Barthes: A Beginner's Guide

ribiere introduction		Barthes A Beginner's Guide by Mireille Ribière
Semiology: term coined by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913).
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was probably the most important French thinker to emerge from the post-war period. He was part of every major intellectual movement in the humanities that came out of Metropolitan France between 1945 and 1980 and his work has become a central point of reference in a diverse range of cultural debates. Given his keen awareness of history, his interest in the way we are manipulated by cultural forms, as well as his overriding concern with meaning and the way we make sense of the world, this is hardly surprising. Today Barthes appears, first and foremost, as someone who experimented with ideas, clearing the ground on which others would build. Not only did his writing succeed in questioning established beliefs in his preferred fields of enquiry, literature and semiology, they also redirected thought in areas other than those to which they originally referred such as film studies, feminist theory, queer theory, minority discourse, post-colonial theory and new forms of historical analysis. Barthes. A Beginner's Guide seeks to unravel the various strands of Barthes's thinking with particular emphasis on those areas which are most relevant today. It provides a step by step account of his intellectual evolution and presents clear definitions of key concepts in context.		About the Book Table of Contents Reviews Mireille Ribière Further Links Home
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