Jonathan Culler (1944 - ) is an important figure of the structuralism movement.

Background

Culler attended Harvard for his undergraduate studies, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in history and literature in 1966. He then received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. There he attended St. John's College earning a B. Phil in comparative literature (1968) and a Ph.D. in modern languages (1972). His thesis for the B. Phil. recorded Culler's first experiences with structuralism. The thesis explored the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty using the ideas of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, and Ferdinand de Saussure.