Roland Barthes:
Mythologies (1957)
Introduction
What is Mythologies About? Mythologies is
a text which is not one but plural. It contains
fifty-four (only twenty-eight in the Annette
Lavers's English translation) short journalistic
articles on a variety of subjects. These
texts were written between 1954 and 1956
for the left-wing magazine Les Lettres nouvelles
and very clearly belong to Barthes's `période
"journalistique"'
(Calvet: 1973 p. 37). They all have a brio
and a punchy topicality typical of good journalism.
Indeed, the fifty-four texts are best considered
as opportunistic improvisations on relevant
and up-to-the-minute issues rather than carefully
considered theoretical essays. Because of
their very topicality they provide the contemporary
reader with a panorama of the events and
trends that took place in the France of the
1950s. Although the texts are very much of
and about their times, many still have an
unsettling contemporary relevance to us today.
Although there are a number of articles about
political figures, the majority of the fifty-four
texts focus on various manifestations of
mass culture, la culture de masse: films,
advertizing, newspapers and magazines, photographs,
cars, children's toys, popular pastimes and
the like. This broke new ground at the time.
Barthes showed that it was possible to read
the `trivia' of everyday life as full of
meanings.
Mythologies, however, includes not just the
fifty-four journalistic pieces, but an important
theoretical essay entitled `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 193-247). `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
is a retrospectively imposed theoretical
conspectus (an overall view, summary or survey)
which is an important theoretical or methodological
tract in its own right, but in no way central
to an understanding and appreciation of the
other texts in Mythologies. The fact that
it is positioned after the journalistic articles
is significant. This expressed not simply
the chronological order in which they were
written, but also how Barthes wished us to
read the text as a whole. `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
was not intended to be seen as the theory
underpinning the practice of the fifty-four
articles which were more spontaneous and
intuitive. What `Le Mythe aujourd'hui' does,
however, is to make more explicit some of
the concerns that underpin the fifty-four
essays. There is, then, a certain amount
of continuity between the two `parts' of
Mythologies.
Interrogating the Obvious
... ce qui m'a toujours préoccupé [...] c'est
le problème de la signification des objets
culturels. (Barthes: 1981 p. 64) Dans la
vie quotidienne, j'éprouve pour tout ce que
je vois et entends une sorte de curiosité,
presque d'affectivité intellectuelle qui
est de l'ordre du romanesque. (Barthes:
1981 p. 192)
Barthes often claimed to be fascinated by
the meanings of the things that surround
us in our everyday lives. If there is a certain
amount of thematic continuity between the
two `parts' of Mythologies then it is here,
in their shared interrogation of the meanings
of the cultural artefacts and practices that
surround us. Barthes often claimed that he
wanted to challenge the `innocence' and `naturalness'
of cultural texts and practices which were
capable of producing all sorts of supplementary
meanings, or connotations to use Barthes's
preferred term. Although objects, gestures
and practices have a certain utilitarian
function, they are not resistant to the imposition
of meaning. There is no such thing, to take
but one example, as a car which is a purely
functional object devoid of connotations
and resistant to the imposition of meaning.
A BMW and a Citroën
2CV share the same functional utility, they
do essentially the same job but connote different
things about their owners: thrusting, upwardly-mobile
executive versus ecologically sound, right-on
trendy. We can speak of cars then, as signs
expressive of a number of connotations. It
is these sorts of secondary meanings or connotations
that Barthes is interested in uncovering
in Mythologies. Barthes wants to stop taking
things for granted, wants to bracket or suspend
consideration of their function, and concentrate
rather on what they mean and how they function
as signs. In many respects what Barthes is
doing is interrogating the obvious, taking
a closer look at that which gets taken for
granted, making explicit what remains implicit.
A simple example of Barthes getting under
the surface of things is the essay `Iconographie
de l'abbé Pierre' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 54-6).
The abbé Pierre was a Catholic priest who
achieved a certain amount of media attention
in the 1950s (and in the 1980s and 1990s
too) for his work with the homeless in Paris.
What interests Barthes is, perversely, the
abbé Pierre's clothes and, in particular,
his haircut. We would expect such a man to
be indifferent to fashion and to consider
a certain neutrality or `état zéro'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 54) to be desirable. However,
far from being neutral or innocent, the abbé
Pierre's clothes and hairstyle send out all
sorts of messages. The abbé Pierre's simple
working-class `canadienne' and austere hairstyle
all connote the qualities of simplicity,
religious devotion and self-sacrifice. His
clothes and hairstyle make a fashion statement
of sorts - as much, if not more, than a Lacoste
polo shirt or an Armani suit - and are rich
in connotations:
... la neutralité finit par fonctionner comme
signe de la neutralité, ... La coupe zéro,
elle affiche tout simplement le franciscanisme;
conçue d'abord négativement pour ne pas contrairier
l'apparence de la sainteté, bien vite elle
passe à un mode superlatif de signification,
elle déguise l'abbé en saint François. (Barthes:
1970 p. 54) Barthes is not claiming that
the abbé Pierre cynically manipulated his
public image, but is making the point, rather,
that nothing can be exempted from meaning
(see Barthes: 1975 p. 90). Every single object
or gesture is susceptible to the imposition
of meaning, nothing is resistant to this
process. This is especially the case when,
like the abbé Pierre, one is subjected to
the attention of the media. Barthes takes
his argument one step further however. The
media's stress on the abbé Pierre's devotion
and good works - symbolized by his haircut!
- diverts attention from any form of investigation
of the causes of homelessness and poverty.
Media representations of the abbé Pierre,
claims Barthes, sanctify charity and mask
out all references to the socio-economic
causes of homelessless and urban poverty.
What emerges in `Iconographie de l'abbé Pierre'
is a strategy that is repeated throughout
Mythologies: Barthes begins by making explicit
the meanings of apparently neutral objects
and then moves on to consider the social
and historical conditions they obscure.
Mass Culture, Myth and the Mythologist
Le départ de cette réflexion était le plus
souvent un sentiment d'impatience devant
le `naturel' dont la presse, l'art, le sens
commun affublent sans cesse une réalité qui,
pour être celle dans laquelle nous vivons,
n'en est pas moins parfaitement historique:
en un mot, je souffrais de voir à tout moment
confondues dans le récit de notre actualité,
Nature et Histoire, et je voulais ressaisir
dans l'exposition décorative de ce-qui-va-de-soi,
l'abus idéologique qui, à mon sens, s'y trouve
caché. (Barthes: 1970 p. 9) Ce que je n'aime
pas dans l'Occident, c'est qu'il fabrique
des signes et les refuse en même temps. [...]
de quel droit parlerais-je au nom de la vérité?
