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| a group of philosophical doctrines that share the monistic view that material objects and the external world do not exist in reality independently of the human mind but are variously creations of the mind or constructs of ideas |
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| the theory that the universe has been ruled from its origins by two conflicting powers, one good and one evil, both existing as equally ultimate first causes |
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| component of Plato's Model/Original/Idea Theory of Forms; essence, immutability, TRUTH |
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| Baudrillard- is never that which the truth conceals- it is the truth. |
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| a slight, unreal, or superficial likeness or semblance. |
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| (developed by Greek Philosophers- Socrates and Plato); a form and method of logical argumentation that typically addresses conflicting ideas or positions. |
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| (Karl Marx- "Capital") the inauthentic state of social relations, said to arise in complex capitalist market systems, where people mistake social relationships for things. |
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| (Karl Marx) the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. It refers to the social alienation of people from aspects of their "human nature." |
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| (Karl Marx) an edifice of interdependent agencies of the state, including legal and political institutions and ideologies, each possessing some autonomy but remaining products of the dominant mode of economic production. |
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| sometimes used as a synonym for base in the dialectic synthetic pair base and superstructure. |
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| the result of childhood trauma regarding to castration anxiety; a form of paraphilia where the object of affection is a specific inanimate object or part of a person's body |
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| (Introduced by Freud) In psychoanalytic theory, the desire a young child feels for the opposite-sex parent and the hostility the child correspondingly feels toward the same-sex parent |
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| (psychoanalysis) refers to an unconscious fear of penile loss originating during the phallic stage of sexual development and lasting a lifetime. According to Freud, when the infantile male becomes aware of differences between male and female genitalia he assumes that the female's penis has been removed and becomes anxious that his penis will be cut off by his rival, the father figure, as punishment for desiring the mother figure. |
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| the subconscious rejection of thoughts and impulses that conflict with conventional standards of conduct |
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| internalizes social mores and norms; opposite the id. Often subdivided into the ego ideal, and ideal self to which the individual aspires, and the conscience, which distinguishes right from wrong. |
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| based on the reality principle, attempts to mediate between the id and the superego in the context of reality and the demands and possibilities it creates for the individual. |
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| the inborn, unconscious component of the psyche that generates our instinctual physical, especially libidinal desires. Often described as insatiable; ruled by the pleasure principle, it does not consider the consequences or implications of its desire or the actions involved in satisfying them. |
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| Something that stands for or suggests something larger and more complex--often an idea or a range of interrelated ideas, attitudes, and practices. |
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| in semiotics, a type of sign that has a likeness or similarity to what it represents. |
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| a basic sound unit in a language. |
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| the smallest meaningful parts of words. Composed of phonemes |
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| (linguistics-Saussure) the relationship between the components of language are the same at any given time; individual speech acts may vary, particular words may change, but language will always work the same |
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| a term used in linguistics to refer to historical linguists' study of the evolution of a language or family of languages over time, that is to say, of changes in language(s) over time; ex) "gay." |
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| (Saussure) something that stands for something else; composed of a signifier and a signified |
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| (semiotics) what the sign stands for; compared to the orders of Psychic functioning it is compared to The Real |
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| (Saussure) a linguistic "sound-image" used to represent one comparatively abstract concept; compared to the orders of Psychic functioning it is compared to The Symbolic |
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| (Saussure) the concept being represented; compared to the orders of Psychic functioning it is compared to The Imaginary |
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| (Saussure)refers to the study of signs, sign systems, and the way meaning is derived from them. |
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| one of the three orders of subjectivity according to twentieth-century French psychoanalytic critic and theorist Jacques Lacan. The realm of law, language, and society; it is the repository of generally held cultural beliefs. In the reworking of the Freudian model, it is the Superego. |
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| one of the three orders of subjectivity according to 20th century French psychoanalytic theorist and critic Jacques Lacan. It is the intractable and substantial world that resists and exceeds interpretation. It cannot be imagined, symbolized or known directly; it constantly eludes our efforts to name it. In the reworking of the Freudian model, it is the Ego. |
