poststrukturalizmi

Poststructuralism is a broad intellectual movement that originated in the late 1960s and 1970s as a critique of structuralism. It questions the idea that texts, cultures, and social practices have fixed meanings, emphasizing instead the instability of meaning, the contingency of knowledge, and the role of language, power relations, and discourse in shaping reality.

Origins and development: It emerged primarily in France through the work of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others, drawing on earlier philosophy and semiotics. It influenced literary theory, philosophy, anthropology, gender studies, and cultural studies, and intersected with postmodernist thought.

Core ideas: Deconstruction (Derrida) shows that texts contain internal contradictions; the death of the author; the primacy of language; discourses as sites of power; subjectivity as constructed rather than given; intertextuality; skepticism toward grand narratives; critique of binaries such as speech/writing, presence/absence, and truth/falsehood.

Methods: Close reading that foregrounds ambiguity, analysis of discourse and institutions, genealogies of concepts, attention to marginal voices, and analysis of power/knowledge relations (Foucault).

Influence and criticism: It reshaped literary criticism, cultural studies, sociology, and gender studies, but has faced critique for relativism, obscurity, and questions about political practicality. Debates continue over its methodological rigor and relevance to concrete social change.

Notable figures and works: Jacques Derrida – Of Grammatology; Michel Foucault – The Archaeology of Knowledge and Discipline and Punish; Roland Barthes – S/Z; Julia Kristeva; Jean-François Lyotard – The Postmodern Condition.