Structuralism & Poststructuralism for Beginners

I just finished reading--if you can call it "reading"--"Structuralism and Poststructuralism for Beginners." I took it to read on the plane to Florida this past weekend. I needed something, if not brainless, than within a whisker of it, since I can never seem to muster up enough concentration to read anything more complicated than my watch on a plane (or in a hospital, train station, motorcycle sidecar, any kind of waiting room, house of worship, or house of pancakes). As it is, I dont think I read more than ten pages of this book combined on the planes to and from the Sunshine State. Once I got home, though, I finished it up in short shrift. The "For Beginners" series is pretty uneven; some of them do a fairly credible job at giving you the most superficial, simplistic, if not downright simple-minded, summarizations of whatever topic in question. The others are utterly useless. "Structuralism and Poststructuralism" belongs among the former. Written by a university (of no special distinction) philosophy professor, this particular guide seems a good deal more authoritative than many others in the series, which sometime seem to be written by hack copywriters plagiarising off a Wikipedia article. At least this one seems to be written by a hack philosophy prof cribbing from a textbook for an introduction to postmodern theory class. Thats not to say that there is no reason to read this book. There is. It provides you with the aforementioned superficial, simplistic, if not downright simple-minded summarization of structuralism and poststructuralism, which is better than none at all. Unless, of course, you're one of those who believe that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In that case, consider me armed and dangerous. I can now do a postmodern pantomime exhibiting just barely enough cocktail party familiarity with the thought of Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida to fool 85 to 90 percent of those who've actually fooled themselves and everyone else into believing they know what this stuf is about. By the way, the back cover on my edition lists Louis Althusser as one of the thinkers that are covered in this book. He appears on like one page--page 9--and has all of one sentence devoted to him. Get your Louis Althusser fix somewhere else, if that's what you're into. Or check to make sure that he is actually a part of whatever edition of this book you get. Anyway, what you have here is a whet-your-appetiter for the real thing. And, along with a glossary of relevant structuralism and poststructuralism terminology, the author thoughtfully provides a bibliography to direct you to the "real thing." It's really all you can expect in a book of this type--I mean, just look at the cover (although I must admit, I'm curious as to what artistic use I can put tiddly-winks, ie. sculpture, mobiles, etc ). To expect this book to be anything other than what is essentially a Cliff's Notes style treatment (with crudely-drawn cartoons!)

After reading this I rhought I understood a little more of these writers than I did before, but that's not saying much. At the very least it gives potted biographies of Saussure, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Lacan, Foucault and Derrida and an idea of how they related to each other and how to pronounce their names. Their works are sometimes so obscure that sometimes there's a suspicion that they write meaningless nonsense. Some British and American philosophers have expressed this suspicion openly, and it would have been fun to see Palmer answer them. For myself I'm still assuming I'm just too stupid to understand them fully, and this was more readable than the original works. It would have been even heavier going without the illustrations. I think that their simple and amateurish artistic quality is an asset in encouraging the reader to grapple with the text.

"Structuralism" and "Poststructuralism" have become buzzwords, bandied about frequently but only rarely understood. The concepts are difficult, especially for someone who doesn't have a background in philosophy, linguistics, or social sciences. To make matters worse, many of the most famous and influential of the Poststructuralist thinkers revel in obscurity, deliberately making their writing as abtruse and convoluted as possible. This is an excellent introduction to the concepts of Structuralism and Poststructuralism. Palmer studies a few of the most important scholars on the topic -- beginning with Saussure, the father of Structuralism and of modern linguistics and going on to Lacan, Foucault, Barthes, and Levi-Strauss. He touches upon their major contributions to the subject, giving explanations which can be grasped by any bright and interested layman. If you are interested in studying these thinkers, I would definitely recommend checking out this book first. It will provide you with a good grounding and keep you from feeling utterly mystified as you plumb the murky and obscure depths of modern philosophy. My only complaints are relatively minor. First, he makes a passing statement that Plato was "hardly bourgeois" ... when in fact Plato was quite clearly a bourgeois, even a reactionary, thinker. Second, the drawings are regrettable: Palmer is much better as a philosopher and writer than as an illustrator. Still, this is one of the best introductory texts available on the subject. Highly recommended.

I came to this book having read Derrida, Foucault, Saussure, etc, but not knowing about Structuralism as an -ism; just about the individual authors and their works.This book helped me think of them as a unified movement, and aided me in finding commonalities in their works. I imagine that this book would be even more useful for someone who hasn't read these authors; that way, you could get the general map before setting off into detailed inquiry (I did it in reverse!). The explanations and illustrations are genuinely humorous, and the book is a lot of fun. Of course, as with any book of this type, many things are drastically oversimplified, and many things presented as facts are actually the author's opinions -- but that comes with the territory of attempting to sum up a whole philosophical movement in a short little text. Overall, excellent in all regards, and a very worthwhile read, before or even after getting familiar with the original texts.

This book undoubtedly represents the basics for any inquiry into the major ideas of structuralism and poststructuralism. Palmer's exquisite, synthetic introduction into these socio-political and discursive phenomena is enlightening. He travels with us from the Swiss Ferdinand de Saussure's semiological system and the structuralist mythical order of the French/Belgian Claude Lévi-Strauss, to the post/structuralist Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, Lacanian psychoanalysis, and, finally, to the master-poststructuralist, Jacques Derrida himself. Palmer's approach represents perhaps the easiest, albeit comprehensively explanatory, work into concepts otherwise unfairly considered esoteric postmodern artifacts. Nothing will give you a better first acquaintance to the "sign", "signifier", "signified", "la langue", "la parôle", "intertextuality", "indeterminacy of meaning", "writerly" and "readerly" texts, "deconstruction", "dissemination", "epistème", and "logocentrism" among others, than this pleasant, joyful (inter)text, filled with highly inspired sketches. The glossary at the end of the book is itself a treasure. Read this book in the bus, airplane, or train and (post) structuralism will become your friend. Don't let the detractors of postmodernism intimidate you. Palmer's book provides you with the best tool for fighting back, this time with knowledge.