Barthes by the Margins

What happens to the ‘death of the author’ when we do not read it as a manifest for a new critique, but as a commentary on contemporary art? What happens to our perception of Camera Lucida when we read it not only as a textbook for photography doubled with a tale of mourning but as a visual manifesto for minorities?

Engaging with Barthes’s politics of in/visibility in a broad sense, this workshop will interrogate the centrality of the margins in Roland Barthes’ works and explore their underlying visual universe. Acclaimed for his decipherings of everyday mythologies, Barthes not only developed a wide set of tools and concepts to deconstruct the ideologies governing the visible: his critique of cultural stereotypes, his new approach to literature and the arts always go hand in hand with a reflection on the margins and a commitment to minorities.

Magali Nachtergael will guide our discussion of pre-circulated texts. By confronting some of Barthes’ central concepts with the visual universe that innervates them, Nachtergael will help us ask how what is left in the margins can sometimes crucially shift perspectives on the reception of these concepts.Programme:

16:00-18:00 Workshop

19:30 Evening Keynote by Magali Nachtergael
Barthes, Queer Before Queer? A Journey Into Barthes’s Visual Culture                             

Followed by a roundtable discussion with Julie Gaillard, Francesco Giusti, and Dirk Naguschewski