Mais à battre en brèche inlassablement la
naturalité du signe; ça oui! (Barthes: 1981
p. 95)
Mythologies is, superficially at least, a
rather puzzling title for a book concerned
with the meanings of the signs that surround
us in our everyday lives. A myth, after all,
is a story about superhuman beings of an
earlier age, of ancient Eygpt, Greece or
Rome. But the word `myth' can also mean a
ficticious, unproven or illusory thing. This
is closer to the sense that Barthes explores
in Mythologies. Barthes is concerned to analyse
the `myths' circulating in contemporary society,
the false representations and erroneous beliefs
current in the France of the postwar period.
Mythologies is a work about the myths that
circulate in everyday life which construct
a world for us and our place in it: La France
tout entière baigne dans cette idéologie
anonyme: notre presse, notre cinéma, notre
théâtre, notre littérature de grand usage,
nos cérémoniaux, notre Justice, notre diplomatie,
nos conversations, le temps qu'il fait, le
crime que l'on juge, le mariage auquel on
s'émeut, la cuisine que l'on rêve, le vêtement
que l'on porte, tout, dans notre vie quotidienne,
est tributaire de la représentation que la
bourgeoisie se fait et nous fait des rapports
de l'homme et du monde. (Barthes: 1970 p.
227) What joins the journalistic articles
and the theoretical essay is the conviction
that what we accept as being `natural' is
in fact an illusory reality constructed in
order to mask the real structures of power
obtaining in society. Mythologies - both
the journalistic articles and the theoretical
essay - is a study of the ways in which mass
culture - a mass culture which Barthes sees
as controlled by la petite bourgeoisie constructs
this mythological reality and encourages
conformity to its own values. This position
informs the various texts that make up Mythologies.
We inhabit a world, then, of signs which
support existing power structures and which
purport to be natural. The role of the mythologist,
as Barthes sees it, is to expose these signs
as the artificial constructs that they are,
to reveal their workings and show that what
appears to be natural is, in fact, determined
by history. This is certainly how Barthes
saw the role of the criticism in general
in the autobiographical Roland Barthes par
Roland Barthes and its relevance to Mythologies
is clear:
... l'opération critique consiste à déchiffrer
l'embarras des raisons, des alibis, des apparences,
bref tout le naturel social, pour rendre
manifeste l'échange réglé sur quoi reposent
la marche sémantique et la vie collective.
(Barthes: 1975 p. 63)
Myth and Ideology
Le propre des Mythologies n'est pas politique
mais idéologique. Le propre des Mythologies,
c'est de prendre systématiquement en bloc
une sorte de monstre que j'ai appelé la `petite-bourgeoisie'
(quitte à en faire un mythe) et de taper
inlassablement sur ce bloc; la méthode est
peu scientifique et n'y prétendait pas; c'est
pourquoi l'ouverture méthodologique n'est
venue qu'ensuite, par la lecture de Saussure;
la théorie des Mythologies est l'objet d'une
postface (Barthes: 1971 p. 96) Il ne sortait
pas de cette idée sombre, que la vraie violence,
c'est celle du cela-va-de-soi (Barthes: 1975
p. 88)
... on peut attaquer le monde et l'alienation
idéologique de notre monde quotidien, à bien
des niveaux: Système de la mode contient
aussi une affirmation éthique sur le monde,
la même d'ailleurs que dans des Mythologies,
à savoir qu' il y a un mal, un mal social,
idéologique, attaché aux systèmes de signes
qui ne s'avouent pas franchement comme systèmes
de signes. Au lieu de reconnaître que la
culture est un système immotivé de significations,
la société bourgeoise donne toujours des
signes comme justifiés par la nature ou la
raison. (Barthes: 1981 p. 67)
It is possible to argue that `myth', as Barthes
uses it in Mythologies, functions as a synonym
of `ideology' (for a more detailed discussion
of this complex issue see Brown:
1994 pp. 24-38). As a theoretical construct
`ideology' is notoriously hard to define.
However, one of the most pervasive definitions
of the term holds that it refers to the body
of beliefs and representations that sustain
and legitimate current power relationships.
Ideology promotes the values and interests
of dominant groups within society. I like
the explanation Terry Eagleton comes up with
in his book Ideology: An Introduction: A
dominant power may legitimate itself by promoting
beliefs and values congenial to it; naturalizing
and universalizing such beliefs so as to
render them self-evident and apparently inevitable;
denigrating ideas which might challenge it;
excluding rival forms of thought, perhaps
by some unspoken but systematic logic; and
obscuring social reality in ways convenient
to itself. Such `mystification', as it is
commonly known, frequently takes the form
of masking or suppressing social conflicts,
from which arises the conception of ideology
as an imaginary resolution of real contradictions.
(Eagleton: 1991 pp. 5-6) This particular
definition of the workings of ideology is
particularly relevant to Mythologies. Common
to both Eagleton's definition of ideology
and Barthes's understanding of myth is the
notion of a socially constructed reality
which is passed of as `natural'. The opinions
and values of a historically and socially
specific class are held up as `universal
truths'. Attempts to challenge this naturalization
and universalization of a socially constructed
reality (what Barthes calls le cela-va-de-soi)
are dismissed for lacking `bon sens', and
therefore excluded from serious consideration.
The real power relations in society (between
classes, between coloniser and colonised,
between men and women etc.) are obscured,
reference to all tensions and difficulties
blocked out, glossed over, their political
threat defused. Let me try to clarify these
points with an example from Mythologies.
In `Le vin et le lait' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
74-77) Barthes explores the significance
of wine to the French. Wine is clearly an
important symbolic substance to the French
expressive of conviviality, of virility and,
more importantly, of national identity. Nothing
could be more expressive of an `essential
Frenchness' than a ballon de rouge. The uproar
caused at the beginning of Monsieur Coty's
presidential term of office by being photographed
at home next to a bottle of beer, rather
than the obligatory bottle of red, captures
this perfectly. Barthes unsettles the mythological
associations of wine by making explicit wine's
real status as just another commodity produced
for profit. He draws attention to wine-makers'
exploitation of the Third World, citing Algeria
as an example of a poor Muslim country forced
to use its land for the cultivation of a
product - `le produit d'une expropriation
(Barthes: 1970 p. 77) - which they are forbidden
to drink on religious grounds and which could
be better used for cultivating food crops.
