CLS4200

Structuralism and semiotics

Millicent Vladiv-Glover

12 points
* 2 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 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 in poststructuralism and deconstruction will also be examined, with special emphasis on the work of Julie Kristeva.

Assessment Written (9000 words): 100%

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 Contributions, 1984
Julien P Jacques Lacan's return to Freud New York U P, 1994
Kristeva J Revolution in poetic language Columbia U P, 1984
Kristeva J Desire in language Columbia U P, 1980
Lacan J Écrits: A selection Norton, 1977
Lemon L T and Reais M J Russian formalist criticism: Four essays Nebraska U P, 1965
Lotman Iu, Ginsburg L and Uspenskii B The semiotics of Russian cultural history ed. A D and A S Nakhimovsky, Cornell U P, 1985
Lotman Iu The structure of the artistic text tr. R Vroon, Ann Arbour Michigan Slavic Publications, 1977
de Saussure F Course in general linguistics ed. C Bally and A Sechehaye, tr. W Baskin, Philosophical Library, 1959