This course revisits structuralism as an analytical tradition since the turn of the 20th century, emphasizing its impact on the study of architecture, visual culture, technical media, and the built environment.
The word “structure” has made a forceful return in English-language public discourse, with demands for “structural change” becoming mainstream in cultural and political spheres.
The class examines structuralism’s critical legacy, in two historical directions. First, we will look at how structuralist paradigms emerged as powerful critiques of other models of explanation, from functionalism in the social sciences to iconography in art history. At the same time, we will attend to the equally powerful critiques to which structuralism was subjected, including by post-formalist, post-structuralist, feminist, and post-colonial thinkers, in order to challenge timeless notions of structuration. Leveraging concepts such as difference and arbitrariness in new ways, these critiques aimed to uncover the workings of power, agency, and ideology.
The course is reading-heavy and proceeds thematically. Each week, we address a landmark text of structuralist thought, along with the work of authors who adapted its methods to the study of non-textual cultural artifacts. The class’s goal is to render strange again concepts that have continued familiarity in the study of architecture, media, the social sciences and the humanities: “structure,” but also “code”, "grammar," “ideology,” “episteme”, “habitus,” “myth,” and so on.