Barthes makes explicit the connections between
wine and the socio-economics of its production.
And this is an integral part of his aim as
a mythologist: he must expose the artificiality
of those signs which disguise their historical
and social origins.
Mythologies: A Postwar Text Roland Barthes's
Mythologies is concerned with a number of
important postwar issues (see Les trente
glorieuses: France 1945-75 for a general
overview of the period). These issues are
both specifically French - peculiar to France
of a particular historical period - and applicable
to postwar developments in other European
countries. These issues include:
[France's Imperial Crises] [The Sexual Politics
of the Domestic] [Changing Patterns of Cultural
Consumption] [Technocratic Icons of Modernization]
[Institutional Inertia]
France's Imperial Crises
Le mythe ne nie pas les choses, sa fonction
est au contraire d'en parler; simplement,
il les purifie, les innocente, les fonde
en nature et en éternité, il leur donne une
clarté qui n'est pas celle de l'explication,
mais celle du constat ... (Barthes: 1970
p. 230) The period immediately following
the Second World War were the years of decolonisation
in which the former colonial powers were
divested of their former territories. France,
as the main imperial power after Great Britain,
was inevitably deeply embroiled in these
processes (mainly in Indochina and North
Africa). France, at the time Barthes was
writing Mythologies, was in the midst of
a bloody and bitter colonial war: la guerre
d'Algérie. Barthes's Mythologies is a book
which responds to decolonisation and is all
about Frenchness and French identity. There
are references, for example, to right-wing
politicians like Poujade and Le Pen who whipped
up racist feelings in such articles as `Quelques
paroles de M. Poujade' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
85-7) and `Poujade et les intellectuels'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 182-90). `Bichon chez
les nègres' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 64-67) is
another important text about racism. One
of the most approchable essays on France's
colonial struggles - with more than a few
contemporary resonances today - is `Grammaire
africaine' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 137-144). As
the title suggests `Grammaire africaine'
is an article about language, more specifically,
about the language used in certain right-wing
newspapers and magazines to describe, assess
and analyse the conflict taking place in
Algeria. What Barthes claimed to find every
time he read a newspaper or magazine article
on Algeria, was a carefully structured and
codified way of talking and writing about
Franco-Algerian relations with its own covert
presuppositions and interests. Myth - which
Barthes described as `une parole dépolitisée'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 230) - is at work here
and in `Grammaire africaine' Barthes seeks
to expose it by insisting on the social and
historical `situatedness' of the language
used. What `Grammaire africaine' is really
about is the way in which a certain imperialist
political agenda is smuggled into the reporting
of foreign affairs. Barthes exposes the ideologically-loaded
nature of the terminology used to describe
France's major imperial conflict, identifying
the key mendacious signifiers whose primary
function is to conceal the realities of the
Algerian war.
Those who seek independance from French rule,
for example, are variously described as `une
bande' or as `hors-la-loi' and their demands
are therefore considered illegitimate. Such
terms are never used for the colons, the
French settlers who are invariably described
as a `communauté'. The presence of this `communauté'
is justified by the unique `mission' France
is obliged to carry out in the region. The
so-called `destin' of Algeria is with French
colonizers rather than as an independant
nation. In contradiction to the reality of
the collapse of France's empire, this `destin'
is claimed to be fixed and immutable. The
word `guerre' is never used - Algeria was
the quintessential guerre sans nom, the undeclared
war - only terms like `paix' and `pacification'.
More often than not, however, terms like
`déchirement' which suggest a natural
- and therefore not man-made - disaster are
used to designate the situation in Algeria.
The whole tone of much of French journalism's
reporting of Algeria is marked by an attempt
to drown out or disguise the true violence
of the war. Language here is not an instrument
of communication but of intimidation which
seeks to pass off a specific version of events
(i. e. that of the French state) as the sole
valid interpretation and to marginalize those
versions which contradict it:
Le vocabulaire officiel des affaires africaines
est, on s'en doute, purement axiomatique.
C'est dire qu'il n'a aucune valeur de communication,
mais seulement d'intimidation. Il constitue
donc une écriture, c'est-à-dire un langage
chargé d'opérer une coïncidence entre les
normes et les faits, et de donner à un réel
cynique la caution d'une morale noble. D'une
manière générale, c'est un langage qui fonctionne
essentiellement comme un code, c'est-à-dire
que les mots y ont un rapport nul ou contraire
à leur contenu. C'est une écriture que l'on
pourrait appeler cosmétique parce qu'elle
vise à recouvrir les faits d'un bruit de
langage ... (Barthes: 1970 p. 137). Another
important article of relevance to Barthes's
critique of French journalism's (mis)representation
of politics in Algeria is `La Critique Ni-Ni'
(Barthes: 1970 p. 144-46). It neatly takes
apart those journalists who have perfected
the art of taking sides whilst appearing
to be neutral and merely expressing the voice
of common sense. Common sense, suggests Barthes,
deeply ideological. Rather than expressing
natural, self-evident truths, it expresses
the world-order and outlook of a historically
specific social class. In his later writings
Barthes replaces the term `bon sens' or `sens
commun' with the term doxa which he uses
to designate those ideas and values that
claim their origins in common sense: La Doxa
(mot qui va revenir souvent), c'est l'Opinion
publique, l'Esprit majoritaire, le Consensus
petit-bourgeois, la Voix du Naturel, la Violence
du Préjugé ... (Barthes: 1975 p. 51)
The Sexual Politics of the Domestic The sexual
politics of the domestic sphere (images of
femininity, the role of women etc.) is another
of the issues tackled by Barthes. The immediate
postwar years throughout the western world
were those of a retour au foyer, a reaffirmation
of traditional gender roles (see Women in
Postwar France: the Domestic Ideal for more
details of this). Although the situation
of French women during the war was different
to that of their English or American sisters
in that, in general, French women did not
enter the workforce occupying posts once
held by men, their experience after the war
was very much the same: an overt and covert
attempt to push women back into the confines
of the home and the roles of mother and housewife.
After the liberation, French legislation
targeting women was firmly based on women's
role as mamans de France. As such, it continued
the Pétainist family policy and efforts to
increase the birth rate. Quite apart from
the specific legislation favouring women's
retour au foyer (e. g. les allocations familiales)
there was the ideological pressure coming
from the church, the politicians and, above
all, from the media.
