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Theories of discourse : an introduction / Diane Macdonell.
LIBRA P302 .M294 1986
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Macdonell, Diane.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Discourse analysis.
- Knowledge, Theory of.
- Physical Description:
- vi, 146 pages ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : B. Blackwell, 1986.
- Summary:
- This is the first critical introduction to the theories of discourse advanced by Foucault, Althusser, Pecheux and Hindess and Hirst. Discourse theory proposes that in our daily activities the way we speak and write is shaped by the structures of power in our society, and that because our society is defined by struggle and conflict our discourses reflect and create conflicts. The words, expressions and forms of knowledge in institutions (schools and universities, the church and the media) become political as they are traversed and rearranged by the pressure of forces. Diane Macdonell reveals the various lines of thought in recent work on discourse, showing how the central conception of discourse as a political and social tool could diversify into several different critical theories and ideologies.
- This book is of particular interest as it calls for a reappraisal of Althusser whose work, Macdonell argues, has been wrongly debunked. This is the first overview and introduction to a notoriously complex area of critical theory, an area which is at the heart of debates about form, meaning, ideology, literary criticism and the humanities.
- Contents:
- What is 'discourse'? 1
- Discourse and literary studies 4
- 1 The end of the 1960s 8
- Structuralism's demise 8
- May 1968 and questions of practice 12
- 2 From ideology to discourse: the Althusserian stand 24
- The prevailing practices 28
- Ideologies in struggle 33
- Against humanism: problems of the subject 36
- 3 Meaningful antagonisms: Pecheux on discourse 43
- Discourse and position 45
- Scientific discourse 56
- 4 Discourse and the critique of epistemology 60
- Hindess and Hirst 64
- Everything is discourse? 68
- The politics of philosophy 75
- 5 Foucault's archaeologies of knowledge 82
- Dismantling the history of ideas 84
- Conditions of knowledge 89
- Problems and advances 94
- 6 Subjection, discourse, power 101
- Subjection and the body 102
- Discourse and subjection 110
- Of power and resistance, or, What's wrong with pragmatism? 118.
- Notes:
- Includes index.
- Bibliography: pages 133-139.
- ISBN:
- 0631148388 :
- 0631148396
- OCLC:
- 12420075
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