Structuralism promised to provide anthropology, literary criticism, and other fields with a scientific basis, but before it could ever make its mark in America, Derrida, the final speaker at the Johns Hopkins Seminar heralding the promise of structuralism, exposed its weaknesses. For structuralism depends upon structures, and structures depend upon centers—and Derrida called into question the very idea of a stable center. The era of poststructuralism had been ushered in.