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| one of the three orders of subjectivity according to French psychoanalytic theorist and critic Jacques Lacan. It is most closely associated with the five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell). In the reworking of the Freudian Model, it is the Id. |
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| a concept in the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan; The young child's identification with his own image, a stage that occurs anywhere from 6-18 months of age. this act marks the primordial recognition of one's self as "I," although at a point before entrance into language and the symbolic order |
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| a general term covering several similar types of literary criticism that arose in the 1920's and 1930s, flourished in the 1940s and 1950s, and are still evident today. Literary work is seen as an object in its own right. Refers to critical approaches that analyze, interpret, or evaluate the inherent features of a text. |
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| New Critical Formalism (New Criticism) |
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| Type of literary criticism characterized by close textual analysis that reached its height in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s. It stresses close attention to the internal characteristics of the text itself, and it discourages the use of external evidence to explain the work. |
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| term coined by critical theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who argued that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardised cultural goods – through film, radio and magazines – to manipulate the masses into passivity; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture make people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic |
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| that which withers in a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction; the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. Borders on the mystical; involves an experience of transport that is distinctly material and provides a sense of history. |
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| a theory of humankind whose proponents attempted to show systematically, even scientifically, that all elements of human culture, including literature, may be understood as parts of a system of signs. Heavily influenced by linguists, especially Saussure (his concept of the phoneme and his idea that phonemes exist in two kinds of relationships: diachronic and synchronic). Also heavily influenced by anthropologist, Levi-Strauss, who studied hundreds of myths, breaking them into their smallest meaningful units called 'mythemes' |
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| (Saussure) a usually synchronic approach to language study in which a language is analyzed as an independent network of formal systems, each of which is composed of elements that are defined in terms of their contrasts with other elements in the system |
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| (Levi-Strauss) an anthropological theory that there are unobservable social structures that generate observable social phenomena |
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| the general attempt to contest and subvert structuralism and to formulate new theories regarding interpretation and meaning, initiated particularly by deconstructors but also associated with certain aspects and practioners of psychoanalytic, Marxist, cultural, feminist, and gender criticism. Arose in the late 1960s, include such a wide variety of perspectives that no unified theory was ever identified. Distinguished by opposition to structuralism and by certain concepts held in common. |
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| essay written by Roland Barthes, a structuralist transferring to poststructuralism, viewed the author not as an original and creative master and manipulator of the linguistic system but, rather, as one of its primary vehicles, a "scriptor" who is "born simultaneously with his text." Barthes argued that a text "does not consist of a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning, but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original." |
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| argued in Roland Barthes, 'The Death of the Author.' The author is no longer the focus of creative influence, but has become the 'scriptor,' existing to produce but not to explain the work and "is born simultaneously with the text." |
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| present in Roland Barthes "Death of the Author;" Barthes argued that a text "does not consist of a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning, but is a space of many dimensions, in which are wedded and contested various kinds of writing, no one of which is original" |
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| a poststructuralist approach to literary criticism involving the close reading of texts in order to demonstrate that any given text has irreconcilably contradictory meanings, rather than being a unified, logical whole. Created and profoundly influenced by Jacques Derrida. |
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| 'neither a word nor a concept;' can only be perceived in writing; cannot even use it, only used as a gesture to a word itself; coined by Derrida to show that words are only the deferred presences of the things they "mean;" that every meaning invokes others in a never-ending string of connotations; and that the meaning of words is grounded in both their difference from and relationship to other words. |
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| a concept borrowed from linguistics by poststructuralist theorist Derrida to suggest that people in Western culture tend to think and express their thoughts in terms of contrary pairs; something is white but not black, masculine and therefore not feminine, a cause rather than an effect. |
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| In terms of Derrida to discuss Western Thinking; 2 apparently contradictory ideas: (1) serves to enhance the presence of something which is already complete and self-sufficient. (2) also has within it the idea that a thing that cannot be truly 'complete in itself'. |
