Post-structuralism

Post-structural practices generally operate on some basic assumptions:

* Post-structuralists hold that the concept of "self" as a singular and coherent entity is a fictional construct. Instead, an individual is composed of conflicting tensions and knowledge claims (e.g. gender, class, profession, etc.). Therefore, to properly study a text the reader must understand how the work is related to their own personal concept of self. This self-perception plays a critical role in one's interpretation of meaning.

* The meaning the author intended is secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives. Post-structuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having one purpose, one meaning or one singular existence.

* A post-structuralist critic must be able to utilize a variety of perspectives to create a multifaceted (perhaps even conflicting) interpretation of a text. It is particularly important to analyze how the meanings of a text shift in relation to certain variables (usually involving the identity of the reader).

Major contributors included Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Julia Kristeva.

Deconstructionism

Deconstruction's central concern is a radical critique of the Enlightenment project and of metaphysics, including in particular the founding texts by such philosophers as Plato, Rousseau, and Husserl, but also other sorts of texts, including literature. Deconstruction identifies in the Western philosophical tradition a "logocentrism" or "metaphysics of presence" (also known as phallogocentrism) which holds that speech-thought (the logos) is a privileged, ideal, and self-present entity, through which all discourse and meaning are derived. This logocentrism is the primary target of deconstruction.

One typical form of deconstructive reading is the critique of binary oppositions, or the criticism of dichotomous thought. A central deconstructive argument holds that, in all the classic dualities of Western thought, one term is privileged or "central" over the other. The privileged, central term is the one most associated with the phallus and the logos.

Common terms include: Différance, Trace, Écriture, Hymen / Phallocentrism, Pharmakon

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