
de Saussure F Course in general linguistics ed. C Bally and A Sechehaye, tr. W Baskin, Philosophical Library

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