Baudrillard now: current perspectives in Baudrillard studies

Bishop, Ryan (ed.) (2009) Baudrillard now: current perspectives in Baudrillard studies (Theory Now), Cambridge, GB. Polity, 200pp.

Record type: Book

Abstract

The writings of Jean Baudrillard have dramatically altered the face of critical theory and promise to pose challenges well into the 21st century. His work on simulation, media, the status of the image, the system of objects, hyperreality, and information technology continues to influence intellectual work in a diverse set of fields. This volume uniquely provides overviews of Baudrillard's career while also simultaneously including examples of current works on and with Baudrillard that engage some of the many and varied ways Baudrillard's work is being addressed, deployed, and critiqued in the present. As such, it offers chapters useful to the novice and the well-versed in critical theory and Baudrillard Studies alike. Contributors to the volume include John Armitage, John Beck, Ryan Bishop, Doug Kellner, John Phillips and Mark Poster.

No less controversial today than he was in the past, Baudrillard continues to divide intellectuals and academicians, an issue this volume addresses by re-engaging the writing itself without falling into either simplistic dismissal or solipsistic cheerleading, but rather by taking the fecundity operative in the thought and meeting its consistent challenge. Baudrillard Now provokes sustained interaction with one of philosophy s most important, provocative and stimulating thinkers.

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Published date: July 2009

Additional Information: Series editor: Ryan Bishop. This book was designed originally for a Chinese market to provide current critical engagements with the work of John Baudrillard from important and influential scholars working in a critical fashion with his body of work. That book was published by Henan University Press (Kaifeng, China 2008). The English-language version is longer and has some different scholars from the Chinese version. The book provides an innovative combination of critical overview as well as current extensions, challenges and engagements with the work of a significant critical theorist. Polity, a leading publisher in critical theory, liked the volume and its structure, and asked if I would edit a series for them using Baudrillard Now as a model. The series is entitled “Theory Now,” and two more volumes have appeared with another five under contract and more in development. I am the only external editor of a humanities book series at Polity.

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