Links

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3bSFAvKkWP8dUtwSVI4T1F5SjQ
 Structuralism
Structural Linguistics and Semiotics- de Saussure
Pre-Saussurian linguistics- Etymology and Myth- Onomatopoeia and it’s failing

The Nature of the Sign- (signifier/signified)

Dual arbitrariness of language- arbitrary signifiers and arbitrary signified

The absence of the referent and the function of Difference

Langue(language) v Parole(speech)

Synchrony v Diachrony

Emergence of Structuralist Thought

First, that a structure determines the position of each element of a whole.

Second, that every system has a structure.

Third, structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change.

Fourth, structures are the "real things" that lie beneath the surface or the appearance of meaning- Alison Assiter

Anthropology
immutable deep structures exist in all cultures, and consequently, that all cultural practices have homologous counterparts in other cultures,
essentially that all cultures are equitable

Levi-Strauss posited that structures are universal, that is that the specific elements of culture that emerge in different areas are responsive to
cross-cultural structural requirements due to necessary means of managing issues of kinship, group belonging, and, naturally, the avoidance of
incest. He identifies these requirements as dialectic pairs, as each society needs to create an individual understanding to make decisions about
inside/outside, person/animal, life/death, etc.

Sociology/Economics
Structuralism become a significant force with the work of several Marxist thinkers. They maintained the basic claims of structuralist thought but
brought an focus on criticism of capitalism, updating other Marxist critiques by attempting to describe capitalism as a structural phenomenon in
greater detail. Note- plenty of people will point to Marx as being the originator of the project of structuralist criticisms of capitalism, albeit from
a “naïve” perspective. This is probably accurate.

Example- Althusser expands on Marx’s concepts of ideology and political economy to create a triparte means of describing societies, breaking it
into material structures, the actual interactions of agents within those structures, and the ideological beliefs that serve to maintain those
structures. He additionally reinforces the idea of the state as a critical agent of ideological dissemination with the development of modern
economies, drawing a distinction between repressive and ideological state apparatuses.

Another major structural Marxist was Nicos Poulantzas, whose most significant contribution was a retheorization of the state away from over-
deterministic accounts of class-interests. He held that, if it were the case that the state as merely a tool of class oppression, then we would
expect capitalisms drive for profit to result in the same form of short-term thinking to dominate the operations of the state, but the use of the
state to seek to correct contradictions in capital go against that idea. He posits that the state must be understood as requiring an element of
popular consent based on class alliances, that is that the state can only work if the proletariat accepts the state as on their side, which might
explain why capitalists are so keen on pretending that the govt is standing in the way of big business. In this formulation, the state serves a
structural purpose, where it smooths over the operations of capitalist society to prevent it falling to its own excesses.

Literary Criticisms
Death of the author- Barthes

The primacy of the text

Other examples are attempts to describe formulas for narratives, particularly ancient stories/fables/myths, to arrive at cross-cultural meanings.

Structural literary theory also tended to produce abominations that made understanding anything impossible like Barthes’ S/Z.
 Reading
Reading Capital- Louis Althusser

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses- Louis Althusser

The Death of the Author- Roland Barthes

The Elementary Structures of Kinship- Claude Levi-Strauss

Tristes Tropiques- Claude Levi-Strauss

The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State- Nicos Poulantzas
 Freud
Historical context
Scientific/Rationalist Utopianism- Freud’s works both subverted and remained within line of this

The Origins of Psychiatry- Medicalization of Mental Health

Origins of Psychology- Garbage Psychophysics

The Rational Subject

On the Interpretation of Dreams- The Unconscious Wish

Core concept is that dream represent unconscious wish-fulfillment, through non-literal representation

Posits Repression of desire as a core component of psychological distress

Massively undercuts his own point that elements of dreams can only be interpreted in their own context by just saying they all mean genitals

Model of the mind- unconscious, preconscious, conscious

Freud’s Developmental Psychology

5 stages- not important here

Id- The state of nature

Super-ego- Oedipus

Ego- Maturation

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life- Defense Mechanisms and Slips

Freud posited that dreams are good sources of info on the unconscious because we allow standard defense to slip due to sleep and the
seeming meaninglessness of dreams making the intrusion of the unconscious non-threatening. He argued that the same was true of other areas
of life, such as artistic expression (art expressing ideas that would be disavowed publicly or Tarantino’s foot fetish) and, interestingly, errors,
which is the idea behind the Freudian slip, that the unconscious makes itself known in unintended ways. Freud’s core concept was that
everyone experienced psychopathology, but that some people had more adaptive defense mechanisms, or, rather, used healthier ones more
often.

