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Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings
Jean Baudrillard, alternately provocative and astonishing, is one of the leading theorists of media and culture. Regarded by many as the chief prophet of postmodernism, his writings raise important issues about the changing nature of social and political life in our contemporary, media-saturated age.
This book makes his most important writings available in a single volume. It includes selections from the entire range of his work, from his early writings on consumer culture and the political economy of the sign to his more recent work on desire, simulation and the 'hyperreal'.
This new edition includes five new extracts from Baudrillard's writings in the 1990s, including his writings on the Gulf War, on the internet and his autobiographical reflections. It also includes an updated introduction by Mark Poster which provides an extremely lucid overview of Baudrillard's work.
Jean Selected Writings is an excellent introduction to the thought of one of the most important and influential thinkers of our day.
This book makes his most important writings available in a single volume. It includes selections from the entire range of his work, from his early writings on consumer culture and the political economy of the sign to his more recent work on desire, simulation and the 'hyperreal'.
This new edition includes five new extracts from Baudrillard's writings in the 1990s, including his writings on the Gulf War, on the internet and his autobiographical reflections. It also includes an updated introduction by Mark Poster which provides an extremely lucid overview of Baudrillard's work.
Jean Selected Writings is an excellent introduction to the thought of one of the most important and influential thinkers of our day.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published August 9, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 6, 2022
“Í gleðskapnum miðjum hvíslar maður í eyrað hennar: “Hvað ertu að fara að gera eftir orgíuna?””
- Jean Baudrillard
Afbragðssafn skrifa Baudrillards! Legg einnig til að öll Atviksritin verði endurútgefin í einu heildarsafni. Meira var það ekki.
- Jean Baudrillard
Afbragðssafn skrifa Baudrillards! Legg einnig til að öll Atviksritin verði endurútgefin í einu heildarsafni. Meira var það ekki.
November 30, 2018
I'm getting too old for this shit
July 21, 2020
This influential 1980s collection could be subtitled "Simulated Writings."
Preceding any "real" Baudrillard is this collection's model of Baudrillard as a neatly packaged critical theorist (with NEW special feature: disappointing mid-career turn!) marketed towards export-hungry, Anglo-American professors and their students hunting for post-collegiate brilliance. All of Baudrillard's works and this selection are indistinguishable in this realm. Also indistinguishable are the various values of this book, sign-, use-, exchange-, or otherwise. Sure, you can gain some fluency in his work and its problems by consuming these selections, and in that respect it is useful. But the alibi of usefulness is the first thing Baudrillard is suspicious of in these very pages.
Which is all, from a Baudrillardian perspective, the point. So whether this book is or isn't a devious inside joke, I still find it funny. But I prefer Baudrillard's own version of his selected writings, The Ecstasy of Communication, especially since Mark Poster's introduction to this collection is simply a condensed version of Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond and only rehearses all the same old gripes from that camp.
Preceding any "real" Baudrillard is this collection's model of Baudrillard as a neatly packaged critical theorist (with NEW special feature: disappointing mid-career turn!) marketed towards export-hungry, Anglo-American professors and their students hunting for post-collegiate brilliance. All of Baudrillard's works and this selection are indistinguishable in this realm. Also indistinguishable are the various values of this book, sign-, use-, exchange-, or otherwise. Sure, you can gain some fluency in his work and its problems by consuming these selections, and in that respect it is useful. But the alibi of usefulness is the first thing Baudrillard is suspicious of in these very pages.
Which is all, from a Baudrillardian perspective, the point. So whether this book is or isn't a devious inside joke, I still find it funny. But I prefer Baudrillard's own version of his selected writings, The Ecstasy of Communication, especially since Mark Poster's introduction to this collection is simply a condensed version of Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond and only rehearses all the same old gripes from that camp.
November 1, 2011
Eesh. This is definitely not something you can plow through expecting full understanding when you finish. Rather, if you're like me, you raid the nearest fridge for a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia and drown your perplexities in cold, creamy indulgence. Then when the spoon comes in contact with the bare cardboard bottom, you have no other choice but to face reality... OR IS IT?! Anyways, it took me a couple more readings to get what Baudrillard was getting at. He's basically criticizing the modern individual in how they perceive the world. Realities no longer exist, as they are swiftly being replaced by models, or simulations, of the real. However, it should be noted that simulation is not a representation of an object. Simulation is the real without the real. Let me phrase it better. When you simulate something, you are generating something--an imaginary-- without an original. You lose touch with the natural and instead create something that is real to you--a second nature. This is what Baudrillard is warning us from. We have completely become so dependent on creations that we are no longer anchored to reality. There is no longer a barrier separating truth from falsehood. Layers of this keep piling on each other until we can't even comprehend truth from falsehood because their very definitions are blurred.
