Empire of Signs

Roland Barthes

Paperback

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With this book, Barthes offers a broad-ranging meditation on the culture, society, art, literature, language, and iconography--in short, both the sign-oriented realities and fantasies--of Japan itself.

Book Details

Publisher: Hill & Wang
Publish Date: Sep 1st, 1983
Pages: 128
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 7.90in - 5.30in - 0.30in - 0.30lb
EAN: 9780374522070
Categories: • Semiotics & Theory• Asia - Japan• Asian - Japanese

About the Author

Howard, Richard: -

Richard Howard teaches in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, USA. He has also translated works by Barthes, Foucault and Todorov.

Barthes, Roland: -

Roland Barthes changed the way a generation read. A cultural commentator before his time, his careful if playful analysis of texts revolutionised the way we comprehend cultural products. Both critic and literary essayist, his writings continue to provoke. His best known work includes Mythologies, Camera Lucida, Image-Music-Text, The Empire of Signs, A Lover's Discourse, Writing Degree Zero, S/Z and The Fashion System.

Translated by Andy Stafford, Senior Lecturer in French Studies, University of Leeds and edited by Andy Stafford and Michael Carter, Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney.

Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a major French writer, literary theorist and critic of French culture and society.

Praise for this book

"If Japan did not exist, Barthes would have had to invent it--not that Japan does exist in Empire of Signs, for Barthes is careful to point out that he is not analyzing the real Japan, there is no terrible innerness as in the West, no soul, no God, no fate, no ego, no grandeur, no metaphysics, no 'promotional fever' and finally no meaning . . . For Barthes Japan is a test, a challenge to think the unthinkable, a place where meaning is finally banished. Paradise, indeed, for the great student of signs." --Edmund White, The New York Times Book Review