Roland (singular) Barthes (plural) in a Global Context

Description

In this brainstorm talk, I will endeavour to situate Roland Barthes in a global context, by exploring the remarkable diversity (he may have used the words “plurality” or “dispersion”) of images of or attached to him that are currently in circulation worldwide. To achieve this, I will take stock of recent research trends in the prolific field of Barthes studies on an international scale, especially since the flurry of conferences and publications that emerged since the centenary of his birth in 2015. My Ariadne’s thread in this enterprise will be to roughly follow three main directions, while making sure to consistently engage with Barthes’ own texts along the way: 1) towards the global, perhaps even the universal. This will entail considerations on Barthes in/and World Literature; in/on translation; globe-trotting Barthes and/on travel (writing)... and crossing borders towards other countries, languages, cultures, but also other (non-verbal) media and disciplines (Cf. intermedial and interdisciplinary Barthes, operating in-between subjects and art forms such as history, philosophy, literature, linguistics, semiology, sociology, music, film, painting and photography). 2) towards the local (versus global?) Barthes. I will analyse geographically and culturally circumscribed receptions of his work (cf. trends and labels: semiologist; mythologist; textualist; structuralist; post-structuralist...); national and regional traditions of study, that I would like to examine via the example of the 2015 Centenary in France and Japan. 3) towards the singular... a more personal and intimate Barthes (the idiosyncratic grain of his voice, “the most subtle of individual specifications”, The Preparation of the Novel, p. 83), and perhaps another form of universality (cf. Barthes quoting Proust: “It is the apogee of the particular that begets the general”). This may be what resists any attempt to globalise, commodify, mythologise, (re-)package or re-brand “RB” – or, to put it in Barthesian terms, projections, fixations, adjectivisations... To approach this more personal Barthes, I will focus on my experience of teaching his work at different levels and to different cohorts of students, national and international, over the last 15 years. As I will suggest, it is perhaps the most poignant pages he ever wrote, e.g. the passages on his mother in Camera Lucida, that can trigger a punctum-effect on a global scale and puncture the countless studium versions of Barthes across the world – and disciplines.

Period	27 Jun 2025
Event title	Global Roland Barthes
Event type	Symposium
Location	Leeds, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International