CRT5200

Structuralism and semiotics

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

8 points
* 2 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton

Objectives On completion of the subject, students should 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 should 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 try to 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 and poststructuralism and deconstruction will also be examined, with special emphasis on the work of Julia Kristeva.

Assessment Three essays (2000 words each): 30% each
* Seminar participation: 10%

Prescribed texts

Bakhtin M The dialogic imagination U Texas P, 1990
Barthes R Image music text Fontana, 1984
Culler J Theory and criticism after structuralism Routledge, 1983
Eco U The role of the reader: Explorations in the semiotics of the text Indiana U P, 1984
Elam K The semiotics of theatre and drama Methuen, 1980
Halle M (ed.) Semiosis: Semiotics and the history of culture Michigan Slavic Publications, 1984
Julien P Jacques Lacan's return to Freud New York, 1994
Kristeva J Desire in language Columbia U P, 1980
Kristeva J Revolution in poetic language Columbia U P, 1984
Lacan J ...crits: A selection Norton, 1977
Lemon L T and Reais M J Russian formalist criticism: Four essays Nebraska U P, 1965
Lotman Iu and others (ed. A D and A S Nakhimovsky) The semiotics of Russian cultural history Cornell U P, 1985
Lotman Iu The structure of the artistic text tr. R Vroon, Ann Arbour Michigan Slavic Publications, 1977
Saussure F de (ed. C Bally and A Sechehaye) Course in general linguistics tr. W Baskin, Philosophical Library, 1959