Baudrillard (Rle Social Theory): Critical and Fatal Theory

Baudrillard is widely recognised as a powerful new force in cultural and social criticism, and is often referred to as the High Priest of Postmodernism . This study presents a detached assessment of his social thought and his reputation, challenging the way his work has been received in postmodernis [...]
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Baudrillard is widely recognised as a powerful new force in cultural and social criticism, and is often referred to as the High Priest of Postmodernism . This study presents a detached assessment of his social thought and his reputation, challenging the way his work has been received in postmodernism and proposing a new reading of his contribution to social theory. Using many sources currently available only in French, Mike Gane provides the keys to understanding Baudrillard s project and reveals the extent and scope of Baudrillard s challenge to modern social theory and cultural criticism. He looks at the sources of Baudrillard s ideas, analysing how Baudrillard has turned these sources against themselves. He describes Baudrillard s dramatic encounter with critical Marxist theory and psychoanalysis, showing how Baudrillard s post-Marxist writings define, through the exploration of fatal theory, a new episode in cultural history: a period of cultural implosion. This balanced account of Baudrillard s social theory emphasises the originality of his work and argues that his significance can only be understood by grasping the paradoxes of his project Baudrillard s work is poetic, yet, at the same time, critical and fatal."