Abstract
How may Greimassian narrative semiotics join forces with feminist inquiry? This essay begins with an analysis of a cake recipe from Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue and A. J. Greimas’s “Basil Soup, or the Construction of an Object of Value.” MacIntyre and Greimas raise the issue of gender in distinct ways. MacIntyre’s dismissive attitude toward traditionally feminine household duties contrasts with Greimas’s careful analysis and his unexpected invocation of a law that had a major impact on French women’s lives. The essay discusses what recipes can tell us about gender identity, and what we can learn about being a woman when narrative theorists invoke recipes. Extending the analysis, the essay points out that there is very little extant research on gender in Greimassian semiotics. Readers often assume that this type of semiotics is concerned only with “paper subjects,” that it offers a “mere recipe,” not a “real meal.” However, many of the latest innovations in Greimassian semiotics harmonize with dominant trends in the study of gender. Although Greimas did not foresee feminist analysis, his theoretical contributions certainly prepared rich ground for such work. The future is bright for additional research at the intersection of Greimas and gender.
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© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Préface
- Introduction: From A. J. Greimas to romance semiotics today
- Part 1: Phenomenology, perception, passion, subjectivity / Phénoménologie, perception, passion, subjectivité
- La nature de la signification: idéalité et plurivocité
- Greimas and gender: Mere recipe or real meal?
- La sémiotique de Greimas: Une épistémologie (discursive) immanente
- D’où vient le sens? Remarques sur la sémio-phénoménologie de Greimas
- Greimasean phenomenology and beyond: From isotopy to time consciousness
- Aesthetics and perception / Esthétique et perception
- La saisie esthétique, transformation non narrative de la subjectivité
- L’esthétique de Greimas face aux sensibilités valéryennes
- Que peut la théorie greimassienne pour une sémiotique de la perception? Enquête et perspectives
- La question de l’intensité dans la théorie greimassienne
- Passions and the subject / Les passions et le sujet
- La place du sujet dans la sémiotique de Greimas
- La sémiotique des passions : hier, aujourd’hui, demain
- La passion et la figurativité: Les deux tentations greimassiennes face à la profondeur
- Stylistique et sémiotique tensive : Convergences et divergences
- Enunciation and subjectivity in language / Énonciation et la subjectivité dans les langues
- Two concepts of enunciation
- L’énonciation, la praxis énonciative et le discours
- Texte, textualisation et pratique : Le devenir de l'énonciation
- Part 2: Texts, histories, cultures: Theory, methodology, applications / Textes, histoires, cultures : Théorie, méthodologie et applications
- Transversalité du sens et relations interartistiques : l’héritage greimassien
- Du texte à la pratique : Pour une sémiotique expérimentale
- Une autre approche structurale est possible: Sens, expérience, analyse
- Greimas et la perspective des objets : Pour une approche sémiotique en mode mineur
- Réflexivité et énonciation dans le film The Hours
- Enjeux de la notion de genre en sémiotique
- Semiotics and the social sciences : Methods, explorations, applications / La sémiotique et les sciences sociales : Méthodes, explorations et applications
- La part sémiotique de l’anthropologie des modernes
- Hjelmslev, la sémiotique et l’École de Paris
- The study of the future, social forecasting, mutations: Semiotic challenges and contributions
- Rethinking ideology: Greimas’s semiotics, neomarxism, and cultural anthropology
- Narration and the experience of history
- Construction des sens en réception : La propagande de la sécurité routière à l’épreuve de ses destinataires
- Places and cultures / Contextes et cultures
- Semiotics of textscapes and cultures
- Tracés territoriaux d’un point de vue sémiotique
- Lire De la part de la princesse morte de Kenizé Mourad à la lumière de la sémiotique topologique d’Algirdas Julien Greimas
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Préface
- Introduction: From A. J. Greimas to romance semiotics today
- Part 1: Phenomenology, perception, passion, subjectivity / Phénoménologie, perception, passion, subjectivité
- La nature de la signification: idéalité et plurivocité
- Greimas and gender: Mere recipe or real meal?
- La sémiotique de Greimas: Une épistémologie (discursive) immanente
- D’où vient le sens? Remarques sur la sémio-phénoménologie de Greimas
- Greimasean phenomenology and beyond: From isotopy to time consciousness
- Aesthetics and perception / Esthétique et perception
- La saisie esthétique, transformation non narrative de la subjectivité
- L’esthétique de Greimas face aux sensibilités valéryennes
- Que peut la théorie greimassienne pour une sémiotique de la perception? Enquête et perspectives
- La question de l’intensité dans la théorie greimassienne
- Passions and the subject / Les passions et le sujet
- La place du sujet dans la sémiotique de Greimas
- La sémiotique des passions : hier, aujourd’hui, demain
- La passion et la figurativité: Les deux tentations greimassiennes face à la profondeur
- Stylistique et sémiotique tensive : Convergences et divergences
- Enunciation and subjectivity in language / Énonciation et la subjectivité dans les langues
- Two concepts of enunciation
- L’énonciation, la praxis énonciative et le discours
- Texte, textualisation et pratique : Le devenir de l'énonciation
- Part 2: Texts, histories, cultures: Theory, methodology, applications / Textes, histoires, cultures : Théorie, méthodologie et applications
- Transversalité du sens et relations interartistiques : l’héritage greimassien
- Du texte à la pratique : Pour une sémiotique expérimentale
- Une autre approche structurale est possible: Sens, expérience, analyse
- Greimas et la perspective des objets : Pour une approche sémiotique en mode mineur
- Réflexivité et énonciation dans le film The Hours
- Enjeux de la notion de genre en sémiotique
- Semiotics and the social sciences : Methods, explorations, applications / La sémiotique et les sciences sociales : Méthodes, explorations et applications
- La part sémiotique de l’anthropologie des modernes
- Hjelmslev, la sémiotique et l’École de Paris
- The study of the future, social forecasting, mutations: Semiotic challenges and contributions
- Rethinking ideology: Greimas’s semiotics, neomarxism, and cultural anthropology
- Narration and the experience of history
- Construction des sens en réception : La propagande de la sécurité routière à l’épreuve de ses destinataires
- Places and cultures / Contextes et cultures
- Semiotics of textscapes and cultures
- Tracés territoriaux d’un point de vue sémiotique
- Lire De la part de la princesse morte de Kenizé Mourad à la lumière de la sémiotique topologique d’Algirdas Julien Greimas