It is interesting to note that one of the
important development in the postwar years
was the growing popualrity of weekly and
monthly magazines, particularly those aimed
at a predominantly female readership like
Elle (founded in 1945), Marie-France, Marie-Claire
and Femmes d'aujourd'hui. It was publications
like these that interested and irritated
Barthes (see Barthes: 1981 pp. 96-97). He
even went so far as to describe Elle as a
`véritable trésor mythologique' (Barthes:
1970 p. 128). The essay `Conjugales'
(Barthes: 1957 pp. 47-50) is particularly
interesting here. Barthes writes of the fascination
of the popular press for marriages and the
ways in which this legitimates a particular
social organisation
L'union de Syviane Carpentier, Miss Europe
53 et de son ami d'enfance, l'électricien
Michel Warembourg permet de développer une
image différente, celle de la chaumière heureuse.
Grâce à son titre, Sylviane aurait pu mener
la carrière brillante d'une star, voyager,
faire du cinéma, gagner beaucoup d'argent:
sage et modeste, elle a renoncé à "la
gloire ephémère" et, fidèle à son passé,
elle a épousé un électricien de Palaisseau.
Les jeunes époux nous sont ici présentés
dans la phase postnuptiale de leur union,
en train d'établir les habitudes de leur
bonheur et de s'installer dans l'anoymat
d'un petit confort: on arrange le deux-pièces-cuisine,
on prend le petit déjeuner, on va au cinéma,
on fait le marché.[...]
L'amour-plus-fort-que-la-gloire relance ici
la morale du statu quo social: il n'est pas
sage de sortir de sa condition, il est glorieux
d'y rentrer. (Barthes: 1970 p. 48) The article
`Jouets' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 58-60), although
not explicitly about the sexual politics
of the domestic, is concerned with the ways
in which toys encourage children to adopt
pre-determined gender and class positions.
Children are encouraged to become owners
rather than creative users of toys which
appear to be `productive' but which, Barthes
claims, encourage passivity. `Romans et enfants'
(Barthes: 1907 pp. 56-8) is an interesting
essay on gender stereotyping, this time focussing
on women writers. Women writers are seen
as acceptable but they must pay a heavy price
for their creativity by neglecting their
`biological destiny'. `Celle qui voit clair'
(Barthes: 1957 pp. 125-8) is an article on
the agony columns in women's magazines. The
advice dispensed in these columns constructs
a female condition - women, unlike men are
defined by their close relation to the heart
- which it claims to be eternal. No references
are ever made to women's real social and
economic conditions as their realm is the
home and the heart. The notion - or myth
- of woman promulgated in le courrier du
coeur is that women have no other role than
that defined by men: ... la morale du Courrier
ne postule jamais pour la femme d'autre condition
que parasitaire: seul le mariage, en la nommant
juridiquement, la fait exister. On retrouve
ici la structure même du gynécée, défini
comme une liberté close sous le regard extérieur
de l'homme. (Barthes: 1970 p. 127)
The Changing Culture of the Working Class
For me, cultural studies really begins with
the debate about the nature of social and
cultural change in postwar Britain. An attempt
to address the manifest break-up of traditional
culture, especially traditional class cultures,
it set about registering the impact of the
new forms of affluence and consumer society
on the very hierarchical and pyramidal structure
of British society. Trying to come to terms
with the fluidity and the undermining impact
of the mass media and of an emerging mass
society on this old European class society,
it registered the long-delayed entry of the
United Kingdom into the modern world. (Hall:
1990 p. 12) The thirty years between libération
and the first crise pétrolière popularly
known as les trente glorieuses were years
of unbroken prosperity and consistent economic
growth. The changing cultural conditions
of a working-class made more prosperous -
and more petit-bourgeois according to Barthes
- due to the higher standards of living of
the postwar period. This, remember, is the
era of the so-called `affluent worker' with
more disposable income than ever before.
What did this `affluent worker' buy and what
were his/her cultural habits? One of the
developments Barthes is writing about in
Mythologies, is the transition from a genuine
popular culture deep-rooted in ordinary working-class
people's ways of life to mass culture which
Barthes sees as a petit-bourgeois phenomenon
imposed upon a newly affluent working class.
Indeed, one could go further and claim that
this is the claim of the book: the death
of an authentic popular culture at the hands
of petit-bourgeois mass culture.
Technocratic Icons The status of technocratic
icons within contemporary society (the Citroën
DS, the Eiffel Tower etc.) is another theme
in Barthes's Mythologies. In the postwar
world things become charged with a new value
and significance. As consumer durables become
more affordable and more and more people
are able to acquire such possessions as cars
and washing machines. The power and presence
of advertizing also becomes more noticible.
Important essays include `Saponides et les
détergents' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 38-40), `La
nouvelle Citroën' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 150-2)
and `Publicité et profondeur' (Barthes: 1970
p. 82). The principal aim of these essays
is to reveal the petite-bourgeoisie as self-
congratulatory, enamoured of its material
benefits and its so-called technological
advances.
In postwar France the car became the very
symbol of modernity. This is reflected in
a number of films of the period such as Lola
(1960), La Belle Américaine (1961) and, more
catastrophically, Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend
(1967). The automobile industry was central
to France's increasing industrialization
with Renault's vast modern factory at Billancourt
as its most visible reminder. This factory,
incidentally, provided the setting for Claire
Etcherelli's Élise ou la vraie vie (1967).
In `La nouvelle Citroën' (Barthes: 1970 p.
150-2) Barthes understands this perfectly
and analyses the ways in which the car has
become the very icon of France's modernization.
He compares the car to a mediaeval cathedral:
both are works produced by anonymous artists
which enchant the masses.
The are other articles on the importance
of advertizing, the `hidden persuaders' (Vance
Packard) which was increasing used in postwar
France to fuel the consumer boom. Jean-Luc
Godard in Une femme mariée (1964), Deux ou
trois choses que je sais d'elle (1966) and
Masculin-féminin (1966) explores the role
of mass-produced images in his films of the
1960s but Barthes is already there before
him. Advertizing creates ultimately alienating
images of a bourgeois savoir-vivre to which
everyone is encouraged to aspire. More than
this, however, advertizing is responsible
for promoting the `myth' of free choice.
In `Saponides et détergents' (Barthes: 1970
pp. 38-40) he discusses the different advertising
approaches to Omo and Persil. Their advertising
promotes two different products with two
different properties. In reality, these two
products are almost the same and are both
manufactured by the Anglo-Dutch multinational
Unilver.
