Baudrillard Now: Current Perspectives in Baudrillard Studies

by Ryan Bishop (editor)

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 Baudrillards 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.

200 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

Reviews

[philosovamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

The introduction to this collection begins so:
"To call a book Baudrillard Now risks hubris or tautology -- perhaps both. For Baudrillard has always been writing 'the now' and is never more current than he is right now. But to say that Baudrillard has been, always was and always is, writing about the current moment is more than slightly glib and glosses over the many diverse and complex ways the present appears and disappears from view in his work..." (p2).

Bishop points out the unique quality of Baudrillard as an always-cutting-edge theorist of the now, but does not turn that question back upon this book itself. The sad truth is that while Baudrillard is contemporary, everything people seem to say about him in hard-copy publications like this one is dated upon arrival. This book is not quite 10 years old and already seems so quaint: reality TV and the Iraq war are the primary markers given of now-ness. It is strange, but I think undeniable, that Baudrillard's analyses of reality TV in the 1980s are more cutting edge than that contained in "Swan's Way" here. The subtitle is disappointing: the current perspectives don't seem too current.

Well, what did I hope to find here anyway? This (very short) collection is not a survey of 21st century Baudrillard scholarship -- do not expect that. It is instead a scattershot collection of supposedly provocative engagements with Baudrillard, particularly his last works, and other theorists that gestures at present society and Baudrillard's legacy. A few essays here do that. "Baudrillard, Death, and Cold War Theory" is the most essential; "Et in Arizona Ego" offers an incisive interpretation of Baudrillard's America; "Humanity's End" is a muddled, but mostly admirable, attempt to compare Baudrillard and Hegel on history; and while "Pursuit in Paris" does try to talk about Baudrillard, the man, it falls into the "Swan's Way" bucket of navel-gazing pap.

I don't want to be too hard on this collection. Seems to be a one-man effort, with nearly half of the essays by editor Ryan Bishop. Well done, lad. I can only say that, as represented by this book, Baudrillard studies is not in the place I'd hope it would be.

[Noah Coates · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. Some works were better than others and most failed to dive into his philosophical side.