Barthes

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'd be interested to know why it was France where Theory took off. Presumably I could find out if I lifted a finger?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I'd be interested to know why it was France where Theory took off. Presumably I could find out if I lifted a finger?

It's the lineage of Continental philosophy, the traditions of the Sorbonne, the influence of Marxism on French post-war thought and the peculiar poetic properties of French prose.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm reading Bertrand Russell's "My First Philosophy Book for 5 Year Olds" so I'm slowly getting to grip with the usborne history of thinking.

So far the only frenchman I've read about is Rousseau.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
On the plus side, there's Balzac, Catherine Deneuve, Mallarmé, the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, Emmanuelle 2 and Cannes.

Swings and roundabouts, Corpsey.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I'm reading Bertrand Russell's "My First Philosophy Book for 5 Year Olds" so I'm slowly getting to grip with the usborne history of thinking.

So far the only frenchman I've read about is Rousseau.

You should be more ambitious and read this book:

41FpYZ1zffL._SX322_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 

jenks

thread death
Gilbert Adair did a kind of English version of Mythologies in mid eighties which I re-read recently. It was striking how much of the Bartesian POV had been assimilated into the mainstream between then and now.
 

version

Well-known member
It was striking how much of the Bartesian POV had been assimilated into the mainstream between then and now.
I guess this is why I enjoyed Mythologies, but wasn't bowled over by it. It reminded me of the kind of thing we were taught to do in English and Film Studies long before I'd ever even heard of Barthes.
 

version

Well-known member
Reading something on Barthes and Burroughs atm. Interesting they independently came to the language-parasite thing.

Reality is emptied and paralyzed by myth, but as in the most sophisticated methods of torture it is kept sufficiently alive to provide a "natural alibi" for the criminal insinuations of the mythical concept. Myth commits its "larceny of language," its "robbery by colonization," invisibly and insidiously by a subtle kind of germ warfare more threatening than any overt aggression.

Like a determined biologist, Barthes tags and pursues these parasitic myths, revealing to his readers the terrifying metamorphosis of self-sufficient meaning into "empty parasitical form". As it invades and transforms meaning the myth attacks and invades its audience, replacing the individual with a "motionless prototype which lives in his place, stifles him in the manner of a huge, internal parasite".

Cut-up: Negative Poetics in William Burroughs and Roland Barthes
 
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