Institutional Inertia The atrophy and complacency,
mendacity and inertia of French institiutions
(the educational system, the judiciary etc.)
was something that preoccupied the French
as much as the English in the postwar period
and especially Barthes. Miscarriages of justice,
an educational system that was dogmatic and
out-of- touch with its youth, a complacent
and arrogant political class.
In `Dominici ou le triomphe de la littérature'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 50-53) Barthes argues
that the language used to condemn Gaston
Dominici implies a whole psychology of petit-bourgeois
assumptions and linguistic terrorism. He
was a simple peasant accused of killing a
family of English holiday makers and faced
with a legal language he did not understand.
In `Le Procès Dupriez' (Barthes: 1970 pp.
102-105) Gérard Dupriez, a man who killed
his father and mother without motive is condemned
to death because the law works on a fixed
notion of what constitutes the psychology
of human motivation.
The Intellectual and Mass Culture Many have
claimed, and with good reason, that Mythologies
is one of the principal texts of contemporary
cultural studies. John Storey has described
it as `one of the founding texts of cultural
studies' (Storey: 1992 p. 77) and Antony
Easthope as one of the two books (the other
being Raymond Williams's Culture and Society)
that `initiate modern cultural studies' (Easthope:
1991 p. 140). Barthes is fundamental to contemporary
cultural studies because he was amongst the
first to take seriously `mass culture' and
to apply to it methods of analysis formerly
the preserve of `high culture'. What makes
Barthes even more interesting was that he
did this at a time of rapid social and economic
change when cultural practices were undergoing
major shifts.
Certainly, Barthes's Mythologies is a text
that breaks new ground insofar as it takes
as the object of its intellectual inquiry
the world of mass culture: cinema, sport,
advertizing, the popular press, women's magazines
and so on. Barthes was one of the earliest
commentators on mass culture, on the modern
consumer culture of the postwar era. Barthes
expands the definition of intellectual activity
in France. He examines a strikingly broad
range of subjects and cultural artefacts:
wrestling, the circus, shopping, toys, cars,
washing powders, food, women's magazines,
beauty competitions, photography, popular
fiction.
Roland Barthes's Mythologies is a book which
plays around in the consumer toyshop. It
is a text which plunges into the `image trove'
(see Rylance: 1994 pp. 63-64) of culture
- understood in the most inclusive way possible
- to find new objects of intellectual speculation.
Mythologies takes great relish in its exploration
of cultural artefacts and phenomena. The
book enacts a paradox in its imaginative
and playful readings of culture in a heavily
mythologized world which should have abolished
such imaginative play.
On one level, what Barthes seems to be doing
in Mythologies destabilizing the boundary
between `high culture' and `popular culture'.
Barthes accords popular culture a complexity,
a density and richness of texture thought
to be the sole preserve of high culture.
One key example of this is wrestling discussed
in the article `Le monde où l'on catche'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 13-24). Wrestling is often
thought of as the least intellectual pastime
in our culture and is dismissed as vulgar
fodder to the uneducated masses. What Barthes
does, in a striking and provocative gesture,
is claim that wrestling and its audience
are in fact every bit as sophisticated as
high drama or opera. Wrestling is a modern
variant of the classical theatre or of an
ancient religious rite in which the spectacle
of suffering and humiliation is played out.
Like these high cultural forms, wrestling
is a formal spectacle informed by fixed codes
and conventions and played out in rigorously
formalized gestures and movements. It is
every bit as codified, conventionalized and
choreographed as classical tragedy - the
dramatic genre to which Barthes compares
wrestling throughout the article. Another
important article which adopts a similar
approach is `Au Music-Hall' (Barthes: 1970
pp. 176-179) about, as the title suggests
music hall. In this article Barthes invokes
the nineteenth-century poet Charles Baudelaire
to describe the formalized beauties of the
spectacle.
Although Barthes undertakes a sympathetic
appraisal of two cultural practices that
one would certainly not describe as belonging
to the the world of `high culture', these
two articles are exceptions. Moreover, both
wrestling and music hall are two manifestations
of earlier forms of popular culture rather
than modern mass culture. Barthes can grant
them the same value as high cultural forms
because they belong to and spring from a
recognisable tradition. Barthes's analysis
of mass culture which forms the basis of
most of the book, on the other hand, is characterized
by a certain denunciatory rhetoric. Barthes
sees modern mass culture as controlled by
the ethos of the petite-bourgeosie. The working
class have lost their own culture populaire
and have bought into a culture - la culture
petit-bourgeoise - which is not their own.
The essays collected in Mythologies express
both pessimism and nostalgia: pessimism at
the state of culture in France which, contrary
to what most people think, is threatened
by mass culture which seeks to homogenize
and efface difference; nostalgia for a pre-lapsarian
state (literally, before the fall) when the
working class had their own vibrant culture,
an authentic culture populaire which proudly
asserted its difference from petit-bourgeois
norms. Barthes sees culture as somehow fallen
under the influence of the petty-bourgeoisie.
Take these statements made by Barthes in
later interviews and writings:
La populaire? Ici, disparition de toute activité
magique ou poétique: plus de carnaval, on
ne joue plus avec les mots: fin des métaphores,
règne des stéréotypes imposés par la culture
petite-bourgeoise. (Barthes: 1973 p. 62)
... le prolétariat (les producteurs) n'a
aucune culture propre: dans les pays dits
dévelopés, son langage est celui de la petite-bourgeoisie,
parce que c'est le langage qui lui est offert
par les communications de masse (grande presse,
radio, télévision): la culture de masse est
petite-bourgeoise (Barthes: 1984 p. 110)
L'un des aspects de la crise de la culture,
en France, c'est précisément que les Français,
dans leur masse, me semble-t-il, ne s'intéressent
pas à leur langue. Le goût de la langue française
a été entièrement hypothèqué par la scolarité
bourgeoise; s'intéresser à la langue française,
à sa musicalité (...) est devenu par la force
des choses une attitude esthétisante, mandarinale.
