ABSTRACT
In Barthes's writing of the time, the other is always seen from the viewpoint of the self, with regard to its influence on the self, as a screen for the self's projections. Peter Burger, in turn, has most inspired the author's own reading inasmuch as he first directed his attention to the substitution of egoism for egotism in Barthes's late writing, an egoism in service of writing the other. Burger emphasizes the religious element in Barthes's redefinition of literary texts which are seen to offer the reader the unmediated truth. In L'Empire des signes Barthes describes how, analogous to the Japanese city with its empty centre, the Imaginary unfolds in circles, via detours and returns, around an empty subject. Its voided centre, as Barthes contends, is not only 'interdit', that is forbidden and speechless, it is also 'indifférent', devoid of feeling. Barthes uses the examples of Japanese art which are foreign to him to signify alternative models of selfhood.
