Roland Barthes (1915-80) was one of the leading post-structuralist authors of his day as well as making many important contributions to semiotics. These three volumes provide a complete overview of his achievement. They provide an unparalleled critical assessment of his work in semiotics, structuralism and post-structuralism. The development and contradictions in Barthes' thought are addressed and elucidated. His role in 'the cultural turn' is pinpointed. What emerges most powerfully, is a picture of a culturally engaged critic of contemporary life, who was prepared to make radical innovations in theory and method in order to illuminate his quest for truth. These volumes provide a high water mark in Barthes' studies and are indispensable for any serious scholar interested in the sociology of culture and the cultural turn.

PART ONE: BARTHES AND OTHER THINKERS
On Representation and Essence - Nicholas Huckle
Barthes and Heidegger
Barthes and Sartre - Michel Rybalka
The Paradoxical Effects of Macluhanisme - Gary Genosko
Cazeneuve, Baudrillard and Barthes
Reading/Writing Between the Lines - Gail Weiss
Benjamin, Fourier, Barthes - Michael Hollington
Barthes meets Benjamin? - John Thobo-Carlsen
A Relating of their Views on the Conjunction Between Language and Literature
Barthes via Proust - Steven Ungar
Circular Memories
Traitement de faveur (Barthes lecteur de Sade) - Philippe Roger
Myth and Politics in the Works of Sorel and Barthes - Michael Tager
Demystification - Michael Kelly
A Dialogue between Barthes and Lefebvre
Signification and Simulation - Mary McGee Wood
Barthes¿s Response to Turing
PART TWO: METHOD/RHETORIC/WRITING
The Place of Rhetoric in Roland Barthes - Patrick O¿Donovan
Roland Barthes¿s Narratology - Frank Whitehead
Rhetoric, Theory, Surface - Andy Stafford
Roland Barthes and the Limits of Structuralism - Paul de Man
Barthes, Orpheus ... - Michael Holland
Barthes¿s Body - Leslie Hill
PART THREE: EARLY WRITINGS - MICHELET, WRITING DEGREE ZERO
Barthes Hot and Cold - Rick Rylance
Early Work
Barthes and Michelet - Andy Stafford
Biography and History
PART FOUR: SEMIOLOGY/MYTHOLOGIES/MODERNITY
To Read the World - Peter Fitting
Barthes Mythologies 30 Years Later
Barthes - Michael Moriarty
Ideology, Culture, Subjectivity
Laundering the Text - Sheri Hoem
Barthes¿s Criti-Myth-Oetics
From Event to Memory Site - Steven Ungar
Thoughts on Rereading Mythologies
Modern Mass to Postmodern Popular in Barthess Mythologies - Marianne de Koven
Roland Barthes - William S Haney II
Modernity Within History
PART FIVE: JAPAN
Barthes¿s Imaginary Voyages - Lynne A Higgins
The Plural Void - Trinh T Minh-ha
Barthes and Asia
The Soul and the Sense - Darko Suvin
Meditations on Roland Barthes on Japan
Exoticism Then and Now - Dalia Kandiyoti
The Travels of Pierre Loti and Roland Barthes in Japan
Japan as Western Text - Rolf J Goebel
roland Barthes, Richard Gordon Smith, and Lafcadio Hearn
Barthes and Orientalism - Diana Knight
PART SIX: S/Z
S/Z - Donald Rice and Peter Schofer
Rhetoric and Open Reading
S/Z - Deborah G Lambert
Barthes¿ Castration Camp and the Discourse of Polarity
Roland Barthes S/Z from a Musical Point of View - Patrick McCreless
Sign, Seme and the Psychological Character - Andrew J Scheiber
Some Thoughts on Roland Barthes S/Z and the Realistic Novel
Castrati, Balzac, and Barthes S/Z - Yvonne Noble
A Map of Terms - Raymond J Wilson III
The Cultural Code and Ethnic Psychology in Roland Barthes S/Z
PART SEVEN: LATER WORK: PLEASURE OF THE TEXT/A LOVERS DISCOURSE
Difference - Robert Miklitsch
Roland Barthes¿s Pleasure of the Text, Text of Pleasure
A Hedonist Apostasy - Jose G Merquior
The Later Barthes
The Non-Homogeneous I - Colleen Donnelly
Fragmentation, Desire, and Pleasure in Roland Barthes¿s A Lovers Discourse
Discourses of Desire - Laurie J Churchill
On Ovids Amores and Barthes¿s Fragments dun Discours Amoureux
Loving Writing - Armine K Mortimer
Fragments d¿un Discours Amoureux
We Always Fail - Paul Smith
Barthes¿ Last Writings
The Late(r) Barthes - Alec McHoul and David Wills
Constituting Fragmenting Subjects
PART EIGHT: THEMES (I) THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
The Death of the Author (as Producer) - John Stopford
The Death of the Author - Peter Lamarque
An Analytical Autopsy
Feminist Literary Criticism and the Author - Cheryl Walker
The Revenge of the Author - Colin MacCabe
Roland Barthes¿s Resurrection of the Author and Redemption of Biography - J C Carlier
PART NINE: THEMES (II) ART CINEMA/THEATRE
Roland Barthes and the Nouvelle Critique - David Funt
Artist - Work - Audience - Lucian Krukowski
Musings on Barthes and Tolstoy
The Insistent Fringe - Vivian Sobchack
Moving Images and Historical Consciousness
At the Readers Discretion - James S Williams
On Barthes and Cinema
Constructing a Radical Popular Theatre - Andy Stafford
Roland Barthes, Brecht and Theatre populaire
Performing Degree Zero - Timothy Scheie
Barthes, Body, Theatre
PART TEN: THEMES (III) PHOTOGRAPHY/CAMERA LUCIDA/LA CHAMBRE CLAIRE
Roland Barthes on the Aesthetics of Photography - Dale Jacquette
Roland Barthes and the Spectre of Photography - Ralph Sarkonak
Barthes Explores Photography ¿As a Wound¿ - Corinna A Tsakiridou
Barthes Real Mother - Eilene Hoft-March
The Legacy of La Chambre Claire
The Subject of Enuncication in Roland Barthes¿s La Chambre Claire - Johnnie Gratton
PART ELEVEN: THEMES (IV) GENDER/SEXUALITY/IDENTITY
Roland Barthes - Lawrence D Kritzman
The Discourse of Desire and the Question of Gender
Barthes and Feminity - Claire Oboussier
A Synaesthetic Writing
The Secretive Body - Pierre Saint-Amand
Roland Barthes¿s Gay Erotics
From ¿incident¿ to ¿> Homosexuality and Autobiography in Barthes¿s Late Writing
Roland Barthes - Daniel Dervin
The Text as Self; The Self as Text