Et pourtant, il y a eu des moments où un
certain contact était maintenu entre le `peuple'
et la langue, à travers la poésie populaire,
la chanson populaire ou la pression même
de la masse pour transformer la langue en
dehors des écoles-musées. On dirait que le
contact a disparu; on ne le perçoit pas aujourd'hui
dans la culture `populaire', qui n'est guère
qu'une culture fabriquée (par la radio, la
télévision etc.). (Barthes: 1981 p. 177)
Contrary to the accepted opinion of France
as the powerhouse of European culture, Barthes
sees France as a deeply philistine country
with little understanding or appreciation
of the complexities of intellectual and cultural
life. Mythologies is a very entrenched and
self-defensive collection of texts, and may
be read as an apology or defence of intellectuals
against the incursion of the barbarity of
mass culture. Andrew Leak's description of
the attitude adopted by Barthes in Mythologies
as a `posture of isolation and singularity'
(Leak: 1994 p. 9) is a good one. Barthes
expresses a self-consciously intellectual
contempt for mass-culture. According to Barthes
the intellectual has to retain distance from
the mass, must become what Claude Duneton
calls a `rieur' and maintain a sarcastic
or ironic distance from mass culture. This
conviction is apparent at the very beginning
of Mythologies: ... je réclame de vivre pleinement
la contradiction de mon temps, qui peut faire
d'un sarcasme la condition de la vérité.
(Barthes: 1970 p. 10) Although he may have
a valid point in claiming that much mass
culture is a degraded, inferior replacement
to popular culture, he doesn't acknowledge
that the consumers of mass culture may well
be able to resist its messages. In short,
Barthes produces a patronizing portrait of
the consumer as a passive recipient, a void,
an empty vessel waiting to be filled, to
be told what to think and how to act. Indeed,
one of the criticisms that can - and have
- been made of the work of `early' Barthes
(i. e. of the 1950s and early 1960s) is that
he is too text-oriented and does not concern
himself with how texts are received and consumed.
Barthes's account of a working class uncritically
consuming an alien - and alienating - culture
seems to belong to a familar tradition of
intellectual contempt for both that culture
and its audience. To conclude this section
then, I would claim that although Barthes
goes some way in in abolishing what the French
sociologist Pierre Bourdieu would later call
`la frontière sacrée' (Bourdieu: 1979 p.
7) between `high culture' and `popular culture',
granting the latter a complexity once considered
the sole preserve of the former, Mythologies
nonetheless is informed by a certain hierarchy
of cultural value. Mass culture is clearly
seen as inferior to both the `high culture'
it mimics and the `popular culture' it replaces.
This disdain for, and condemnation of, mass
culture runs throughout the book.
Mass Culture and The Intellectual L'opinion
courante n'aime pas le langage des intellectuels.
Aussi a-t-il été souvent fiché sous l'accusation
de jargon intellectualiste. Il se sentait
alors l'objet d'une sorte de racisme: on
excluait son langage, c'est-à-dire son corps:
«tu ne parles pas comme moi, donc je t'exclus.»
(Barthes: 1975 p. 107) In Mythologies mass
culture is seen to have an altogether harmful
effect on French political and cultural life,
homogenizing difference and encouraging uniformity
to petit-bourgeois social norms. But this
mass culture is also seen to be hostile to
any questionning or intellectual inquiry.
This explains in part the often defensive
and entrenched position Barthes adopts in
his discussion of representations of the
intellectual within mass culture. In a piece
written for Le Monde in 1974 on the status
of the intellectual in France, Barthes made
the claim that: L'intellectuel est traité
comme un sourcier pourrait l'être par une
peuplade de marchands, d'hommes d'affaires
et de légistes: il est celui qui dérange
des intérêts idéologiques. L'anti-intellectualisme
est un mythe historique, lié sans doute à
l'ascension petite-bourgeoise. Poujade a
donné naguère à ce mythe sa forme toute crue
(`le poisson pourrit par la tête'). (Barthes:
1981 p. 186) Poujade's claim that a dead
fish starts to rot from the head down is
indicative of petit-bourgeois distrust of
intellectuals, a distrust that Barthes appears
to come across again and again in his readings
of mass culture. In a number of the texts
like `L'écrivain en vacances' (Barthes: 1970
pp. 30-33) discuss this. `L'écrivain en vacances'
about the portrayal by a right-wing newspaper
(Le Figaro) of well-known writers on holiday.`La
Critique Ni-Ni' (Barthes: 1970 pp. 144-146)
is an interesting essay to read in the light
of Barthes's preoccupation with the marginalization
of the intellectual in French society by
the popular press. `Critique muette et aveugle'
(Barthes: 1970 pp. 36-7) argues that one
common form of anti-intellectualism is to
feign incomprehension. The challenge of difficult
ideas can be disarmed and their intellectual
threat defused. By accusing a writer of being
obscure and lacking `le bon sens', one can
escape serious argument and, more importantly,
avoid having to make explicit one's own ideological
position. They seek to avoid serious intellectual
debate by appealing to a universal common
sense. Barthes, howevers, holds firm to the
notion of the intellectual's responsibility
to to challenge such dominant - and complacent
- modes of thought, as he makes clear in
a later text:
Admettons que la tâche historique de l'intellectuel
(ou de l'écrivain), ce soit aujourd'hui d'entretenir
et d'accentuer la décomposition de la conscience
bourgeoise. Il faut alors garder à l'image
toute sa précision; cela veut dire que l'on
feint volontairement de rester à l'intérieur
de cette conscience et qu'on va la délabrer,
l'affaisser, l'effondrer, sur place, comme
on ferait d'un morceau de sucre en l'imbibant
d'eau. (Barthes: 1975 p. 67)
The Politics of Mythologies
The decidedly idiosyncratic Marxisms of Sartre
and Brecht are as `useful' to him as is Marx
himself. Barthes's attitude towards constituted
theoretical thought in Mythologies - and
elsewhere - could be described as cavalier,
in the best sense of the word: he picks up
concepts, uses them, and drops them when
they have outstayed their welcome. (Leak:
1994 p. 38) The question of Barthes's politics
has long been a problem to Barthes's critics.
He is notoriously difficult to pin down -
he prides himself on being irrepérable -
on the matter of political allegiances past
and present. He began and, arguably, ended
his intellectual career as a `man of the
left' but he was never a member of the Parti
communiste français (PCF) unlike so many
other writers and intellectuals in the postwar
period. But Barthes's Mythologies as a collection
of polemical texts taking issue with the
taken-for-granted truths of our culture,
engage with all important political questions.
As a mythologist who finds everywhere, even
in the most unlikely places, the hidden myths
which help perpetuate the status quo, Barthes
in Mythologies cannot but take sides.
In Barthes's view, myth reinforces the ideology
of capitalist society. The essence of myth
is that it disguises what are in fact bourgeois
representations as facts of a universal nature.
Myth like ideology is ever-present it is
impossible to escape or elude it on a daily
level.
