Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie”
Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his Collège de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography. Marcel P...
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| Format: | Article |
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University of Nebraska Press
2009
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41216/ |
| _version_ | 1848796223612387328 |
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| author | Yacavone, Kathrin |
| author_facet | Yacavone, Kathrin |
| author_sort | Yacavone, Kathrin |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his Collège de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography. Marcel Proust is cast as the paradigmatic author in Barthes’s post-1968 critical writing, in which he serves as both an exemplar for the complex process of transforming life into literature and as a figure of profound identification for Barthes the would-be novelist. À la recherche du temps perdu is a clear case of a literary work informed by its author’s life that at the same time denies or problematises straightforward autobiography. For Barthes the experience and study of Proust’s masterpiece entails a play with autobiographical ‘clefs’ that can be considered an activity on the part of Barthes’s pleasure-seeking reader, one that has significant theoretical implications regarding the apprehension of any literary text. As analysis of “Proust et la photographie” and La Chambre claire reveals, the photograph for Barthes signifies the oscillation between the imaginary and the real, fiction and (auto)biography, that characterises both literary authorship and readership. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:44:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-41216 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:44:34Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | University of Nebraska Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-412162020-05-04T16:28:39Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41216/ Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” Yacavone, Kathrin Focused on Roland Barthes’s notes for the last seminar of his Collège de France lecture series, entitled “Proust et la photographie,” this article considers the later Barthes’s conceptions of reading and writing, arguing that they are closely intertwined with his reflections on photography. Marcel Proust is cast as the paradigmatic author in Barthes’s post-1968 critical writing, in which he serves as both an exemplar for the complex process of transforming life into literature and as a figure of profound identification for Barthes the would-be novelist. À la recherche du temps perdu is a clear case of a literary work informed by its author’s life that at the same time denies or problematises straightforward autobiography. For Barthes the experience and study of Proust’s masterpiece entails a play with autobiographical ‘clefs’ that can be considered an activity on the part of Barthes’s pleasure-seeking reader, one that has significant theoretical implications regarding the apprehension of any literary text. As analysis of “Proust et la photographie” and La Chambre claire reveals, the photograph for Barthes signifies the oscillation between the imaginary and the real, fiction and (auto)biography, that characterises both literary authorship and readership. University of Nebraska Press 2009-11-01 Article PeerReviewed Yacavone, Kathrin (2009) Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie”. French Forum, 34 (1). pp. 97-112. ISSN 0098-9355 Barthes Proust Photography Authorship http://muse.jhu.edu/article/315409/pdf doi:10.1353/frf.0.0064 doi:10.1353/frf.0.0064 |
| spellingShingle | Barthes Proust Photography Authorship Yacavone, Kathrin Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title | Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title_full | Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title_fullStr | Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title_short | Reading through photography: Roland Barthes’s last seminar “Proust et la photographie” |
| title_sort | reading through photography: roland barthes’s last seminar “proust et la photographie” |
| topic | Barthes Proust Photography Authorship |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41216/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41216/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/41216/ |