Jean Baudrillard: Live Theory

Description

Jean Baudrillard's work on how contemporary society is dominated by the mass media has become extraordinarily influential. He is notorious for arguing that there is no real world, only simulations which have altered what events mean, and that only violent symbolic exchange can prevent the world becoming a total simulation. An ideal introduction to this most singular cultural critic and philosopher, Jean Baudrillard: live theory offers a comprehensive, critical account of Baudrillard's unsettling, visionary and often prescient work. Baudrillard's relation to a range of theorists as diverse as Nietzsche, Marx, McLuhan, Foucault and Lyotard is explained, and the impact of his thought on contemporary politics, popular culture and art is analyzed. Finally, in the new interview included here, Baudrillard outlines his own position and responds to his critics.

Paul Hegarty is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author and editor of 11 books that span critical and cultural theory, rock, experimental and noise music, as well as audiovisual art including Noise/Music (Bloomsbury, 2007), Rumour and Radiation (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Annihilating Noise (Bloomsbury, 2020). He is also Co-editor of Bloomsbury's Ex:Centrics series.

"In this comprehensive work, Hegary offers a wide array of notes about the main notions of Baudrillard's work. He traces his whole theoretical trajectory by examining the main elements of his opus while pointing to the two key ideas: symbolic exchange and simulation....Inclusion of the interview in the book serves both as a refreshment and a dynamic addition...Here many of the terms discussed in the previous chapters come to 'life'. It is a great way to wrap up the explanatory effort to make Baudrillard more intelligble to his readers. In sum, Jean Baudrillard LT is a significatn contribution not only to the body of work aiming at introducing Baudrillard to new readership, but it also contributes to the work that deals with Baudrillard as someone we are able to work with." -Valerio Bacak, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, July 2005 "Clearly structured and tightly argued, Hegarty's study draws the reader deep into Baudrillard's world in the space of a few pages. The prose is crisp, informal and engaging; Hegarty does not over-simplify nor does he obfuscate and a genuine mastery of Baudrillard's ideas is demonstraded....the books is a great success." -William Pawlett, International Journal of Baudrillard Studies, January 2006 "Do we need another overview of Baudrillard's expanding oeuvre? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. Not any overview, but this one by French professor Paul Hegarty. Why? Hegarty tackles head-on, and with a lively and generous critical probity, the difficult questions: the relation and evolution of simulation and symbolic exchange, Baudrillard's two key concepts; the problems internal to these concepts and what replaced them, the virtual and singular, respectively. Hegarty coaxes some fascinating responses on these and related matters from a typically reticent Baudrillard in the interview that is included in this volume, in keeping with the principle of 'live theory' that defines this series...This book's greatest strength is in how it traces the parallel developments of Baudrillard's key intertwined concepts of simulation and symbolic exchange on the levels of intellectual biography and philosophical elaboration, with none of the warts and bristles smoothed over." -Gary Genosko, Philosophy in Review "Hegarty's explanations bring clarity to Baudrillard's often difficult and misunderstood theories. The selection of material provides a rich picture of the development and breadth of Baudrillard's thought." -Choice, January 2005 * Choice *