Barthes Studies
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barthesstudies.bsky.social
Barthes Studies
@barthesstudies.bsky.social
3.5K followers 1.2K following 49 posts
An open-access, independent, peer-reviewed journal for research in English on the work of Roland Barthes. Based at Cardiff University.

https://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/barthes

Pronouns of the person posting here: he/him/his.

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barthesstudies.bsky.social
Barthes Studies @barthesstudies.bsky.social · 22d
Volume 12 of Barthes Studies will be published on 12 November 2026 and will be a special issue on Le Plaisir du texte/The Pleasure of the Text, guest-edited by Bryan Counter.

In 2027 there’ll be another guest-edited special issue (‘Global Barthes’) but we’re open to submissions for 2028 and beyond.
Face of a Casio digital watch showing 12:12:12 on Friday 12-13.
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes — dieting as threat, as ‘a thousand failures’:
A diet mobilizes an acute sense of wrongdoing, something which threatens, which is there every minute of the day. It is only when you sleep that you are sure of not doing something wrong. From the moment you accept the rules of the diet, whether it is "low calorie" or "sugar free", since the rules are very strict, there are... a thousand failures.
January 19, 2026 at 7:06 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Barthes, dozing:
Around six in the evening, I doze on my bed. The window is wide open, the gray day has lifted now. I experience a certain floating euphoria: everything is liquid, aerated, potable (I drink the air, the moment, the garden). And since I happen to be reading Suzuki, it seems to me that I'm quite close to the state Zen calls sabi; or again (since I'm also reading Blanchot), to the "fluid heaviness" he speaks of apropos of Proust.
January 18, 2026 at 12:49 PM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes on the desire to ‘take a rest from language’:
Sometimes he feels like letting all this language rest—this language which is in his head, in his work, in other people, as if language itself were an exhausted limb of the human body; it seems to him that if he could take a rest from language, he could rest altogether, dismissing all crises, echoes, exaltations, injuries, reason- ings, etc.
January 13, 2026 at 7:09 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
The collected writings of Michel Foucault are now available in abridged form in fortune cookies:
Fortune cookie in green wrapper. Below it is the little white slip of paper from within. It reads, ‘Knowledge is power.’ Close-up of the slip from the fortune cookie shown in the previous image. It reads, ‘Knowldge is power’.
January 11, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Barthes Studies
ianduhig.bsky.social
Still from Téchiné’s 1979 film 'Les Soeurs Bronté' with Roland Barthes on the left as William Thackeray. Leeds Town Hall in the background. Their naked wrestling scene was removed from the final cut.
January 11, 2026 at 8:14 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Published next week — Jean Berthier’s new novel about the visit by Barthes, Kristeva, Sollers and others to Mao’s China in 1974:
rentreelitteraire.interforum.fr/livre/voyage...
Voyage tranquille au pays des horreurs
rentreelitteraire.interforum.fr
January 10, 2026 at 2:24 PM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes on real stupidity:
Real stupidity is never amazed at anything.
January 10, 2026 at 6:25 AM
Reposted by Barthes Studies
minxmarple.bsky.social
come and write love with me: 11 February, Mimosa House, London.
deborahzafer.bsky.social Deborah @deborahzafer.bsky.social · 9d
I'm super excited about our London and writing workshop with @minxmarple.bsky.social 11 Feb.

We'll flirt with texts, write about love and produce a mini collection to celebrate @saloneurope.bsky.social turning 2. Join us! Ticket includes salon entry.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/let-me-tel...
January 9, 2026 at 10:50 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes tells us about the Marquis de Sade’s big pillow:
18. Suddenly transferred from Vincennes to the Bastille, Sade made a great fuss because he had not been allowed to bring his big pillow, without which he was unable to sleep, since he slept with his head unusually high: "The barbarians!"
January 9, 2026 at 6:51 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
The most British moment in all of Barthes:
→ The Weather: false referent that enables people to communicate, to come into contact with one another, when ordinarily the subjects in question: (I) don't know each other; (2) don't feel that they belong to the same class, the same culture; (3) can't bear silence; (4) want to talk to each other but don't want to offend, to risk upsetting anyone, conflict; (5) or, at the other extreme, who love each other so much that they use the very tactfulness of the trivial expression as a means to express their love;
January 6, 2026 at 7:25 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes — ‘glaciale’:
Handwritten word in blue ink: glaciale.
January 4, 2026 at 6:16 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes — it’s all about the tree:
Which object has been most painted throughout human history? Probably the tree. The forward march of painting coincides with the successive distortions artists have wrought on the tree.
January 3, 2026 at 11:08 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Breakfast with Barthes:
1. Methodical display of a will-to-live: X is traveling abroad in a Nordic country, I see him sitting before a copious breakfast, eating calmly, with intensity, with controlled appetite: in view of everyone, he's busy satisfying a need, staging a pleasure. When consumed in such a manner, I'm struck by the impression that breakfast is actually a discourse X is sustaining: force, vigor, continuity, tension, a certain theatricality. Investment: breakfast is a garment.
January 2, 2026 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Barthes Studies
omunozcremers.bsky.social
France Culture, treasure trove. I've been listening to this during the holidays. I never realised that Baudrillard had such a kind and humorous voice. He also speaks very highly of Barthes who actually was on his dissertation committee with Lefebvre and Bourdieu. www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...
Jean Baudrillard : “Le désert reste un objet parfait comme un événement pur” : épisode 5/8 du podcast Jean Baudrillard ou le réel assassiné
AUDIO • Jean Baudrillard ou le réel assassiné, épisode 5/8 : Jean Baudrillard : “Le désert reste un objet parfait comme un événement pur” . Une série inédite proposée par France Culture. Écoutez Les N...
www.radiofrance.fr
December 30, 2025 at 1:39 PM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes, artist of the blank surface:
I am an artist not through crafting an object but more fundamentally because, in writing, my body thrills to tracing something out, to rhythmically incising a blank surface (blankness offering infinite possibility.
December 30, 2025 at 10:05 AM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Roland Barthes on the difficulties of keeping a journal — ‘the text doesn't hold up, like some sort of delicate foodstuff which "turns," spoils, becomes unappetizing from one day to the next’:
Then comes the second phase, very soon after the first (for instance, if I reread today what I wrote yesterday), and it makes a bad impression: the text doesn't hold up, like some sort of delicate foodstuff which "turns," spoils, becomes unappetizing from one day to the next; I note with discouragement the artifice of "sincerity," the artistic mediocrity of the "spontaneous"; worse still: I am disgusted and irritated to find a "pose" I certainly hadn't intended
December 28, 2025 at 6:48 PM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Volume 12 of Barthes Studies will be published on 12 November 2026 and will be a special issue on Le Plaisir du texte/The Pleasure of the Text, guest-edited by Bryan Counter.

In 2027 there’ll be another guest-edited special issue (‘Global Barthes’) but we’re open to submissions for 2028 and beyond.
Face of a Casio digital watch showing 12:12:12 on Friday 12-13.
December 27, 2025 at 6:21 PM
barthesstudies.bsky.social
Volume 11 of Barthes Studies is now available online. As usual, all articles are completely free to read:
sites.cardiff.ac.uk/barthes/volu...
Articles by volume
Visit the post for more.
sites.cardiff.ac.uk
October 30, 2025 at 7:44 PM