I want to post something on the topic of my studies this year. This term I will be completing two course units, with a total of 9000 words of assessed work, due in for November and January.
It is my poststructuralism course that I want to cover over the next few posts, if only to help me to get a handle on some of the concepts that it encompasses. I think it's important, particularly with difficult conceptual stuff to engage in dialogue with others about it. It's very hard to grasp what some of the material is suggesting without being able to bring it into debate and discussion.
Thus far, five weeks in, we have looked at the work of Saussure, Freud, Lacan, Frantz Fanon and Kobena Mercer.
I plan to look at each theorist in this order, in a series of short blog posts over the next few days. I want to look at my understanding of each, but also my individual, subjective response. I would appreciate any comments from anyone reading too.
1 comment:
Hi Rob!
Of those, I've looked at Saussure and Freud as part of my course last year.
The issue I had with Saussure is that he was only interested in the system of language, and not how it relates to the external world. This led to problems later on when taken to the extreme that language is a closed system and can't have any real relation with reality.
Freud's very interesting, not for the detail of his psychology (largely discredited) but for changing the way we think about ourselves by popularising notions of subconscious inner conflict, and the way we are shaped by our past in ways we rarely realise and so on. One of the effects of sin is to cause alienation and division in the self, in the person. It's interesting to compare Freud's ideas about psychodynamics with the inner conflict the Bible paints between being made in the image of God and also being fallen; and in the case of Christians, also having a new nature through the Holy Spirit.
I look forward to reading your thoughts!
Post a Comment