Post Class Blog 10/3

In preparation for out first exam, we discussed the major themes in our readings so far. We mainly covered the beginning of the class including theorists: DeSaussure and Macherey. The main take away from the review material was that Postmodernist thinking points to the arbitrary. We discussed how there is no relationship between signifier and signified-and how all language is arbitrary. Modernist theorists looked for meta-narratives that we the causation for everything and they were also obsessed with finding the "original." Postmodernist thinkers do not spend much time looking for the original referent but are more concerned at analyzing how each text is in reference to each other. This extends into Benjamin's discussions about the mechanical reproduction of a text and how the 'original' is then altered because it is given a new context by its reproduction. This brings to question whether there is a true original because if everything relies on its reference to another text then there cannot be a true referent. All artwork, literature, and texts rely on millions of references because the language which they are thought and read is arbitrary in nature.