Barthes, Roland. Elements of semiology
Translated from the French by Ivan Čolović
144 pages. First edition, 2015
Price: 600 dinars
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was one of the most distinguished and influential French intellectuals of the twentieth century. He made key contributions to the development of contemporary French critical theory, interpreting literature, modern myths, and popular culture from the point of view of the general science of signs (semiology), of which he was the founder in France. Barthes’s principal works have been translated into Serbian and Croatian: Literature, mythology, semiology (tr. I. Čolović, Nolit: Belgrade 1971); The pleasure of the text (tr. J. Aćin, Gradina: Niš 1975); Sade, Fourier, Loyola (tr. I. Čolović, “Vuk Karadžić”: Beograd 1979); The empire of signs (tr. K. Jančin, “August Cesarec”: Zagreb 1989); A lover’s discourse: Fragments (tr. B. Brlečić, Pelago: Zagreb 2007); Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (tr. M. Radović, Svetovi: Novi Sad 1992); Criticism and truth (tr. L. Čale Feldman, Algoritam: Zagreb 2009); Mythologies (tr. M. Čale, Pelago: Zagreb 2013). Biblioteka XX Vek released Louis-Jean Calvet’s book on Barthes, Roland Barthes: Un regard politique sur le signe (tr. Z. Stojanović 1976). Elements of semiology, which first appeared in the context of Barthes’s collected essays Literature, mythology, semiology (tr. I. Čolović, Nolit: Belgrade 1971), is being published by Biblioteka XX Vek in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Roland Barthes. Included as an appenix to the book is a translation of the chapter “The economics of fashion systems” from Barthes’s book The fashion system.