1. "Starting with a re-evaluation and critique of Marx's economic theory of the object, especially as concerns the notion of 'use-value', JB develops the first major phase of his work with a semiotically based theory of production and the obejct, one that emphasises the 'sign-value' of objects.
2. . . .from his writings of the mid-1970s onwards, starting with Symbolic Exchange and Death, B has taken uup the radical consequences, as he sees them, of the pervasiveness of the code in late-modern societies.  The code certainly refers to computerisation, and to digitalisation, but it is also fundamental in physics, biology and other natural sciences where it enables a perfect reproduction of the object or situation; for this reason the code enables a by-passing of the real and opens up what B has famously designated as 'hyperreality'.  (Lechte, 233)

1. code: e.g. the binary code of computer technology; the DNA code in biology, or the digital code in television and sound recording -- the code in information technology.
2. "Central to Baudrillard's concerns is the connection between code and reproduction -- reproduction which is itself 'original'.  The code entials that the object produced -- tissue in biology, for example -- is not a copy in the accepted sense of the term, where the copy is the copy of an original, natural object.  (Lechte, 235)

 
3. Use Value, Exchange Value and Sign Value:  (The following note explains why production is consumption, and vice versa, for Baudrillard.)

• Consumption in the traditional economic sense: "the conversion of exchange value into use value."
• Consumption in the redefinition of the political economy of the sign:" includes the act of spending as production of sign value . .. "
• "Precisely speaking, there is no symbolic "value," there is only symbolic "exchange," which defines itself precisely as something distinct from, and beyond value and code.  All forms of value (object, commodity or sign) must be negated in order to inaugurate symbolic exchange.  (Jean Baudrillard Selected Writings 58-59)

 
VI. Questions:

• Simulations: Are of the examples Baudrillard gives the same kind of simulacra?
• Do you think it is good to be hyperreal?  Or, do you find any crisis in the world of simulations?
• Implosion: Do you see in our society that opposites begin to collapse (between the good and the evil, the active and the passive, cause and effect, ends and means, etc.) and 'everything becomes undecidable'?  If Reagon, for Baurillard, does not have real power, how about our president?  How does our government simulate power?

General

• Is Baudrillard really against science?
• Is there no more truthin postmodern world?  Where is "the desert of the real?"  Do we really have what B calls "a panic-stricken production of the real and the referential"

• General Resources
1. Introduction to Baudrillard -- only an excerpt from the book, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogation.
2. *Baudrillard/Simulacra - an Introduction; part of a larger project on postmodern theory by Hyoejin Yoon.
3. Implosion -- What does it Mean?
4. Jean Baudrillard (George Landow, et al., Brown U.): Several Articles/projects on Baudrillard.  For example:
• Mobius Baudrillard--"The twisted Mobius strip represents the twisting of meaning in our society. Meaning is distorted by excess information and by the blurring of the distinction between reality and simulation.  . . . understanding the Mobius strip is key to understanding Baudrillard's work and ideas. His social theory has been deemed "radical" and "high tech", "science fiction social theory" (Kellner 85). This is because he

often refers to mathematical and scientific concepts to demonstrate his points. The Mobius strip and DNA are just two examples of such analogies."
5. *Baudrillard on the Web (Alan Taylor): a list of links to works about and by Jean Baudrillard
6. The Baudrillard Scene (Timme Bisgaard Munk, U. Copenhagen)
7. Chance: The Event in the Desert (Nov. 8-10, 1996) ("a philosophical rave and summit meeting between artists and philosophers, chaosophists and croupiers, mathematicians and musicians at Whiskey Pete's Casino in the Nevada desert"; featuring Jean Baudrillard and Allucquere Roseanne Stone)
8. Project Baudrillard--not a comprehensive introd, but this site has some interesting reflections of  some grad. students on a lot of Baudrillard's books.--interesting.
9. *S(t)imulacrum(b) (extensive Baudrillard page with annotated bibliography and text selections) (Ben Attias)
• Writings
1. America (brief excerpts) (1986) (Industrial Strength Travel)
2. "Hystericizing the Millennium" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
3. "Pataphysics of Year 2000" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
4. "Plastic Surgery for the Other" (from Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume, Figures de l'alterite, 1994; trans. Francois Debrix, Purdue U.) (CTHEORY)
5. "Radical Thought" (English translation of La Pensee Radicale, 1994) (CTHEORY)
6. "Reversion of History" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
7. "Rise Of The Void Towards The Periphery" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
8. "Strike Of Events" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
9. "Thawing Of The East" (from L'Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements, 1992; trans. Charles Dudas, York U.) (CTHEORY)
• Interviews
1. Caroline Bayard and Graham Knight (McMaster U.), "Vivisecting the 90's: An Interview with Jean Baudrillard" (1996)) (CTHEORY)
2. Claude Thibaut, Interview with Baudrillard on the "New Technologies" (1966) (Cybersphere)
• Listservs & Newsgroups
1. Baudrillard List: Archives (U. Virginia)
• Relevant Courses
1. "COLLAB-l: CyberWars" ("two seminars being offered at two different geographical sites")
• Cynthia A. Haynes (U. Texas, Dallas), "Baudrillard and the Problem of Simulation/Mimesis"

Victor J. Vitanza (U. Texas, Arlington), "Baudrillard and the Problem of Simulation"