Global Roland Barthes

Value

£7,700

Partners and collaborators

Prof Claudia Amigo Pino (Sao Paulo University, Brazil); Dr Fabien Arribert-Narce (University of Edinburgh)

Description

‘Global Roland Barthes' is a project supported by the British Academy and the Sino-British Fellowship Trust; and its aim is to build a global network of Early Career Researchers (ECR) working in literary theory, world literature and critical theory using the work of French critic Roland Barthes. The launch of the project was at Meiji University, Tokyo, in May 2024, where established specialists of the work of Roland Barthes met to present papers and to start identifying potential ECRs. The PI, Andy Stafford, also went to Fez in Morocco in November 2024 to work with Barthes specialists from across North Africa.

The first meeting of a group of ECR scholars from China, Brazil, USA, Morocco, Benin, Germany and the UK took place in Leeds in June 2025. The speakers were all invited as part of the British Academy grant award and the Sino-British Friendship Trust. As well as the ECRs from Leeds, York and SOAS, the participants in the symposium were all members of a newly formed network of junior researchers working around the globe on Roland Barthes, which fits with the AHC Faculty's strategic aim of establishing networks of ECRs organised by the University of Leeds. Two keynote speakers – Claudia Amigo Pino (São Paulo) and Fabien Arribert-Narce (Edinburgh) – opened and closed the proceedings. The symposium then allowed the ECRs to take the project forward, especially with a publication in the on-line journal Barthes Studies, planned for the 2027 edition.