Baudrillard Now - Current Perspectives In Baudrillard Studies

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.

Ryan Bishop is Associate Professor of English at the National University of Singapore.

"Contains excellent stuff for anyone passionate about Baudrillard, about contemporary media culture, and especially about that which should have us think more: the brutal state of the world now."
International Journal of Baudrillard Studies
"At last a critical volume that dares bringing Baudrillard to where he really belongs: dialectics, hermeneutics, phenomenology, deconstruction, boldly calling upon Hegel, Heidegger, Derrida and Foucault to illuminate the relation of his thought to contemporary society, culture and theory. A real breakthrough."
Sylvere Lotringer, Columbia University
"I did not realize how much I missed Baudrillard's presence in the world and in that of critical thought until I read this collection of assessments by master interpreters of his later work and exemplary producers of original critical work under its influence. Baudrillard himself is gone but his later works, considered perhaps excessive and faux-oracular, are becoming only richer guides for present becomings."
George E. Marcus, University of California, Irvine
"Ryan Bishop's career exemplifies rigorous theoretical and historical engagement with pressing material and symbolic problems. In Baudrillard Now, he extends his thinking to renew Baudrillard's insistent value for a new generation of intellectuals and makers of culture. In a time of rampant messianism and apocalyptic visionaries, Bishop does the world a service in giving us a Baudrillard who warns us there can be apocalyptic visions neither induced nor comforted by revelation."
Paul A. Bové, University of Pittsburgh
"This excellent, thought-provoking collection - written by leading experts - makes a vital contribution to the current debate on the work of Jean Baudrillard."
Mike Gane, University of Loughborough

Introduction: The End of Baudrillard and Beyond by Ryan Bishop
Chapter 1: Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007): A Critical Overview by Doug Kellner
Chapter 2: Baudrillard and the Evil Genius by Ryan Bishop and John Phillips
Chapter 3: Baudrillard, Death, and Cold War Theory by Ryan Bishop
Chapter 4: Swan s Way by Mark Poster
Chapter 5: Et in Arizona Ego: Baudrillard on the Planet of the Apes by John Beck
Chapter 6: Pursuit in Paris by John Armitage
Chapter 7: What is a Tank? by Ryan Bishop and John Phillips
Chapter 8: Some Reflections on Baudrillard s On Disappearance by Doug Kellner
Chapter 9: Humanity s End by John Phillips