Jean Baudrillard

Fatal Theories

David B. Clarke, Marcus Doel, William Merrin, Richard G. Smith, David B. Clarke, Marcus Doel, William Merrin, Richard G. Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134040704
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Jean Baudrillard was one of the most influential, radical, and visionary thinkers of our age. His ideas have had a profound bearing on countless fields, from art and politics to science and technology. Once hailed as the high priest of postmodernity, Baudrillard's sophisticated theoretical analyses far surpass such simplistic caricatures. Bringing together Baudrillard's most accomplished and perceptive commentators, this book assesses his legacy for the twenty-first century. It includes two outstanding essays by Baudrillard: a remarkable, previously unpublished work entitled 'The vanishing point of communication,' and one of Baudrillard's final texts, 'On disappearance', a veritable tour de force that serves as a culmination of his theoretical trajectory and a provocation to a new generation of thinkers. Employing Baudrillard's key concepts, such as simulation, disappearance, and symbolic exchange, and deploying his most radical strategies, such as escalation, seduction, and fatality, the volume's contributors offer a series of thought-provoking analyses of everything from art to politics, and from laughter to terror. It will be essential reading for anyone concerned with the fate of the world in the new millennium.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Contributors
• Works by Jean Baudrillard in English
• Introduction: the evil genius of Jean Baudrillard
• 1 The vanishing point of communication
• 2 On disappearance
• 3 Commentaries on Jean Baudrillard’s ‘On disappearance’
• 4 Baudrillard’s taste
• 5 Floral tributes, binge-drinking and the Ikea riot considered as an up-hill bicycle race
• 6 Better than butter: margarine and simulation
• 7 Baudrillard and the art conspiracy
• 8 ‘Mirror, mirror’: The Student of Prague in Baudrillard, Kracauer and Kittler
• 9 The Gulf War revisited
• 10 Fate of the animal
• 11 Reality: now and then – Baudrillard and W-Bush’s America
• 12 Baudrillard’s sense of humour
• 13 The (un)sealing of the penultimate