What right does my present have to speak of my past? Has my present some advantage over my past? What "grace" might have enlightened me? except that of passing time, or of a good cause, encountered on my way?

In 1948 he returned to purely academic work gaining numerous short-term positions at institutes in France Romania and Egypt. e. Barthes continued to contribute with Philippe Sollers to the avant-garde literary magazine Tel Quel which was developing similar kinds of theoretical inquiry to that pursued in Barthes' writings.

Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism semiotics social theory anthropology and post-structuralism.