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| aim of deconstruction, to undermine the text's presumed center and its concomitant structure. By drawing attention to the divergent meanings that arise from the diverse connotations of signifiers within the text, they challenge the assumption that its "meaning" is either determinate or determinable. |
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| the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described. In this view, it follows that terms or words should have a single definition and meaning; certain properties possessed by a group (e.g. people, things, ideas) are universal, and not dependent on context. |
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| term proposed by Foucault; ways of constituting knowledge; coherent sets of statements, rules, and conventions that in tandem with social practices and power determine the regime of truth of a particular period and culture. Both constitutes its object and generates knowledge about that object. |
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| Discursive method (episteme) |
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| Term used by 20th century French philosophical historian Michel Foucault to refer to (1) a network of thoughts, concepts, and cultural codes, dominant during a given historical period; and (2) the rules governing the transformation of those practices |
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| a term referring to the perceived identities man and woman and the range of characteristics commonly associated with masculinity and femininity. Most critics agree that Western civilization has been predominantly patriarchal and has thus tended to extol the masculine and devalue the feminine, associating masculinity with "positive" traits such as activity and rationality and femininity with "negative" traits such as passivity and emotionality. |
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| the dominance or dominant influence of one nation, group, or class over another or others. In literary criticism, most notably Marxist criticism and cultural criticism, it refers especially to ideological and cultural manipulation and control. Adapted by Gramsci |
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| a set of beliefs underlying customs, habits, and practices common to a given social group. Represents the imaginary relationships of individuals to their real conditions of existence; present in Althusser. Has no history, no location, not traceable origins; it is a constant force that suffuses all social practices. It can only be known through its effects, there is no position outside of it. |
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| used by Derrida to describe and characterize Western thought, language, and culture since the time of Plato; centered on and revolving around the word (or speech or reason). More broadly, the term implies a belief in the centrality and, more important, the determinability of ultimate Truth. |
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| (Butler ?)an interdisciplinary term often used to name the capacity of speech and language in particular, but other forms of expressive but non-verbal action as well, to intervene in the course of human events. A term used to distinguish between two classes of locutions |
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| associated with the internal mind-with perceptions and thoughts arising and based in a given individual's mind-and thus with bias and relative truth; (Althusser) subjects of an ideology, subjects of the language we speak. |
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| a social theory originally developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault;the general principle of a new 'political anatomy' whose object and end are not the relations of sovereignty but the relations of discipline. The purpose of the design is to increase the security through the effectiveness of the surveillance. |
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| Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) |
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| A term coined by Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; those systems and structures in a society that control the relations of production through mainly repressive, physical means. Althusser claims that these structures are necessary to maintain the reproduction of the relations of production, or in other words, to keep the labourers laboring for the State and the bourgeois society. |
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| Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) |
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| A concept introduced by Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser; those institutions and systems that legitimate and reproduce the state, above all by producing consent to the regime on the part of subordinated groups. For Althusser, religion, education, the legal system, mass culture, and the family are all buttress the ideology of the ruling class by naturalizing its privileges. |
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| a concept of Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser to describe the process by which ideology addresses the (abstract) pre-ideological individual thus effectively producing him or her as subject proper; how one interprets themself; complicit with the interpretive power of society; calls us out of individuality to subjectivity. Used by ideology to acquire subjects, providing identificatory positions that we believe we have freely chosen. |
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| Plato's representation and understanding of God |
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| Component of Plato's 2nd Theory of Forms, the Copy/"Things" model; physical matter; forms rather than Forms. |
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| Dialectic of Superstructure and Infrastructure |
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| (Marx) the dominance of the superstructure is determined by the complicity of the Infrastructure-the laborers |
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| (Saussure-semiology) has a direct physical/casual relationship (is often a part of the thing represented)Ex.) Thumb print-direct physical imprint, not a drawing of a thumb, it is left by the thumb |
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