Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / "The poem presents a thematic and chronological introduction to the Chanson de Roland to which it will frequently be compared in the present study." Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Treatise (D.M.A.) Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Charles E. Brewer, Florida State University, College of Music. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed 5-14-2007). Document formatted into pages; contains 109 pages. Includes vita. Includes musical examples. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis contributes to a discussion of the specificity of Roland Barthes' post-structural theorizing by examining some of the themes and techniques of aestheticization running through his writing--reverie, pleasure, "perversion," and the hyper-textualization of the human subject and culture. Following this thread/hypothesis of aestheticization, the thesis focuses upon changing notions of the human subject and textuality presented in Barthes' writings from "The Death of the Author" (1968) until Camera Lucida (1980). The opening chapter discusses aestheticizing and decadent discourses in nineteenth century French and English literary traditions, identifies relevant intertexts, and proposes a set of key themes in aestheticizing discourses--the rejection of the natural, the quest for separation and mediation expressed in a valorization of artifice, aesthetic pleasure, private experience, and anti-utilitarian, anti-bourgeois values. The second chapter lays out the myth of an alienated literary modernity underwriting Barthes' later theorizing. Subsequent chapters follow shifts in notions of subjectivity, textuality, and aestheticizing strategies in most of the major texts produced by Barthes during this period: S/Z, The Empire of Signs, Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes, Fragments of a Lover's Discourse, Camera Lucida, and essays collected in The Rustle of Language and The Responsibility of Forms. The last two chapters follow Barthes' half-ludic struggle with his earlier construction of the subject as public intertext. He dramatically moves away from conventional forms of theorizing into the cultivation of subjectivity, affectivity, and personal culture to escape being captured in the public texts of the cultural Imaginary. Finally, the thesis will consider some of the contributions and consequences of his theories, including whether the cultural skepticism and pose of fatal belatedness underwriting his positions can be maintained.

In this thesis, I examine Roland Barthes's essays on music in order to explore the relationship between the musical and linguistic elements of the contemporary popular song. I argue that what song lyrics appear to "say" bears no relation to what they "mean." Rather, meaning resides in the act of engaging with the popular song. First, I analyze the four main phases of Barthes's thinking in order to provide a basis on which to explore his work. Second, I provide an in-depth study of his essays on music. I then critique the literary approach to song analysis through an examination of selected writings on Bob Dylan. Finally, I explore U2's song "Numb" and Beck's "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)" in order to illustrate the notion of engagement.

Humboldt-Universität, Diss,--Berlin, 2007.

Texte remanié de: Proefschrift--Letteren--Vrije Universiteit te Amsterdam, 1994. / Résumé en anglais et en allemand. Bibliogr. p. 433-466. Index.

This thesis contributes to a discussion of the specificity of Roland Barthes' post-structural theorizing by examining some of the themes and techniques of aestheticization running through his writing--reverie, pleasure, "perversion," and the hyper-textualization of the human subject and culture. Following this thread/hypothesis of aestheticization, the thesis focuses upon changing notions of the human subject and textuality presented in Barthes' writings from "The Death of the Author" (1968) until Camera Lucida (1980). The opening chapter discusses aestheticizing and decadent discourses in nineteenth century French and English literary traditions, identifies relevant intertexts, and proposes a set of key themes in aestheticizing discourses--the rejection of the natural, the quest for separation and mediation expressed in a valorization of artifice, aesthetic pleasure, private experience, and anti-utilitarian, anti-bourgeois values. The second chapter lays out the myth of an alienated literary modernity underwriting Barthes' later theorizing. Subsequent chapters follow shifts in notions of subjectivity, textuality, and aestheticizing strategies in most of the major texts produced by Barthes during this period: S/Z, The Empire of Signs, Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes, Fragments of a Lover's Discourse, Camera Lucida, and essays collected in The Rustle of Language and The Responsibility of Forms. The last two chapters follow Barthes' half-ludic struggle with his earlier construction of the subject as public intertext. He dramatically moves away from conventional forms of theorizing into the cultivation of subjectivity, affectivity, and personal culture to escape being captured in the public texts of the cultural Imaginary. Finally, the thesis will consider some of the contributions and consequences of his theories, including whether the cultural skepticism and pose of fatal belatedness underwriting his positions can be maintained. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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This thesis compares and contrasts the multiple discourses on photography found in the critical and theoretical writings of Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes. It seeks to demonstrate that despite the different historical, philosophical, cultural, and linguistic contexts of their work, Benjamin and Barthes engage with a similar constellation of questions and problems that photography uniquely poses. It argues that each author moves towards a practice of redemptive criticism as foregrounded in relation to one privileged photograph in each case (the childhood portrait of Franz Kafka, for Benjamin, and the photograph of the mother-as-child for Barthes). Dedicated to a close reading of relevant texts by each author, the study is divided into three parts, with each corresponding to a different set of themes to which the photographic is related. The first part focuses on the historical and evolutionary development of Benjamin’s and Barthes’s view of photography in the context of wider shifts in their critical practice and methodology, and then in comparison with each other. The second part investigates the complex historical and philosophical influence of Proustian aesthetics on their writing on photography. Suggesting that Proust’s philosophy of memory provides an apt point of departure for Benjamin’s and Barthes’s discussion of photography in relation to memory, it traces how each thinker then moves beyond the Proustian conceptual framework towards similar ends. The third and final part is devoted to Benjamin’s and Barthes’s conceptualisation of photography in relation to singularity. Specifically, it centres on how certain photographs convey singularity as a function of the relation between the photograph, its referent, and its beholder. In total, this study argues that Benjamin and Barthes rightly deserve their often acknowledged places as pioneering figures in the theory of photography. However, while both theorists provide numerous important insights into the historical, cultural, and phenomenological nature and function of the medium, their writing on photography is also marked (perhaps necessarily, in some cases) by ambiguities, contradictions, and problematic evaluative judgements (with respect to both the medium and to particular photographs) which must be acknowledged in order to gain a proper appreciation of their work in this area.

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