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Showing posts with label Classroom Lectures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Classroom Lectures. Show all posts

Friday, January 07, 2011

STRUCTURALISM- FERDINAND SAUSSURE (Mr. Pinto's lectures in II CEP)

13th December 2010
STRUCTURALISM
FERDINAND SAUSSURE

Main concepts:
1.       Signifier and Signified
2.       Sign
3.       Signifying system
4.       Sign is arbitrary
5.       Diachronic, synchronic
6.       Langue, Parole
7.       Time
8.       Value, Difference

The relation between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.
Diachronic means across time. Studies how language was and has evolved across the centuries.
Synchronic: studies language of the present. Not interested in studying how it used to be and how it should be, but how it is at this given point of time.
Language:
1.       Surface Structure  or Parole
2.       Deep Structure or Langue               

Noam Chomsky
When a child learns a language, it does not learn the surface structure but the deep structure and hence produces words that it has never heard or learnt before.
Saussure called the surface structure as “Parole” and the deep structure as “Langue”.
Chomsky said that every language has a deep structure, but not the same deep structure.

Saussure did not use the word semiotics but the word Semiology.
Semiotics-Charles Sanders Pierce. Saussure and Pierce worked around the same time on similar concepts but they did not know each other.
A signifier is always expressed in time. Only one word is written at a time.

Thoughts and Language:
You have access to thoughts through language and your thoughts are structured in language.
There is no thought beyond language.
HEGEL-gave the concept of dialectic (for more information on this topic: http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/dialectic.htm )
Each history has a spirit of its time and one cannot view it beyond its spirit.

Naming process- calling the object into your world.
The origin of the word in not important to structuralits.
Deleuze- Psychoanalyst, Zizek believed that the origin of a word was perpetually not to be answered.
Only fundamentalists go back to origins.
Origin-no point in arguing how or why it exists. The fact is that it exists.
Language does not require humans to exist. It is independent but it cannot exist despite us. We cannot explain why certain languages are spoken in two completely unrelated places.
“Language of the Gods” (book by B. John Zavrel) maps the history of Sanskrit.
 3rd and 4th century- Sanskrit spread to the west without any conquests or trade. Language requires only one person to exist.

18th December 2010
One signifier in the system has value because it is not any of the other signifiers in the system.
Language cannot have synonyms because each word has a different value.
E.g: ” bachelor” is different from “unmarried man”
Performance studies- speech act. Study speech as an act.

20th December 2010
1.       Syntagm
2.       Paradigm/ associative.
“Student”= one who studies. No flexibility.
Meaning = value and difference.

A word gets its meaning because of the relationship between syntagm and paradigm in a science system.
Horizontal or Syntagmatic relations- One cannot replace the other. E.g: MENU: Starters, Main course, Desserts- starters cannot be replaced by desserts.
Vertical or Associative relations-  One can be replaced by the other. E.g: MENU: Starters>Soup, momos, fries etc;

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Useful resource to learn from Ivy league colleges

Here is the link to this site where a lot of top notch Ivy league college lectures on various topics are put up. This might help like a certificate course or can help you in supplementing your subject lectures. There are some interesting online courses too.


http://academicearth.org

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Lecture on Henrik Iben's 'A Doll's House'

Henrik Ibsen was a major 19th century Norwegian playwright, director and poet. His works shaped the modern theatre. Ibsen’s plays were considered scandalous to many of his era. One could characterize rebellious sprit and unforgiving scrutiny through his writings. A Doll’s house is a scathing criticism of the acceptance of the traditional roles of men and women in Victorian marriage. This play is also an important work of the naturalist movement, in which real events (day to day conversations) and situations are depicted on stage in a departure from previous forms as romanticism.
Mr. Pinto’s advise\observation to us was that, “We always try to place or accommodate new objects\ideas to the existing framework (which we already know). Hence, we should try to move away from what we already know and explore new possibility to fit new objects\ideas.” Similarly with Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’, people could not place his works in the existing framework thus giving rise to modern theatre. This play rocked the stages of Europe when it premiered. Nora’s rejection of marriage and motherhood scandalized the contemporary audiences. Self-liberation was reflected through this play. Many could not accept ‘A Doll’s House’ till as late as 1940’s. In fact, the first German productions of the play in the 1880s used an altered ending, written by Ibsen at the request of the producers. In this ending, Nora is led to her children after having argued with Torvald. Seeing them, she collapses, and the curtain is brought down. 1970 onwards there was a shift in the theatre itself to performance studies. Accordingly, ‘A Doll’s House’ was also studied upon and perceived differently. It went back to anthropology and ethnographic studies were conducted on actors who have portrayed the role of Nora, which is one of the most challenging role in the world of theatre.