by Payal Mudliar

1. SHRI BALAJI
INFOTECH
Roland Gérard Barthes
YouTube Channel
By Payal Mudliar

2. Roland Gérard Barthes
2

3. This is a slide title
▸ Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist,
essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician.
▸ Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and
he influenced the development of many schools of
theory, including structuralism, semiotics, social
theory, design theory, anthropology and post-
structuralism.
3

4. This is a slide title
▸ He was born in November 12, 1915, at Cherbourg, France
and died in March 25, 1980, at Paris
▸ He was particularly known for developing and extending
the field of semiotics
▸ Barthes showed great promise as a student and spent the
period from 1935 to 1939 at the Sorbonne, where he
earned a licence in classical literature.
4

5. This is a slide title
▸ While Barthes found structuralism to be a useful tool
and believed that discourse of literature could be
formalized, he did not believe it could become a strict
scientific endeavour.
▸ In the late 1960s, radical movements were taking place
in literary criticism
5

6. This is a slide title
• The core idea that Barthe is trying to deliver is that
children do not choose what they want to become but
instead, it is pre chosen for them by their parents
according to the norms of the society
• Barthes spent the early 1960s exploring the fields of
semiology and structuralism, Barthes's Marxism.
6

7. This is a slide title
▸ The Mare buttal in Criticism and Truth “(1966) describe
a set of ideas and beliefs that are dominant in society
and are used to justify the power and privilege of the
ruling class.
▸ By the late 1960s, Barthes had established a reputation
for himself
▸ He traveled to the US and Japan, delivering a
presentation at Johns Hopkins University.
7

8. This is a slide title
▸ Famous maxim“I encounter millions of bodies in my life;
of these millions, I may desire some hundreds; but of
these hundreds, I love only one.”
▸ He wrote his best-known work, 1967 essay "The Death of
the Author," which, would prove to be a transitional
piece in its investigation of the logical ends of
structuralist thought.
8

9. This is a slide title
▸ As we earlier said, by the late 1960s, Barthes had
established a reputation for himself
▸ Barthes continued to contribute with Philippe Sollers
to the literary magazine Tel Quel,
▸ In 1971, he served as visiting professor at the
University of Geneva.
9

10. This is a slide title
▸ In 1975 he wrote an autobiography titled Roland Barthes
and in 1977 he was elected to the chair of Sémiologie
Littéraire at the Collège de France.
▸ His last major work, Camera Lucida, is partly an essay
about the nature of photography and partly a meditation
on photographs of his mother.
▸ The book contains many reproductions of photographs.
10

11. This is a slide title
▸ On 25 February 1980, Roland Barthes was knocked down by
a laundry van while walking home through the streets of
Paris. One month later, on 26 March, he died from the
chest injuries he sustained in the accident.
▸ Barthes's earliest ideas reacted to the trend of
existentialist philosophy that was prominent in France
during the 1940s.
11

12. This is a slide title
▸ In Michelet, a critical analysis of the French
historian Jules Michelet, Barthes developed the notions
▸ Barthes's many monthly contributions, collected in his
Mythologies (1957), frequently interrogated specific
cultural materials in order to expose how bourgeois
society asserted its values through them
12

13. This is a slide title
▸ For example, Barthes cited the portrayal of wine in
French society. Its description as a robust and healthy
habit is a bourgeois ideal that is contradicted by
certain realities
▸ He found semiotics, the study of signs, useful in these
interrogations.
13

14. This is a slide title
▸ He developed a theory of signs to demonstrate this
perceived deception.
▸ In The Fashion System Barthes showed how this
adulteration of signs could easily be translated into
words.
14

15. This is a slide title
▸ As Barthes's work with structuralism began to flourish
around the time of his debates with Picard
▸ His investigation of structure focused on revealing the
importance of language in writing, which he felt was
overlooked by old criticism.
15

16. This is a slide title
▸ Barthes's "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of
Narrative" is concerned with examining the correspondence
between the structure of a sentence and that of a larger
narrative.
▸ While Barthes found structuralism to be a useful tool and
believed that discourse of literature could be formalized.
16

17. This is a slide title
▸ In the late 1960s, radical movements were taking place in
literary criticism.
▸ Such thought led Barthes to consider the limitations not
just of signs and symbols, but also of Western culture's
dependency on beliefs of constancy and ultimate standards.
17

18. This is a slide title
▸ He travelled to Japan in 1966 where he wrote Empire of
Signs (published in 1970),
▸ In the wake of this trip Barthes wrote what is largely
considered to be his best-known work, the essay "The
Death of the Author" (1968).
▸ Barthes also attempted to reinterpret the mind-body
dualism theory
18

19. This is a slide title
▸ His body theory emphasized the formation of the self
through bodily cultivation.
▸ The theory, which is also described as ethico-
political entity, considers the idea of the body as
one that functions as a "fashion word" that provides
the illusion of a grounded discourse.
▸ His theory has influenced the work of other thinkers
such as Jerome Bel
19

20. This is a slide title
▸ Throughout his career, Barthes had an interest in
photography and its potential to communicate actual
events.
▸ A posthumous collection of essays was published in
1987 by François Wahl, Incidents
▸ It contains fragments from his journals: his Soirées
de Paris (a 1979 extract from his erotic diary of
life in Paris.
20

21. This is a slide title
▸ As earlier said Roland Barthes's criticism contributed to
the development of theoretical schools such as
structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism.
▸ While his influence is mainly found in these theoretical
fields with which his work brought him into contact, it is
also felt in every field concerned with the representation
of information and models of communication, including
computers, photography, music, and literature.
21

22. This is a slide title
▸ In 1964, Barthes wrote "The Last Happy Writer" the title
of which refers to Voltaire
▸ In the essay he commented on the problems of the modern
thinker after discovering the relativism in thought and
philosophy, discrediting previous philosophers who avoided
this difficulty.
▸ The sinologist Simon Leys, in a review of Barthes's diary
of a trip to China during the Cultural Revolution
22

23. 23
THANKS!
Any questions?
You can find me at
payalhdps@gmail.com
shribalajiinfotech.com
9860663446
YouTube Channel
SHRI BALAJI
INFOTECH