He keeps going on about this until the individual enters the hyperreal, where knowing if something is reality or fantasy doesn't even matter anymore because we're so far removed from the real.
That's basically the bare gist of it. I need more Cherry Garcia.
He keeps going on about this until the individual enters the hyperreal, where knowing if something is reality or fantasy doesn't even matter anymore because we're so far removed from the real.
That's basically the bare gist of it. I need more Cherry Garcia.
March 26, 2013
An interesting set of readings ranging across Baudrillard's life, showing the development of his thought and style. Ultimately frustrating: the essays start off as super-dense Marxist theory, then slowly develop into something that seems to have fascinating potential (terrorism as hyperreal violence, pornography as hyperreal sex), and then shift into something so abstruse and nearly poetic that it becomes nearly impossible to get anything from it once again. Fascinating and elusive.
February 26, 2023
I guess a good introduction to Baudrillard, reading the introduction is definately important to orienting yourself to the timeline of his detachment from Marxist analysis. The procession of the sign is a really interesting idea, as is his analysis of Watergate, though his system can be a bit too depressing for me sometimes. Really fascinating ideas, but its sometimes clear that he doesn't know enough about what he is actually critiquing for it to stick.
August 6, 2024
Dry, scientific credibility stuff in the front…party in the back. This collection moves from his practical, more economically relevant work to the poetic masterpieces. Each chapter transitions in a functional way. It is difficult for anyone with the requisite background to fully discount Baudrillard when you read him in this order. You get to know his brilliance from whichever accessible perspective your own knowledge starts, if you indeed keep reading.
“a haunting memory already foreshadowed everywhere, manifesting at one and the same time the satisfaction of having got rid of it (nobody wants it any more, everybody unloads it on others) and grieving its loss. Melancholy for societies without power: this has already given rise to fascism, that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate its mourning. But we are still in the same boat: none of our societies know how to manage their mourning for the real, for power, for the social itself”
“a haunting memory already foreshadowed everywhere, manifesting at one and the same time the satisfaction of having got rid of it (nobody wants it any more, everybody unloads it on others) and grieving its loss. Melancholy for societies without power: this has already given rise to fascism, that overdose of a powerful referential in a society which cannot terminate its mourning. But we are still in the same boat: none of our societies know how to manage their mourning for the real, for power, for the social itself”
July 28, 2016
Baudrillard's name was mentioned in an on-line cultural critique on hyper-consumerism and obsessions of media. This book is published by Stanford University Press with an excellent preface by Mark Poster, a professor of history, film and who is known for bringing in French Critical Theories to US.
The philosophic theories and terminologies in this book are beyond my range and depth, even though the topics are relevant to daily lives. Baudrillard's concerns are consumer culture, semiological studies of consumer objects in the contemporary lives, and the high-tech media virtual reality ("Simulacra and Simulations"). There are also essays on Gulf War and other political issues.
The philosophic theories and terminologies in this book are beyond my range and depth, even though the topics are relevant to daily lives. Baudrillard's concerns are consumer culture, semiological studies of consumer objects in the contemporary lives, and the high-tech media virtual reality ("Simulacra and Simulations"). There are also essays on Gulf War and other political issues.
July 17, 2009
For those unfamiliar with the works of Jean Baudrillard, this book is the ideal starting point. This collection provides an excellent selection of Baudrillard's works. It is an indispensible guide for anyone seeking to better understand modern society today. Mark Poster provides an illuminating introduction to one of the most influential social and cultural theorists of the last 30 years. Strongly recommended.
June 13, 2008
Lots of technical language and many complex ideas but it was definitely a book that got me thinking. I know taking a course would be the best way to experience his thought, but I found my teacher Dr. Feenberg to be harder to understand than the book itself.
November 8, 2015
I read selectively from this.
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July 31, 2011His early writing has interesting ideas, but is incredibly dryly written. His later work is, of course, colorfully written, but I don't find it theoretically or politically helpful or relevant.
August 23, 2013
This book is really helpful to understand Jean Baudrillard's work. The languags was easy for those whose not using English as their national language.
January 3, 2015
A good smattering of Baudrillard's work. The essays Mark Poster chose showcases the evolution of Baudrillard's thoughts well.
August 8, 2019
This book helped inform my understanding of what I would consider cultural norms. Well written and insightful.
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February 21, 2010Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings by Jean Baudrillard (2001)
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews