week 2
(1950s-1970s) Structuralism/Identity
Readings
Structuralism/ Roadmap
Structuralism is an umbrella term for various theories that understand
phenomena of human life and culture as intelligible through their interrelation
These relations form a structure that underlines all phenomena
Semiotics
Studies the meaning of signs in any form of communication (language, visual,
auditory, tactile or gustatory)
The morphology of the folktale: narrative elements in folktales (the hero, the villain,
the trickster and the princess)
The Structural Linguistic Theory of Ferdinand the Saussure
a signifier and a signified
connotation vs denotation
syntagmatic (a dog runs) vs paradigmatic (dog/cat/man) relationships
The Oedipus myth as deep structure un the unconscious by Sigmund Freud
In each child the sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense
and the father is perceived as an obstacle to this desire for the mother
The Oedipus complex: the desire to kill the father and take his place in the family
and in society
The Mirror Stage by Jacques Lacan
This is the moment a child discovers itself in the mirror around the age of two, it
sees itself at first as someone else – someone who is more complete - an Ideal
version of the self, a so-called Ego-Ideal
week 2 1
, This initial misrecognition of self as other installs a fantasmatic structure in our
psyche
The behavior we have ‘on the surface level’ of the chain of signifiers (let’s say,
always wanting to be perfect) may hide deep, repressed and unconscious
desires
Critical Theory
Marxis Ideology Critique
Karl Marx systematically analyzed culture and society as a product of its
historical and social conditions and defined the doctrine of capitalism as an
Ideology
Popular culture, considered as representation, is a construction that puts the
spectator in service of Capitalism
Apparatus Theory
The entire cinema set up (with its viewers in dark theaters looking at projection
of representations taken for reality) is inherently ideological
The Frankfurt School
The have developed Critical Theory
They investigate the conditions that allow social change based on the material
and historical conditions of reality
Arguments in dialectic ways
Rolan Barthes
Barthes looks at everyday objects, images and phenomena
How many objects and phenomena obtain a mythical status in popular culture
where the original sign is taken from its historical context and where it is
appropriated and repurposed into one dominant connotation that is presented as
‘natural’, (while in fact it is highly constructed)
Signs in popular culture become a myths
The function of myth is to empty out historic reality
Feminism
Laura Mulvey
week 2 2
(1950s-1970s) Structuralism/Identity
Readings
Structuralism/ Roadmap
Structuralism is an umbrella term for various theories that understand
phenomena of human life and culture as intelligible through their interrelation
These relations form a structure that underlines all phenomena
Semiotics
Studies the meaning of signs in any form of communication (language, visual,
auditory, tactile or gustatory)
The morphology of the folktale: narrative elements in folktales (the hero, the villain,
the trickster and the princess)
The Structural Linguistic Theory of Ferdinand the Saussure
a signifier and a signified
connotation vs denotation
syntagmatic (a dog runs) vs paradigmatic (dog/cat/man) relationships
The Oedipus myth as deep structure un the unconscious by Sigmund Freud
In each child the sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense
and the father is perceived as an obstacle to this desire for the mother
The Oedipus complex: the desire to kill the father and take his place in the family
and in society
The Mirror Stage by Jacques Lacan
This is the moment a child discovers itself in the mirror around the age of two, it
sees itself at first as someone else – someone who is more complete - an Ideal
version of the self, a so-called Ego-Ideal
week 2 1
, This initial misrecognition of self as other installs a fantasmatic structure in our
psyche
The behavior we have ‘on the surface level’ of the chain of signifiers (let’s say,
always wanting to be perfect) may hide deep, repressed and unconscious
desires
Critical Theory
Marxis Ideology Critique
Karl Marx systematically analyzed culture and society as a product of its
historical and social conditions and defined the doctrine of capitalism as an
Ideology
Popular culture, considered as representation, is a construction that puts the
spectator in service of Capitalism
Apparatus Theory
The entire cinema set up (with its viewers in dark theaters looking at projection
of representations taken for reality) is inherently ideological
The Frankfurt School
The have developed Critical Theory
They investigate the conditions that allow social change based on the material
and historical conditions of reality
Arguments in dialectic ways
Rolan Barthes
Barthes looks at everyday objects, images and phenomena
How many objects and phenomena obtain a mythical status in popular culture
where the original sign is taken from its historical context and where it is
appropriated and repurposed into one dominant connotation that is presented as
‘natural’, (while in fact it is highly constructed)
Signs in popular culture become a myths
The function of myth is to empty out historic reality
Feminism
Laura Mulvey
week 2 2
