La politisation du structuralisme. Une crise dans la théorie

Abstract

In the mid-1960s, structuralism (or at least texts labelled as such) was at once a theory widely acclaimed by intellectuals and the educated public, and a movement associated with the political avant-garde. But it appears that the texts of the "founding fathers" of structuralism (Jakobson, Lacan, Levi-Strauss) are apolitical, if only by contrast with the life and works of Jean-Paul Sartre. How did politics come to permeate structuralism ? After retracing the socio-political context of the process, this article pinpoints "handholds" for this politicization in the writings and careers of those "founding fathers". It then proceeds to examine how the reception of Althusser and Barthes'works in particular led to this reinterpretation of structuralism.