Forget Baudrillard?Chris Rojek, Bryan S. Turner Without doubt, Jean Baudrillard is one of the most important figures currently working in the area of sociology an dcultural studies, but his writings infuriate as many people as they intoxcicate. This collection provides a wide-ranging, measured assessment of Baudrillard's work. The contributors examine Baudrillard's relation to consumption, modernity, postmodernity, social theory, feminism, politics and culture. They attempt to steer a clear course between the hype which Baudrillard himself has done much to generate, and the solid value of his startling thoughts. Baudrillard's ideas and style of expression provide a challenge to established academic ways of proceeding and thinking. The book explores this challenge and speculates on the reason for the extreme responses to Baudrillard's work. The appeal of Baudrillard's arguments is clearly discussed and his place in contemporary social theory is shrewdly assessed. Baudrillard emerges as a chameleon figure, but one who is obsessed with the central themes of style, hypocrisy, seduction, simulation and fatality. Although these themes abound in postmodern thought, they are also evident in a certain strand of modernist thought - one which embraces the writings of Baudelaire and Nietzsche. Baudrillard's protestation is that he is not a postmodernist is taken seriously in this collection. The balanced and accessible style of the contributions and the fairness and rigour of the assessments make this book of pressing interest to students of sociology, philosophy and cultural studies. |
Contents
history hysteria and consumption | 1 |
The sweet scent of decomposition | 22 |
Baudrillards fatal comparison | 47 |
Baudrillard for sociologists | 62 |
the Eve of seduction | 88 |
Baudrillard and politics | 107 |
simulacrum or return | 124 |
Cruising America | 146 |
162 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
aleatory analysis appearances argued argument B-World baroque Baudril Baudrillard 1990a Baudrillard's America become body Callinicos Cambridge capitalist century challenge commodity consumption contemporary Cool Memories critical critical theory critique death decomposition democracy desert desire difference disappearance discourse disease economic Europe European everything existence Fatal Strategies feminine feminism Foucault Gane global Guy Debord human hyperreality hysteria idea indifference industrial Irigaray Jean Baudrillard Kellner lard's late capitalism live London longer Mandeville Marxism masculine mass mass media maxim meaning metanarratives Mickey Mouse mirror Mirror of Production modern moral never Nietzsche object odours play political Polity Press Pop Art post-industrialism postmodern production question radical reality reproduction Routledge Roy Porter screen seduction Semiotext(e sense sexuality signifiers signs Simmel simulacra simulacrum simulation Situationist social theory sociology style suggest symbolic things tion traditional truth Turner University Press Verso void woman writing York