Projection

Repression

Reaction-formation

Denial

Displacement- displacing to a less threatening target

Intellectualization

But the key is that there is a difference between healthy and unhealthy ones:

altruism: Constructive service to others that brings pleasure and personal satisfaction

Anticipation: Realistic planning for future discomfort

Humour: Overt expression of ideas and feelings (especially those that are unpleasant to focus on or too terrible to talk about directly) that gives
pleasure to others. The thoughts retain a portion of their innate distress, but they are "skirted around" by witticism, for example, self-
deprecation.

Sublimation: Transformation of unhelpful emotions or instincts into healthy actions, behaviors, or emotions, for example, playing a heavy
contact sport such as football or rugby can transform aggression into a game
Suppression: The conscious decision to delay paying attention to a thought, emotion, or need in order to cope with the present reality; making
it possible later to access uncomfortable or distressing emotions whilst accepting them

The Role of the Analyst

The goal is for the analyst to become a screen onto which the analysand will project their problematic desires or dysfunctional interpersonal
issues. By reflecting and pointing to those assumptions, the effects of the unconscious can be made conscious and therefore, defense
mechanisms identified and

Modern iterations of psychoanalysis as applied to clinical practices are, in the US, most commonly called psychodynamic therapies.

Beyond the Pleasure Principle

Freud’s weirdest work, so fucking odd that the first English translation included an introduction from the translator to the effect that he didn’t
get it either, but he tried his best. Also true to attempts to translate Donald Trump, you can translate it faithfully but you’ll look bad at your job
because it’s nonsense

For that matter, when Freud talked about anything other than the individual human mind, he tended to go fucking wild. The Prima Father, etc.
 Reading
On the Interpretation of Dreams- Sigmund Freud

Civilization and its Discontents- Sigmund Freud

Beyond the Pleasure Principle- Sigmund Freud

The Psychopathology of Everyday Life- Sigmund Freud

Moses and Monotheism- Sigmund Freud

 Lacan
A Structuralist Psychodynamism

Language and the Unconscious

Lacan’s Developmental Psychology- The Mirror Stage and the Subject

Castration and Fantasy

The Role of the Analyst and Traversal of the Fantasy

 Reading
Ecrrits- Jaques Lacan

The Lacanian Subject- Bruce Fink

Jaques Lacan- Homer

 Cultural Criticism
Desire and Art

Fantasy, Pleasure, Spectacle

 Reading
On the Interpretation of Dreams- Sigmund Freud (applies psycho to Hamlet)

Delusion and Dream in Jensen's Gradiva- Sigmund Freud

Ecrits- Lacan (The Purloined Letter)

Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema- Laura Mulvey

Looking Awry- Zizek

 Politics
Politics as Structure/Symbolic Politics

Ideology

Utopian Politics

Lacanian Marxism/Psycho-cap
 Reading
Lacan and the Political- Yannis Stravakakis

The Sublime Object of Ideology- Zizek

Lacan in Public - Psychoanalysis and the Science of Rhetoric- Lundberg

The Capitalist Unconcious - Marx and Lacan- Tomšič

Enjoying What We Don't Have - The Political Project of Psychoanlysis- McGowan

 Race
Desiring Whiteness
 Reading
Desiring whiteness- Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks

Red, White, and Black- Wilderson

 Gender
Lacan on Sexual Difference
 Reading
Jacques Lacan- A Feminist Introduciton- Grosz
 The Critics
Poststructuralism

Deleuze and Guattari

Anti-Psychoanalytic Positions