Post-Structuralism 
Deconstruction 
(The Beginning was in France) 
Beginning:
Poststructuralism designates a broad variety of critical perspectives and
procedures that in the 1970s displaced structuralism from its prominence as the
radically innovative way of dealing with language and other signifying systems.It refers to the
unstable environment that the colonized is forced to either adapt
to or work really hard to reject the colonizers' power. 
Psychoanalysis
It refers to the human psyche consists of unconscious and conscious
spheres, with most of its contents lodged out of sight in the unconscious
and covered over by a relatively smaller and less dense consciousness. 
Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) 
?Ronald Barthes "The Death of the Author" (1968) and S/Z (1970) 
? Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison 
Characteristics: 
? According to Derrida, writing is more significant than reading because we
reach the core of meaning through writing. 
Key Concepts: 
Derrida's concepts:
? Logocentrism 
? The text as the prison house of meaning, there is nothing outside the text
? Differance and deferment
? Signified and signifier 
? Binary opposition 
Roland Barthes' concepts: 
? Death of the author: As soon as the author starts writing he is dead
because when he writes he has no control over the text, rather, it depends
on the interpretation of readers. Text is fabric of quotations from
thousands of cultural sources. Author uses language to put text in infinite
meanings and allows the reader to interpret it. 
? Readerly Text (lisible): a text that turns the reader into a consumer. ? Writerly Text (scriptible): a text that encourages the reader to produce the
meaning. Michel Foucault's concept: 
? Panopticism: the modern function of disciplinary punishment. 
Feminism
Feminist theory is part of the broader feminist political movement that
seeks to rectify sexist discrimination and inequalities. It refers to the
fact that women have a literature of their own, possessing its own
images, themes, characters, forms; styles, and canons. The oppression of women is a historical fact and literary texts mirror
gender and social attitudes about gender. 
? A feminist: a person who advocates equal rights for women 
? Misogyny: see the book
? Misandry: see the book
? Patriarchy: see the book
? Androcentrism: see the book 
? Ecriture feminine: women writing. It promotes women's
experience and feelings to the point that it strengthens the work. Furthermore, "it places experience before language, and privileges
the anti-linear, cyclical writing so often frowned upon by
patriarchal society."Cixous
The four waves: see only the focus mentioned in the book
Julia Kristeva 
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980) 
Abjection: the rejection of male-mainstream
Elaine Showalter 
She developed the concept of gynocritcism, which focuses on women
as writers. 
Showalter divides her female model in to two types:
1.The symbolic order: see the book
Shoshana Felman 
The Juridical Unconscious: Trials and Traumas in the Twentieth Century
(2002) 
Re-traumatization: it is the drama of unintentional re-traumatization,triggered by a legal repetition of the trauma that it puts on trial. 
Feminism
Feminist theory is part of the broader feminist political movement that
seeks to rectify sexist discrimination and inequalities.Deconstruction, as applied in the study of literature, designates a theory
and practice of reading which questions and claims to "subvert" or
"undermine" the assumption that the system of language provides
grounds that are adequate to establish the boundaries, the coherence or
unity, and the determinate meanings of a literary text. 
Notable theorists and their works: 
?Broadly speaking, it aims to describe the
mechanisms of colonial power, to recover excluded or marginalized
"subaltern" voices, and to theorize the complexities of colonial and
postcolonial identity, national belonging, and globalization. 
Key theorists and Concepts
Edward W. Said: Culture and Imperialism (1993) and Orientalism (1978) 
Said begins Orientalism (1978) by explaining how Orientalism is defined
within three different contexts.Ambivalence: the colonized people perceive the oppressors as
rude, negative and exploitive, but it is advanced.??