Mythologies / Roland Barthes ; selected and translated from the French by Annette Lavers.
Material type: TextLanguage: English Original language: French Publication details: New York : Hill and Wang, 1972.Description: 158 p. ; 21 cmISBN:- 0374521506 (pbk.)
- 080901369X (pbk)
- 0809071932
- 9780374521509 (pbk.)
- 9780809013692 (pbk)
- 9780809071937
- Mythologies. English
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | NonFiction | 844.914 B285 | Available | Water damage on bottom of last half of pages | 33111006770354 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"[ Mythologies ] illustrates the beautiful generosity of Barthes's progressive interest in the meaning (his word is signification) of practically everything around him, not only the books and paintings of high art, but also the slogans, trivia, toys, food, and popular rituals (cruises, striptease, eating, wrestling matches) of contemporary life . . . For Barthes, words and objects have in common the organized capacity to say something; at the same time, since they are signs, words and objects have the badfaith always to appear natural to their consumer, as if what they say is eternal, true, necessary, instead of arbitrary, made, contingent. Mythologies finds Barthes revealing the fashioned systems of ideas that make it possible, for example, for 'Einstein's brain' to stand for, be the myth of, 'a genius so lacking in magic that one speaks about his thought as a functional labor analogous to the mechanical making of sausages.' Each of the little essays in this book wrenches a definition out of a common but constructed object, making the object speak its hidden, but ever-so-present, reservoir of manufactured sense."--Edward W. Said
Includes bibliographical references.
The world of wrestling -- The Romans in films -- The writer on holiday -- The "blue blood" cruise -- Blind and dumb criticism -- Soap-powders and detergents -- The poor and the proletariat -- Operation margarine -- Dominici, or the triumph of literature -- The iconography of the Abbé Pierre -- Novels and children -- Toys -- The face of Garbo -- Wine and milk -- Steak and chips -- The Nautilus and the drunken boat -- The brain of Einstein -- The jet-man -- The blue guide -- Ornamental cookery -- Neither-nor criticism -- Striptease -- The new Citroën -- Photography and electoral appeal -- The Lost Continent -- Plastic -- The great family of man -- The Lady of the Camellias.