PostmodernSeries--Baudrillard and the Millennium

Author: (English) Christopher Houlbrook / Wang Wenhua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: Baudrillard's writing style is highly fragmented and essayistic, which often makes readers unable to see how keen and consistent his insights are into the millennial crisis. Due to the originality and impact of his thoughts, he has become one of the most important and most provocative authors of our time. French thinker Jean Baudrillard said: "In a sense, we do not believe in the year 2000." Such a statement is already unsettling. However, he also has an even more unsettling claim: the millennium may not arrive. His analysis of the Y2K bug reveals a culture that is obsessively devoted to memory, mourning, and the relentless self-examination of its past, depicting a world where even the end of history has disappeared. But behind this gray picture of reality, Baudrillard reveals to us that there is still a faint possibility left, and that eventually, there might even be a comical sudden turn. Baudrillard and the Millennium explores the thoughts of this important cultural analyst about the extreme state of inaction in the postmodern era, analyzing the accusations and criticisms directed at his ideological system by various critics. The book discusses themes such as natural disasters, the body, victim culture, identity, and internet viruses, reflecting the development of Baudrillard's millennial thought from the 1980s to the year 2000—from simulation to dissolution.