Stratagem of the Corpse: Dying with Baudrillard, a Study of Sickness and Simulacra

by Gary J. Shipley, William Pawlett (Foreword)

This book is unique in its dedicated tackling of the subject of death in the work of Jean Baudrillard. Through new readings of his work, the book makes so patently clear the importance of Baudrillard’s tendency to poeticize, his core indebtedness to Georges Bataille, Alfred Jarry, and others, and his reliance on paradox. Ultimately, Stratagem of the Corpse is less a making sense of death and more a transcript of what occurred when death made sense of us, a reverse thanatology in which death delineates the variant forms of our encroachment, not so much death as seen by Baudrillard but Baudrillard as seen by death.

Genres: Philosophy

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 30, 2020

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Gary J. Shipley is a writer and philosopher based in the UK. He has published work in various philosophy journals and literary journals.

Reviews

[Frederick Maheux · Rating 5 out of 5]

This metastatic expansion of Baudrillard's core concepts through the prism of Death strangely reads like a walkthrough of Gary J. Shipley unique brand of philosophical horror. The madness here is exponentially contagious - maybe due to the Pfizer-induced fever - inspiring a certain praxis to "find a way out of here". Whenever you think you are understanding what is being proposed is when you fall in a maze of tortuous (there's even a reference to amphiboly) discharges, attempts to go to the furthest limit (but still rigorous) of speculative writing.

It's a challenging and breathless ride, one I adamantly recommend.

[Christian Molenaar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peak Shipley, even ahead of all the fiction