Rhythm Barthes, rythmicité du vivre

This article reflects upon Barthes’ relationship to one of our main actual concerns: how to build a community, and upon the singularity of the answer he gives to this political question in one of his last lectures: a meditation concerning life rhythms. Singular because of its refusal to see the question of collectiveness as the right one, and singular in its almost exclusive interest in practices of life, formal aspects of the everyday – what Certeau called “les formalités de la pratique.” In this, Barthes’ reflection rejoins the effort of many contemporary philosophers, sociologists, and ethnologists in establishing an anthropology of rhythm; but he also stands besides poets, for whom rhythm is not a category of understanding but a task to undertake, a site of dispute, fear, and struggle with the self and with others.