Roland Barthes

**Roland Gérard Barthes** (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French philosopher.

## Life

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 Cherbourg in Normandy. His father  was killed during World War I before his first birthday. He was raised by his mother, his aunt and grandmother in Bayonne. Barthes moved to Paris at the age of 11 with his family. Barthes was student in literature from 1935 to 1939 at the Sorbonne.

## Career

In 1948, he taught with short-time positions at institutes in France, Romania, and Egypt. Then he studied lexicology and sociology and  began to write bi-monthly essays for the magazine _Les Lettres Nouvelles_, a collection that was published in 1957. Consisting of fifty-four short essays, between 1954–1956, _Mythologies_ were acute reflections of French popular culture ranging from an analysis on soap detergents to a dissection of popular wrestling. Barthes taught at Middlebury College in 1957 and befriended the English translator of his work, Richard Howard, in New York City. He taught in his classes at Middlebury. _Michelet_ and _Writing Degree Zero_ were published in France.

Barthes developed his literary criticism with new ideals of textuality and novelistic neutrality. In 1971, he was a professor at the University of Geneva and also taught at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS).

### Works

Here are some of his works:
- (1953) _Le degré zéro de l'écriture_
- (1954) _Michelet par lui-même_
- (1978) _Préface_, La Parole Intermédiaire, F. Flahault, Seuil: Paris
- (1980) _Recherche de Proust_, Editions du Seuil: Paris.
- (1982) _Littérature et réalité_, Editions du Seuil: Paris.
- (1988) _Michelet_, Editions du Seuil: Paris.

## Other websites

- Barthes, Roland. Incidents. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  1992. Free Online – UC Press E-Books Collection
- "Elements of Semiology" The first half of the book, from Marxists.com
- Roland Barthes by Philippe Sollers
- "Roland Barthes and Camera Lucida" by Ron Burnett
- Roland Barthes and Juri Lotman – special issue of _Sign Systems Studies_ 44(3), 2016.

## Infobox (philosopher)

- **region**: Western philosophy
- **era**: 20th-century philosophy
- **image**: Roland Barthes 1969.jpg
- **caption**: Roland Barthes
- **birth name**: Roland Gérard Barthes
- **birth place**: Cherbourg-Octeville, Cherbourg, France
- **death place**: Paris, France
- **education**: University of Paris (Bachelor of Arts, BA, Master of Arts, MA)
- **institutions**: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales
Collège de France
- **school tradition**: Continental philosophy
Structuralism
Semiotics
Post-structuralism
- **main interests**: Semiotics (literary semiotics, semiotics of photography, comics semiotics, literary theory), narratology, linguistics
- **notable ideas**: Structural analysis of narratives
Death of the author
Writing degree zero
Effect of reality
- **influences**: Ferdinand de Saussure, SaussureKarl Marx, MarxFriedrich Nietzsche, NietzscheSigmund Freud, FreudJacques Lacan, LacanJean-Paul Sartre, SartreGeorges Bataille, BatailleJules Michelet, MicheletPaul Valéry, ValéryJean-François Lyotard, Lyotard
- **influenced**: Jean BaudrillardMichel FoucaultJulia KristevaJames Wood (critic), James WoodEric de KuyperPhilippe-Joseph SalazarGérard GenetteSusan SontagBenoît PeetersStuart Hall (cultural theorist), Stuart Hall Srecko Horvat
- **signature**: Roland Barthes signature.svg