From: tony.m.roberts-AT-nhmccd.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 08:49:15 -0600
Subject: Foucault and Structuralism


Would it be totally turnip-witted to suggest that post-sructuralism is what 
strcturalism becomes once the radical alterity of other times and places is 
taken seriously? That structuralism emphasises continuity under apparent change 
in a search for those patterns which are most broad and stable whereas post-
sructuralism emphasises contingency, rupture and the arbitariness of what will 
seem essential to someone living at any given time and place from the 
perspective of some other time and place? Structuralism emphasises what we have 
in common whereas post-structuralism emphasises how much of who we are is only 
possible because of the accident of when and where we were born. Structuralism 
searches for the essential and post-structuralism raises the possibility that 
what we think of as essential might be just how things tend to happen given 
where we are.
                   Sincerely,
                      Tony Michael Roberts