History of Structuralism. Vol. 1 - The Rising Sign, 1945-1966

492 Pages·2013·8.48 MB·English

by  Francois Dosse

History of Structuralism
Volume The Rising Sign, I945-I966
I:
François Dosse
Translated by Deborah Glassman
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis
London
The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges financial
assistance provided by the French Ministry of Culture for the translation of
this book.
Copyright 1997 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
Originally published as Histoire du structuralisme, 1. Le champ du signe,
1945-1966. Copyright Éditions La Découverte, Paris, 1991.
AlI rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
III Third Avenue South, Suite 290, Minneapolis, MN 554°1-252°
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dosse, François, 195°-
[Histoire du structuralisme. English]
History of structuralism / François Dosse; translated by Deborah
Glassman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. The rising sign, 1945-1966-v. 2. The sign sets,
1 967-present.
ISBN 0-8166-2239-6 (v. 1 : hc : alk. paper).-ISBN 0-8166-2241-8
(v. 1 : pbk. : alk. paper).-ISBN 0-8166-2370-8 (v. 2: hc : alk.
paper).-ISBN 0-8166-2371-6 (v. 2 : pbk. : alk. paper).-ISBN
0-8166-2240-X (set: hc : alk. paper).-ISBN 0-8166-2254-X (set:
pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Structuralism-History. 1. Title.
B84I.4·D6713 1997
I49'·96'09-dc21 96-51477
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
To Florence, Antoine, Chloé, and Aurélien

Structuralism is not a new method, it is the awakened and trou bled
consciousness of modern thought.
Michel Foucault

Contents
Translator's Preface Xlll
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction xix
Part J. The Fifties: The Epie Epoeh
1. The Eclipse of a Star: Jean-Paul Sartre 3
2. The Birth of a Hero: Claude Lévi-Strauss 10
3. Where Nature and Culture Meet: Incest 18
4. Ask for the Program: The Mauss 26
5. Georges Dumézil: An Independent 32
6. The Phenomenological Bridge 37
7. The Saussurean Break 43
8. Roman Jakobson: The Man Who Could Do Everything 52
9. A Pilot Science without a Plane: Linguistics 59
ix
x Contents
10. At Alexandria's Gates 67
II. The Mother Figure of Structuralism: Roland Barthes 71
12. An Epistemic Exigency 78
13. A Rebel NamedJacques Lacan 91
14· Rome CaUs (1953): The Return to Freud 99
15· The Unconscious: A Symbolic Universe III
16. Real/Symbolic/Imaginary (RSI): The Heresy II9
17· The CaU of the Tropics 126
18. Reason Raves: Michel Foucault's Work 142
19· Marxism in Crisis: A Thaw or the Deep Freeze Again? 158
20. The French School of Economics Takes a Structural Path 166
21. Get a Load of That Structure! 173
Part II. The Sixties: I963-I966, La Belle Époque
22. Contesting the Sorbonne: The Quarrel of the Ancients and
the Moderns 191
23· 1964: The Semiological Adventure Makes a Breakthrough 202
24. The Golden Age of FormaI Thinking 210
25· Great Confrontations 223
26. Signifying Chains 239
27· Mythology's Earth Is Round 25°
28. Africa: The Continental Divide of Structuralism 264
29· Reviews 273
3°· Ulm or Saint-Cloud: Althusser or Touki? 284
Contents xi
31. The Althusserian Explosion 293
32. Marxism's Second Wind 309
33. 1966
Annum mira bile (1): A Watershed Year for Structuralism 316
34. 1966
Annum mirabile (II): Foucault Sells like Hotcakes 330
35. 1966
Annum mirabile (III): Julia Cornes to Paris 343
Part III. A Hexagonal Fever
36. The Postmodern Hour Sounds 351
37. Nietzschean-Heideggerian Roots
38. Growing Pains
Appendix: List of Interviewees 395
Notes 4°1
Bibliography 437
Index 449