Structuralism as one – structuralism as many. Studies in Structuralisms, edited by Lorenzo Cigana and Frans Gregersen. Copenhagen, Gads Forlag (Scientia Danica – Series H – Humanistica 8, vol. 21), 2023, 560 p. ISBN 9788773044476, 250,00 kr.
Notice de l’Éditeur et table des matières
This book includes 14 contributions to the study of structuralism as a historical current in the history of European ideas and more particularly in the study of language. The studies combine to contextualize structuralism in both its unity and its diversity, hence the title.
In the first section, the reader is introduced to the broader canvas of disciplines and competing ideas surrounding structuralism. From Claude Lévi-Strauss’s anthropological structuralism, via the philosophical Vienna Circle of logical empiricists we arrive at a sustained juxtaposition of structuralism and phenomenology in various guises: Are they really so incompatible? Finally, we get answers to what separated the American version of structuralism from the European mainstream and to various frequent questions of what structuralism was, or rather was not.
The second section views structural linguistics from without and investigates its legacy in relation to contemporary linguistics, analyzing its relationship to functionalism and its forerunners.
The third section explores structuralism from within, with particular attention to a specific output: Louis Hjelmslev’s theory of glossematics. This constitutes the focus from where the immediate past within the Danish tradition is reanalyzed and its heritage for today’s semiotics and linguistics is discussed.
