Bio: (1915-1980) French literary critic and semiologist. Roland Barthes studied literature at the Sorbonne from 1935 to 1939. During this period, and even later, during the Second World War, he suffered from tuberculosis and spent a lot of time in the hospital, which significantly hindered him from pursuing usual academic career. Unable to find work in France, he worked as a librarian in Romania and later worked in Alexandria, Egypt. In Egypt, he also collaborated with the Marxist magazine Combat, and the fruit of this collaboration is Barthes' book Writing Degree Zero (1953).

Barthes returned to France and from 1952 to 1959 he worked at the French National Centre for Scientific Research where he studied lexicology and sociology. During this period he published articles in the journal Les Lettres nouvelles. In these articles, which were collected in the book Mythologies (1957) Barthes explores the myths of popular culture. In these essays, written under the influence of Ferdinand Saussure, Berthold Brecht, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Lev Trotsky, Barthes studies wrestling, toys, wine, food, striptease, and photography. He tries to reveal the symbolism and cultural and sociological significance of these popular cultural patterns.

In the example of wrestling (a popular form of mass entertainment through simulations of wrestling and fighting, not real sport), Barthes shows that the essence of wrestling is to show the audience the spectacle of suffering, defeat, and justice, and all this is decorated with overemphasized movements and suffering of "competitors". The whole spectacle, but also every movement is structured, and the moves are perfectly choreographed so that every expression of suffering, every domination over the opponent, as well as every turn in that who has the upper hand, are easy and clear to every spectator and every time provoke the intended reaction. Barthes believes that wrestling is like algebra because it simultaneously reveals the relationship between the cause and the presented consequence. He does not consider wrestling a sadistic spectacle, but, above all, views it as an intellectual spectacle. In addition to studying individual cultural patterns, Barthes in Mythologies studies other aspects of myths: myth as a form of speech, myth as a semiological system, reading and interpreting myths, myths on the left and right, and myth as depoliticized speech.

In the 1960s, Barthes focused on the study of semiology and Saussure's structuralism, and in 1976 he became a professor of literary semiology at the most prestigious French university, the Collège de France. He taught there until his tragic death in 1980, caused by a car accident.

Barthes studied signs, symbols, and ideologies, acting as a bridge between Saussure's classical structuralism and the postmodern and poststructuralist upheavals represented by Foucault, Derrida, and Baudrillard. He added to Saussure's analysis of the relationship between the signified and the signifier. This new conception sees signs of the first order of the sign system (both the signifier and the signified) serving as the signifier of the second order of the sign system operating at the level of myth. Second-order signs work by establishing an ideologically clear connection of first-order signs with an idea that seems completely natural and thus creates a myth. In the example of a photograph of a non-white soldier saluting in a French military uniform, Barthes reveals the true meaning of the sign, the myth of France as a great nation, full of patriotism, but without racial discrimination. Barthes is also known for his thesis on the "death of the author", according to which the author of a work of art or literature ceases to be significant, but the work speaks for itself.

During his career, Barthes wrote over 20 books and published numerous articles in various journals. Although he is best known as a literary critic, he also influenced many philosophical and scientific disciplines, and above all semiology, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. He studied fashion, ideology, language, cuisine, and many other phenomena of modern society, and at the same time, he achieved world fame, which, even after his death, is constantly growing.

Main works

Le Degré zéro de l’écriture (1953);

Mythologies (1957);

Sur Racine (1963);

Essais critiques (1964);

Eléments de sémiologie (1965);

Critique et vérité (1966);

Systéme de la Mode (1967);

L’Empire des signes (1970);

Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1971);

Le Plaisir du texte (1973); 

Alors la Chine? (1975);

Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975);

Fragments d’un discours amoureux (1977);                                  

La Chambre claire: Note sur la photographie (1980);

Le Grain de la voix: entretiens 1962–1980 (1981);

L’Obvie et l’Obtus (1982);

Le Bruissement de la langue (1984);

L’Aventure sémiologique (1985).

Works translated into English:

The Fashion System (1967, in French 1967);

Writing Degree Zero (1968, in French 1953),

Elements of Semiology (1968, in French 1965);

Mythologies (1972, in French 1957); 

The Pleasure of the Text (1975, in French 1973);

Sade, Fourier, Loyola (1976, in French 1971);

Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (1977, in French 1975);

Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1981, in French 1980);

Empire of Signs (1983, in French 1970);

The Grain of the Voice: Interviews 1962–1980 (1985, in French 1981);

The Rustle of Language (1986, in French 1984);

Criticism and Truth (1987, in French 1966);

A Lover's Discourse: Fragments (1990, in French 1977).