VI. Narrative Analysis: Introduction to Structuralist and Semiotic Analyses (Feb. 20)


Topics: Overview and critique of Lévi-Strauss's structuralist methods for the analysis of narrative; controversy over mind (cognition, schemata) vs body (agency, materiality); symbolism in narrative: elementary semiotics, distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic dimensions of structures, different theories of structure

T Ortner, Sherry
1990 Patterns of History: Cultural Schemas in the Foundings of Sherpa Religious Institutions. Chap. 3 in Culture Through Time

Lévi-Strauss, Claude
1963 (1955) The Structural Study of Myth. In Structural Anthropology pp. 206-231. New York: Basic Books. [for those unfamiliar with his methods; needed as the basis of all subsequent critiques]

Gillespie, Susan D.
n.d. Structure and Meaning in Myth. ms. [provides a quick overview of a lot of material: structural linguistics, semiotics, critiques of Lévi-Strauss's methods, different approaches to structure]

T Valeri, Valerio
1990 Constitutive History: Genealogy and Narrative in the Legitimation of Hawaiian Kingship. Chap. 6 in Culture Through Time

Parmentier, Richard J.
1987 Diagrammatic Icons and Historical Processes, Chap. 3; Models of Transformation of Belauan Polity, Chap. 4 (SKIM) of The Sacred Remains: Myth, History, and Polity in Belau. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (pp. 107-196)