The Photograph is violent: not because it shows violent tings, but because on each occasion (i)it fills the sight by force(i), and because in it nothing can be refused or transformed (that we can sometimes call it mild does not contradict its violence: many say that sugar is mild, but to me sugar is violent, and I call it so).

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.