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Death of the AuthorStudent Edition

• By Roland Barthes
• Natalie Connelly and Jessica Trueba
• Edited by Dr. Kay Picart
• Associate Professor of English
• Courtesy Associate Professor of Law
• and Brett Ader

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Roland Barthes

• 1915- 1980
• French social and literary critic, whos writing
  on semiotics made structuralism one of the
  leading intellectual movements of the 20th
  century.
• Spent a long period of his life in sanatoriums
  because of tuberculosis. During this time is when
  he began to show interest in writing.
• He spent the majority of his life writing and
  teaching at prestigious universities around the
  world.
• He died in March 23, 1980 in a street accident .

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Marx and Hegel

• Marxs believes that ______ makes man
• Hegel believes that ______ makes history

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What is Barthes view of writing and authorship?

• __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
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• __________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________
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• __________________________________________________
  __________________

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What is structuralism?

• Structuralism ___________________________
  __________________________________________________
  ____________________________.
• Four characteristics of structuralist analysis
• -______________________________________
• -______________________________________
  
• -______________________________________
• -______________________________________

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The Awareness of Writing

• Mallarmes entire poetics consists in
  suppressing the author in the interest of
  writing
• In France, Mallarme is the first one who foresees
  the necessity of language itself. For Mallarme,
  it is language which speaks, not the author.
  Moreover, to write is to reach the point that
  language "performs," not "me.

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What is surrealism?
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What are Utopian Dreams?
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The Death of the Author

• Barthes uses the relationship between the
  ________ or the _________ and the text as an
  example to emphasize the death of the author.
• Barthes indicates that it is the ________ or the
  _________ who understand written words. These
  writings are drawn from different cultures and
  then become relations of dialogues and parody in
  literature .

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Discussion

• Do you agree or disagree with Barthes theories of
  history and man?

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Discussion

• Barthes said that the author cannot claim any
  absolute authority over his or her text because,
  in some ways, he or she did not write it. Do you
  agree or disagree?