Mythologies examines the ways the petty bourgeoisie
in twentieth-century France naturalizes and
universalizes its own values via specific
mecanisms - the press, advertizing, the legal
system and the like. Barthes examines the
way in which apparently apolitical activities
- wrestling, the Tour de France, strip-tease,
drinking wine and eating steak and chips
- are expressive of certain ideological positions.
French culture appears to be natural but
is, in fact, deeply historical and political.
The petite bourgeoisie projects a certain
state of affairs - a state of affairs in
their own interest - as being natural with
the aim of naturalizing it, legitimating
it by making it appear immutable, unchangeable.
Brian Rigby claims that `There is a distinct
Marxist strain in Mythologies, and the essays
can be seen as an attempt to show how the
whole of mass culture is a capitalist mystification
of social and cultural reality' (Rigby: 1991
p. 177). The essay `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
comes close to being a theory of ideology
as a system of representations by which the
ruling class reproduces its dominance at
the level of daily experience.
Barthes and Semiology
On peut donc concevoir une science qui étudie
la vie des signes au sein de la vie sociale;
elle formerait une partie de la psychologie
sociale, et par conséquent de la psychologie
générale; nous la nommerons sémiologie (du
Grec sémeîon, `signe'). Elle nous apprendrait
en quoi consistent les signes, quelles lois
les régissent. Puisqu'elle n'existe pas encore,
on ne peut dire ce qu'elle sera; mais elle
a droit à l'existence, sa place est déterminée
d'avance. La linguistique n'est qu'une partie
de cette science générale, les lois que découvrira
la sémiologie seront applicables à la linguistique,
et celle-ci se trouvera ainsi rattachée à
un domaine bien défini dans l'ensemble des
faits humains. (Saussure: 1949 p. 33) ...
à l'obsession politique et morale succède
un petit délire scientifique (Barthes: 1975
p. 148)
Passion constante (et illusoire) d'apposer
sur tout fait, même le plus menu, non pas
la question de l'enfant: pourquoi? mais la
question de l'ancien Grec, la question du
sens, comme si toutes choses frissonnaient
de sens: qu'est-ce que ça veut dire? Il faut
à tout prix transformer le fait en idée,
en description, en interprétation, bref lui
trouver un autre nom que le sien. (Barthes:
1975 p. 154)
Barthes is particularly interested, not so
much in what things mean, but in how things
mean. One of the reasons Barthes is a famous
and well-known intellectual figure is his
skill in finding, manipulating and exploiting
theories and concepts of how things come
to mean well before anyone else. As an intellectual,
Barthes is associated with a number of intellectual
trends (e. g. structuralism and post-structuralism)
in postwar intellectual life. However, at
the time of Mythologies, Barthes main interest
was in semiology, the `science of signs'.
Semiology derives from the work of the Swiss
linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure's
linguistic theory as elaborated in Cours
de linguistique générale, a collection of
lectures written between 1906 and 1911 and
posthumously published in book form in 1915,
was philosophically quite radical because
it held that language was conceptual and
not, as a whole tradition of western thought
had maintained, referential. In particular,
Saussure rejected the view that language
was essentially a nomenclature for a set
of antecedent notions and objects. Language
does not `label' or `baptise' already discriminated
pre-linguistic categories but actually articulates
them. The view of language as nomeclature
cannot fully explain the difficulties of
foreign language acquisition nor the ways
in which the meanings of words change in
time. Saussure reversed the perspective that
viewed language as the medium by which reality
is represented, and stressed instead the
constitutive role language played in constructing
reality for us. Experience and knowledge,
all cognition is mediated by language. Language
organizes brute objects, the flux of sound,
noise and perception, getting to work on
the world and conferring it with meaning
and value. Language is always at work in
our apprehension of the world. There is no
question of passing through language to a
realm of language-independant, fully discriminated
things.
Central to Saussure's work is the concept
of the sign and the relationship between
what he terms signifier and signified. Indeed,
a sign is, in Saussure's terms, the union
of a signifier and a signified which form
an indissociable unity like two sides of
the same piece of paper. Saussure defined
the linguistic sign as composed of a signifier
or signifiant and a signified or signifié.
The term sign then, is used to designate
the associative total of signifier and signified.
The signifier is the sound or written image
and the signified is the concept it articulates:
... le signe linguistique unit non une chose
et un nom, mais un concept et une image acoustique
(Saussure: 1949 p. 98) For example, /cat/
is the signifier of the signified «cat».
Saussure claimed that the connection between
signifier and signified was entirely arbitrary
- `Le lien unissant le signifiant au signifié
est arbitraire' (Saussure: 1949 p. 100),
that there was no intrinsic link between
sound-image and concept. However, the lingiustic
sign was, as well as arbirtrary, was a relational
or differential entity. The signifier produces
meaning by virtue of its position, (similarity
or difference) within a network of other
signifiers. According to Saussure words do
not express or represent but signify in relation
to a matrix of other linguistic signs. To
return to my earlier example, the signifier
`cat' signifies the concept of a domestic
feline quadruped only by virtue of its position
(similiarity or difference) within the relational
system of other signifiers. In defining the
linguistic sign in this way Saussure broke
with a philosophical tradition which conceived
of language as having a straightforward relationship
with the extralinguistic world. The key text
which exemplifies Barthes's early interest
in and exploitation of Saussure and Semiology
is `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'. `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
is Barthes's retrospectively written method
or blueprint for reading myths. In `Le Mythe
aujourd'hui' Barthes manipulates and reworks
Saussure's theory of the sign and of signification.
He is not, however, interested in the linguistic
sign per se so much as in the application
of linguistics to the non-verbal signs that
exist around us in our everyday life. What
excites him is the possibility of applying
a methodology derived from Saussurean linguistics
to the domain of culture defined in its broadest
and most inclusive sense.
Barthes's relationship with his intellectual
influences - Marx, Brecht, Freud, Lacan etc.
- is notoriously idiosyncratic. He rarely
adopts ideas wholesale, but tends to alter
them to his own purposes, extending their
reach and implications. This is certainly
true of his appropriation of Saussure's theories.
But how does Barthes make use of Saussure's
theory of the sign and of signification?
Well, let's take Barthes's own example from
`Le Mythe aujourd'hui':
... je suis chez le coiffeur, on me tend
un numéro de Paris-Match. Sur la couverture,
un jeune nègre vêtu d'un uniforme français
fait le salut militaire, les yeux levés,
fixés sans doute sur un pli du drapeau tricolore.
