Events
Talk by Marco Pacioni
Friday, October 17 2025 | 4:00 p.m. MDT
Tory 12-15
Talk title: “Fascist Language” The paranoiac construction of the enemy
Talk abstract: In 1977 Roland Barthes became a member of the Collège de France. In his inaugural Lecture, Barthes’ words remain notorious: “Language is not reactionary or progressive; it is simply fascist; because fascism is not to prevent saying, but to obligate saying”. For Barthes the language is fascist when we reduce it to a prescriptive template which imposes an obligatory structure that confines interlocutors to a set of polemic functions. As “polemos”, meaning war, polemic is a martial order shaping the political discourse. Yet for Barthes, the discourse is not only the result of the performance of political norms that organize humans, but an inherent element of being human. Ultimately, he considers the “dis-course” not in a regimen but as an ensemble, as it appears in his 1977 seminar Comment vivre ensemble, How to Live Together.
Bio: Marco Pacioni, Doctorate at University of Rome and Ph.D. at Indiana University, is the academic coordinator at UofA School in Cortona, a board member of the journal “Frontiere della psicoanalisi”, and a collaborator of the newspaper “il manifesto”. His new forthcoming publication is Roland Barthes. Il neutro e la voce della scrittura (Feltrinelli, 2026).