About the Author

Julie Sylvester is Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Simon Schama, born in 1945, is a renowned British historian. He has written numerous widely discussed and award-winning books, and was an art critic and essayist for The New York Times. Roland Barthes (1915- 1980)was a prominent French social and literary critic, semiotician, and structuralist. He taught at schools and universities in Paris, Bucharest, Alexandria, and Baltimore. From 1976 to his death he was chair of literary semiology at the College de France. Selected writings: Le degre zero de l'ecriture, Mythologies, Le plaisir de texte, and La chambre clair.