Language and Materialism: Development in Semiology and the Theory of the Subject

This book presents a comprehensive and lucid guide through the labyrinths of semiology and structuralism -- perhaps the most significant systems of study to have been developed in the twentieth century. The authors describe the early presuppositions of structuralism and semiology which claim to be a materialist theory of language based on Saussure's notion of the sign. They show how these presuppositions have been challenged by work following Althusser's development of the Marxist theory of ideology, and by Lacan's re-reading of Freud. The book explains how the encounter of two disciplines -- psychoanalysis and Marxism -- on the ground of their common problem --language -- has produced a new understanding of society and its subjects. It produces a critical re-examination of the traditional Marxist theory of ideology, together with the concepts of sign and identity of the subject. Rosalind Coward is a journalist and writer. She is an Emeritus Professor of journalism at Roehampton University, and a former member of the board of Greenpeace UK. John Ellis is a British former TV producer and professor of media arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Ellis studied English at the University of Cambridge and at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at University of Birmingham. He taught Film Studies at University of Kent at Canterbury.