Simulacra and SimulationThe publication in France of Simulacra et Simulation in 1981 marked Jean Baudrillard's first important step toward theorizing the postmodern. Moving away from the Marxist/Freudian approaches that had concerned him earlier, Baudrillard developed in this book a theory of contemporary culture that relies on displacing economic notions of cultural production with notions of cultural expenditure. Baudrillard uses the concepts of the simulacrum-the copy without an original-and simulation, crucial to an understanding of the postmodern, to address the concept of mass reproduction and reproducibility that characterizes our electronic media culture. Translator Sheila Faria Glaser provides the first complete English edition of Baudrillard's rich speculations on the simulacrum: from the hologram to Apocalypse Now, clones to Crash, and Disneyland to Three Mile Island. Simulacra and Simulation represents a unique and original effort to rethink cultural theory from the perspective of a new concept of cultural materialism, one that radically redefines postmodern formulations of the body. Jean Baudrillard, one of France's leading intellectuals, began teaching in 1966 at Nanterre in Paris, where he spent most of his teaching career. Now retired from academia, he is a frequent traveler, spending half his time out of France, and has published celebrated memoirs about his experiences. His works in English translation include The Mirror of Production (1975), For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1976), The Ecstasy of Communication (1988), America (1988), Cool Memories (1990), Fatal Strategies (1993), The Transparency of Evil (1993), Symbolic Exchange and Death (1993), The Art of Disappearance (1994), The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995), The Consumer Society (1998), The Vital Illusion (2000) and The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers (2002). |
From inside the book
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Contents
The Precession of Simulacra | 1 |
A Retro Scenario | 43 |
Holocaust | 49 |
The China Syndrome | 53 |
Apocalypse Now | 59 |
Implosion and Deterrence | 61 |
Hypermarket and Hypercommodity | 75 |
The Implosion of Meaning in the Media | 79 |
Holograms | 105 |
Crash | 111 |
Simulacra and Science Fiction | 121 |
Territory and Metamorphoses | 129 |
The Remainder | 143 |
The Spiraling Cadaver | 149 |
Values Last Tango | 155 |
On Nihilism | 159 |
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Common terms and phrases
advertising aleatory already animals antitheater artificial Beaubourg become body capital catastrophe China Syndrome cinema cloning commodity Crash culture cybernetic cycle dead death destruction deterrence deterritorialization dimension disappearance discourse Disneyland dium double dream effaces effect energy equivalent ethnology event everything everywhere exchange extermination fact fascination fascism film function genetic code hologram hypermarket hyperreal ideology imaginary implosion inertia logic longer manipulation masses meaning medium mental mirror mode myth negentropy never nihilism nihilist nuclear object operation opposite orbit pataphysical phantasm political possible precession precisely production prosthesis question radical rational reality referential remainder representation repression residual resurrection retro reversion revolution satellization scenario science fiction seduction sense sexuality signifies signs simulacra simulacrum simulation social sorbed space stage stake strategy structure symbolic Tasaday territory terror tion transparency trompe l'oeil truth ulacra unconscious universe violence Watergate whole