Cela, c'est le sens de l'image. Mais naïfs
ou pas, je vois bien ce qu'elle me signifie:
que la France est un grand Empire, que tous
ses fils, sans distinction de couleur, servent
fidèlement sous son drapeau, et qu'il n'est
de meilleure réponse aux détracteurs d'un
colonialisme prétendu, que le zèle de ce
noir à servir ses prétendus oppresseurs.
(Barthes: 1970 p. 201) Barthes then, is at
the barber's and is handed a copy of Paris-Match.
On the front cover he sees a photograph of
a black soldier saluting the French flag
and he instantly recognises the myth the
photograph is seeking to peddle. However,
Barthes provides a methodological justification
for this essentially intuitive `reading'
of the photograph, a methodology derived
from Saussure's theory of the sign. Barthes
sees the figuration of the photograph, that
is to say, the arrangement of coloured dots
on a white background as constituting the
signifier and the concept of the black soldier
saluting the tricolour as constituting the
signified. Together, they form the sign.
However, Barthes takes this reading one step
further and argues that there is a second
level of signification grafted on to the
first sign. This first sign becomes a second-level
signifier for a new sign whose signified
is French imperiality, i. e. the idea that
France's empire treats all its subjects equally.
The central modification to Saussure's theory
of the sign in `Le Mythe aujourd'hui' is
the articulation of the idea of primary or
first-order signification and secondary or
second-order signification. This is central
to Barthes's intellectual preoccupation in
Mythologies because it is at the level of
secondary or second-order signification that
myth is to be found. In `Le Mythe aujourd'hui'
Barthes attempts to define myth by reference
to the theory of second-degree sign systems.
What myth does is appropriate a first-order
sign and use it as a platform for its own
signifier which, in turn, will have its own
signified, thus forming a new sign. Recurrent
images used to describe this process pertain
to theft, colonization, violent appropriation
and to parasitism:
... le mythe est ... un langage qui ne veut
pas mourir: il arrache aux sens dont il s'alimente
une survie insidieuse, dégradée, il provoque
en eux un sursis artificiel dans lequel il
s'installe à l'aise, il en fait des cadavres
parlants. (Barthes: 1970 p. 219) This is
a central and particularly powerful image
of myth as an alien creature inhabiting human
form and profiting from its appearance of
innocence and naturalness to do its evil
business. Like a parasite needs its host
or the B-movie style alien invader needs
its zombie-like Earthling, myth needs is
first-order sign for survival. It needs the
first-order sign as its alibi: I wasn't being
ideological, myth might innocently claim,
I was somewhere else doing something innocent.
His model of second-degree or parasitical
sign systems allows for the process of demystification
by a process of foregrounding the construction
of the sign, of the would-be natural texts
of social culture. Myth is to be found at
the level of the second-level sign, or at
the level of connotation. Barthes makes a
distinction between denotation and connotation.
Denotation can be described, for the sake
of convenience, as the literal meaning. Connotation,
on the other hand, is the second-order parasitical
meaning. The first-order sign is the realm
of denotation; the second-order sign the
realm of connotation and, therefore, of myth.
To put it crudely then, the important `lesson'
of `Le Mythe aujourd'hui' is that objects
and events always signify more than themselves,
they are always caught up in systems of representation
which add meaning to them.
There are a number of very useful web sites
which you might want to click on: Daniel
Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners is a good
place to start and there is also a Media
and Communications Studies Site with links
to other web sites of relevant interest.
Further Reading
Works by Barthes Cited
Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil,
1970)
Roland Barthes, `Réponses' in Tel Quel, 47
(1971) 89-107
Roland Barthes, Le Plaisir du texte (Paris:
Seuil, 1973)
Roland Barthes, Roland Barthes par Roland
Barthes (Paris: Seuil, 1975)
Roland Barthes, Le Grain de la voix: Entretiens
1962-1980 (Paris: Seuil, 1981)
Roland Barthes, Le Bruissement de la langue
(Paris: Seuil, 1984)
Works on Barthes
E. T. Bannet, Structuralism and the Logic
of Dissent: Barthes, Derrida, Foucault, Lacan
(London: Macmillan, 1989)
A. Brown, Roland Barthes: The Figures of
Writing (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)
J-L. Calvet, Roland Barthes: un regard politique
sur le signe (Paris: Payot, 1973)
J. Culler, Roland Barthes (London: Fontana,
1983)
A. de la Croix, Barthes: pour une éthique
des signes (Brussels: Prisme, 1987)
J. B. Fages, Comprendre Roland Barthes (Paris:
Privat, 1979)
A. Lavers, Roland Barthes: Structuralism
and After (London: MacMillan, 1982)
A. Leak, Roland Barthes: Mythologies (London:
Grant & Cutler, 1994)
M. Moriarty, Roland Barthes (Oxford: Polity,
1991)
S. Nordhal Lund, L'Aventure du signifiant:
une lecture de Barthes (Paris: PUF, 1981)
P. Roger, Roland Barthes, roman (Paris: Grasset,
1986)
R. Rylance, Roland Barthes (Brighton: Harvester,
1994)
J. Sturrock (ed.), Structuralism and Since:
From Lévi-Strauss to Derrida (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1979)
P. Thody, Roland Barthes: A Conservative
Estimate (London: MacMillan, 1984) 2nd ed.
S. Ungar, Roland Barthes: The Professor of
Desire (Lincoln, Nebraska: 1983)
G. Wasserman, Roland Barthes (Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1981)
M. Wiseman, The Ecstacies of Roland Barthes
(London: Routledge, 1989)
Works of Related Interest
Pierre Bourdieu, La Distinction: critique
sociale du jugement (Paris: Minuit, 1979)
T. Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction (London:
Verso, 1991)
A. Easthope, Literary into Cultural Studies
(London: Routledge, 1991)
J. Forbes & M. Kelly (eds), French Cultural
Studies: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995)
Stuart Hall, `The Emergence of Cultural Studies
and the Crisis of the Humanities' in October,
53 (1990) p. 11-23
T. Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics (London:
Methuen, 1977)
C. Jenks, Culture (London: Routledge, 1993)
Brian Rigby, Popular Culture in France: A
Study of Cultural Discourse (London: Routledge,
1991)
K. Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies: Decolonization
and the Reordering of French Culture (London
& Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995)
F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale
(Paris: Payot, 1949)
John Storey, An Introductory Guide to Cultural
Theory and Popular Culture (London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1993)
Concept & Text: Tony McNeill The University
of Sunderland, GB Last Update 15-Apr-96
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Evans Experientialism 
