With this book, Barthes offers a broad-ranging meditation on the culture, society, art, literature, language, and iconography--in short, both the sign-oriented realities and fantasies--of Japan itself. Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and the classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980. With this book, Barthes offers a broad-ranging meditation on the culture, society, art, literature, language, and iconography--in short, both the sign-oriented realities and fantasies--of Japan itself. "If Japan did not exist, Barthes would have had to invent it--not that Japan "does" exist in "Empire of Signs," for Barthes is careful to point out that he is not analyzing the real Japan, there is no terrible "innerness" as in the West, no soul, no God, no fate, no ego, no grandeur, no metaphysics, no 'promotional fever, ' and finally no meaning . . . For Barthes Japan is a test, a challenge to think the unthinkable, a place where meaning is finally banished. Paradise, indeed, for the great student of signs."--Edmund White, "The New York Times Book Review"

这本书从美学角度分析了现代性的五个基本概念：现代主义、先锋派、颓废、媚俗艺术和后现代主义；对其来源、演变过程直至目前的状况作了详尽的论述，并列举了丰富实例。作者还提出美学现代性应被理解成一个包含三重辩证对立的危机概念：即对立于传统；对立于资产阶级文明的现代性；对立于美学现代性自身。