(POST-)STRUCTURALISMS: DEFINITIONS
Post-Structuralism is an umbrella term for several differing schools of thought (these are normally thought to include Derridean Deconstruction, Deleuzean theory, Dialogism (the Bakhtin Circle), Foucauldian Discourse Theory, Structuralist [Althusseran] Marxism and Structuralist [Lacanian] Psychoanalysis) which have in common the fact that, as the very name implies, they emerged in the wake of Structuralism, the heyday of which was in the 1950s and 1960s. The term also implies, more specifically, that all these sub-schools, notwithstanding important differences, have been influenced by, even as they have often sought to critique, Saussure's theory of signification. Each of these schools have sought to supplement the most important insights of Saussurean thought with insights from other schools of thought (evidently Marxism in the case of Structuralist Marxism, Psychoanalysis in the case of Structuralist Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology in the case of Deconstruction, and so on) with a view less to effecting some sort of Hegelian dialectical synthesis than installing a productive tension between the schools in question, what a Derridean might term a 'play of difference.' From this point of view, Post-Saussurean may very well function as a synonym for Post-Structuralist. I have placed the 'post-' in brackets in order to include other schools (e.g. Structuralism or Structuralist [i.e. Lacanian] Psychoanalysis or Structuralist Marxism) which have also engaged with Saussure's ideas, albeit not necessarily critically.
The terms 'Post-Structuralism' and 'Postmodernism' are sometimes used synonymously but I am not in favour of this. As Steven Best and Douglas Kellner put it, "Poststructuralism forms part of the matrix of postmodern theory, and while the theoretical breaks described as postmodern are directly related to poststructuralist critiques, we shall interpret poststructuralism as a subset of a broader range of theoretical, cultural, and social tendencies which constitute postmodern discourses" (). Though Postmodernism is not necessarily limited to Continental Philosophy per se, I have listed some of the key texts and so on there.
