116-045 Introduction to French Critical Theory

Credit Points

HECS Band

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Admission to the Postgraduate Diploma or Fourth Year Honours in French.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

This subject focuses on major movements in French critical theory that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s: Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, Postmodernism. We look at radically new interpretive methods and interpretations of French texts proposed by Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and Jacques Lacan. In the work of these philosopher-theorists, there is a full-scale questioning of meaning and representation (the signified) replaced by the concept of 'text' and 'textuality' (the signifier), reference becomes infinitely 'deferred' and normative discursive systems are considered suspect. At the end of the course, students should have gained a critical understanding of the most significant thinkers to have shaped French thought since the 1960s, and should be able to apply certain methods of criticism to literary texts taken from a range of genres.

Assessment

A class paper of 1500 words, subsequently written up, and an essay of 3500 words.

Prescribed Texts

• R Barthes, S/Z. Seuil Paris, 1976 (Folio).
• J Baudrillard, Simulacres et simulations. Galilée, 1981.
• J Derrida, L'Ecriture et la différence. Seuil Paris, 1967.
• A Sokal & J Bricmont, Impostures intellectuelles. Odile Jacob Paris, 1997.