Writing the Image After Roland Barthes

294 Pages·1997·5.79 MB·English

by  Jean-Michel Rabate

Writing the Image
After Roland Barthes
New Cultural Studies
SeriesEditors
Joan Dejean
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
PeterStallybrass
Gary A.Tomlinson
A complete listof books in the series
isavailablefrom the publisher.
Writing the Image
After Roland Barthes
Edited by Jean-Michel Rabate
PENN
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Copyright ©1997University ofPennsylvania Press
Allrights reserved
Printed inthe United States ofAmerica on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published by
University ofPennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6097
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Writing the image after Roland Barthes / edited byJean-Michel Rabate.
p. ern. - (Newcultural studies)
"The chapters collected here were originally presented aspapers during the
conference 'AfterRoland Barthes,' which took place at the University of
Pennsylvania inApril 1994"-Introd.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN0-8122-3369-7. - ISBN0-8122-1596-6 (pbk.)
1.Photography-France-Philosophy. 2.Barthes, Roland-Criticism and
interpretation. 3.Photographic criticism- France. I.Rabate, Jean-Michel,
1949- II. Series.
TR183.W73 1997
770'.l-dc21
97-9579
CIP
Contents
List of Abbreviations vii
Introduction 1
Jean-Michel Rabate
I. Reflections on Photography
1.Barthes's Discretion 19
VictorBurgin
2. "What has occurred only once": Barthes's Winter
Gardeny'boltanski's Archives of the Dead 32
Marjorie Perloff
3.The Filter of Culture and the Culture of Death:
How Barthes and Boltanski Play the Mythologies
of the Photograph 59
Nancy M. Shawcross
4. Barthes and Bazin: The Ontology of the Image 71
ColinMacCabe
5. Roland Barthes's Obtuse, Sharp Meaning and the
Responsibilities of Commentary 77
DerekAttridge
6. Photographeme: Mythologizing in CameraLucida 90
Jolanta Wawrzycka
7.Narrative Liaisons: Roland Barthes and the Dangers
of the Photo-Essay 99
CarolShloss
8. Circulating Images: Notes on the Photographic Exchange 109
Liliane Weissberg
vi Contents
9. Roland Barthes, or The Woman Without a Shadow 132
Diana Knight
10.The Descent of Orpheus: On Reading Barthes and Proust 144
BerylSchlossman
II.Seeing Language, Seeing Culture
11.The Imaginary Museum ofJules Michelet 163
Steven Ungar
12.Barthes with Marx 174
Philippe Roger
13.Beyond Metalanguage: Bathmology 187
PierreForce
14.Who Is the Real One? 196
Antoine Compagnon
15.The Art of Being Sparse, Porous, Scattered 201
Marjorie Welish
16.Genetic Criticism in the Wake of Barthes 217
Daniel Ferrer
17.Roland Barthes Abroad 228
Dalia Kandiyoti
18.Un-Scriptible 243
Arkady Plotnitsky
Conclusion: AFalse Account of Talking with Frank O'Hara
and Roland Barthes in Philadelphia 259
BobPerelman
Bibliography 269
List of Contributors 277
Index 281
List of Abbreviations
Throughout the present volume, references to works byRoland Barthes
are provided parenthetically in the text of each selection. A bibliogra
phy isprovided at the end of the volume.
With the exception of the recently published three volumes of the
CEuvrescompletes,abbreviations refer to available English translations of
books by Barthes. Some contributors, however, have chosen to provide
alternative translations. In such cases, and for those works for which no
English translation exists, original sources are indicated in the notes of
the given selection.
BR A BarthesReader
CE CriticalEssays
CL CameraLucida
CT Criticismand Truth
EL ElementsofSemiology
ES TheEmpireofSigns
ET TheEiffrlTowerand OtherMythologies
FS TheFashionSystem
GV TheGrainoftheVoice
IMT Image-Music-Text
IN Incidents
ID A Lover'sDiscourse
MI Michelet
MY Mythologies
NCE New CriticalEssays
OC1, OC2, OC3 CEuvrescompletes1,2, 3
OR OnRacine
PT ThePleasureoftheText
RB RolandBarthesbyRolandBarthes
RF TheResponsibilityofForms
viii Abbreviations
RL TheRustle ofLanguage
SC TheSemioticChallenge
SFL Sadefbourierfl.oyola
SZ S/Z
lVDZ WritingDegreeZero
Introduction
Jean-MichelRabate
Roland Barthes died in 1980: seventeen years should provide enough
time to assess his lingering and pervasive influence on critical theory
and move beyond the mere anecdote to witness how his figure has taken
on the more momentous contours provided byfate. Barthes's "fate" can
appear to have been determined in part by the fact that his last pub
lished work was a treatise devoted to photography. The photographic
image achieves exactly the effect I have described when mentioning
"fate": it freezes a development, eternalizes 'what is an essentially mo
bile object under a figure. Although one ought to be wary of the retro
spective illusion that automatically metamorphoses a last book into a
testament, this last word forced on him by death is not attributable
to mere contingency. Barthes always wished to understand History-a
term he systematically capitalized ---a.:saseries of snapshots, of immobile
yet unstable exposures. From his earlier investigations into the works
of the French historian Michelet, who endowed universal history with
the mythological elements needed to transform his nineteenth-century
bourgeois ideology into an epic, to his later encounter with an Eastern
otherness so fascinated by the click of a camera, Barthes's trajectory ex
hibits a constant and deep concern for the image.
Initially, Barthes's position in the face of images seems to be a very
suspicious or critical one: he stated his reluctance or hostility to "ana
logical" forms of thought and art many times, always preferring the
ethical cleanliness ofdiscursive - therefore, discrete, digital, articulated,
and codified-formations. Language can demystify because it never ad
heres to reality; its arbitrary nature introduces a differential space in
which one can really think. The almost Sartrian terms I have just used
still account for Barthes's convergence with Lacan's early condemnation
of the "Imaginary" realm as that of the ego's subjective illusions. For
both Sartre and Lacan, the stickiness of the subject's identification pro-