Historic Structures: The Prague School Project, 1928-1946

Inthisfirstbook-lengthstudyofCzechstructuralismandsemioticsinEnglish,F.W.Galanexploresoneofthemostimportantintellectualcurrentsofthetwentiethcentury,fillingthegapbetweenwhathasbeenwrittenoftheRussianformalismofthetwentiesandtheFrenchstructuralismofthesixtiesandseventies.HerecordstheevolutionwithinthePragueLinguisticCircleofthosetheorieswhichconcernliterature'schangeintimeandtheplaceofliteratureinsociety.Indoingso,herevealshowtheworkofthePragueLinguisticCircleintheyears1928to1946vindicatestructuralismagainstitscritics'chargesthatthestructuralistapproach-inlinguistics,literarytheory,filmstudies,andrelatedfields-isinherentlyunhistorical.OvercomingthisapparentmethodologicalimpassewasthemainchallengeconfrontedbythescholarsofthePragueSchool-RomanJakobsonandJanMukarovsky,inparticular.