Post structuralism

Post-structuralism is the literary and philosophical work that both builds upon and rejects ideas within the intellectual project that preceded it: structuralism.

Structuralism proposes that one may understand human culture by means of a structure modeled on language (structural linguistics). This understanding differs from concrete reality and from abstract ideas, instead as "third order" that mediates between the two. Post-structuralist authors all present different critiques of structuralism, but common themes include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of structuralism, and an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute its structures. Building upon structuralist conceptions of reality mediated by the interrelationship between signs, a post-structuralist critique might suggest that to build meaning out of such an interpretation one must (falsely) assume that the definitions of these signs are both valid and fixed, and that the author employing structuralist theory is somehow above and apart from these structures they are describing so as to be able to wholly appreciate them. The rigidity, tendency to categorize, and intimation of universal truths found in structuralist thinking is then a common target of post-structuralist thought.

Post-structuralism discards the idea of interpreting media or the world within pre-established, socially constructed structures.

Writers whose works are often characterised as post-structuralist include: Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard and Julia Kristeva^{[citation needed]}, although many theorists who have been called "post-structuralist" have rejected the label.