Touching Photographs: Roland Barthes’s ”Mistaken” Identification / Olin, Margaret

Olin, Margaret, «Touching Photographs: Roland Barthes’s ”Mistaken” Identification». Representations, 80,  1, (2002), pp. 99-118

Abstract

This article examines Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, focusing on his concept of the punctum and his misidentifications within photographic interpretation. Olin explores Barthes’s emotional connection to photographs, particularly his mistaken recollection of details, such as a nonexistent gold necklace in a James Van Der Zee portrait. The article highlights how memory and personal associations shape photographic meaning beyond indexicality. By analyzing Barthes’s displacement of images, Olin critiques the idea that photography guarantees objective truth, arguing instead that photographic meaning emerges through subjective identification, nostalgia, and the performative act of viewing.

Other data

ISSN: 0734-6018
DOI: 10.1525/rep.2002.80.1.99
URL: https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/article/80/1/99/81786/Touching-Photographs-Roland-Barthes-s-Mistaken
Language: en
key: FWBAKDPP