# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/roland-barthes
# Generated: 2026-08-31T15:48:41.586Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/roland-barthes"
name: "Roland Barthes"
slug: "roland-barthes"
description: "He argued the author was dead — that once a text exists, the writer's intent doesn't matter, only what the reader makes of it. The claim rattled literary criticism and made Roland Barthes the most quoted theorist in undergrad seminars for half a century."
tagline: "French philosopher and essayist"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Roland_Barthes_1969.jpg"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "France"
  isoCode: "FR"
category:
  name: "Academics"
  slug: "academics"
profileType:
  name: "Academic"
  slug: "academic"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q39631"
birthDate: "1915-11-12"
deathDate: "1980-03-26"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           62.18
  momentum:             0
  historical:           25.359504
  currentAttention:     10.85714285714286
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
  - name: "Academics"
    slug: "academics"
  - name: "Academic"
    slug: "academic"
  - name: "Philosophy"
    slug: "philosophy"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "France"
    slug: "france"
  - name: "Europe"
    slug: "europe"
  - name: "20th Century"
    slug: "20th-century"
platforms:
  - platform:  "IMDB"
    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0058638/"
    handle:    "nm0058638"
sources:
  - url: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q179109"
    title: "Wikidata"
    type:  "WIKIDATA"
  - url: "https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Roland%20Barthes"
    title: "Pantheon 2.0"
    type:  "DATABASE"
  - url: "https://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA"
    title: "رولان بارت"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://azb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA"
    title: "رولان بارت"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://az.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolan_Bart"
    title: "Rolan Bart"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://be_x_old.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%BD_%D0%91%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82"
    title: "Ралян Барт"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://be.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%91%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82"
    title: "Ралан Барт"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%91%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%82"
    title: "Ролан Барт"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://bn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8B%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%81_%E0%A6%AC%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%B0%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%A4"
    title: "রোলঁ বার্ত"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ckb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%DA%95%DB%86%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA"
    title: "ڕۆلان بارت"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://eu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AA"
    title: "رولان بارت"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://frp.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Roland Barthes"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ca.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://cs.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://es.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://et.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"
    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
  - url: "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/773bcb67-8f61-4ebe-9b54-134e8cd40c58"
    title: "MusicBrainz"
    type:  "DATABASE"

# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in 1915, Barthes spent his career reading the world as a system of signs: not just novels and poems, but wrestling matches, soap commercials, the iconography of steak-frites. His 1957 Mythologies dissected the myths embedded in French popular culture, treating them with the same seriousness as high literature. A decade later, "The Death of the Author" became his most famous provocation, dismantling the idea that a writer's biography or intention should govern how we interpret a text. He taught at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and later the Collège de France, moving through structuralism and into post-structuralism, his ideas seeding critical theory across disciplines. He died in Paris in 1980, a month after being struck by a laundry van.