Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze PDF
Preview Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze
Baudrillard and Signs This book documents Baudrillard’s tempestuous encounters with semiology and structuralism. Genosko illuminates in detail his efforts to destroy structural analyses from the inside by setting signification ablaze with his concept of symbolic exchange. Simultaneously, the book shows that Baudrillard’s project to go beyond signification is fraught with difficulties which return him to a semiotic scene saturated with all kinds of signs. Through this illumination, Baudrillard’s work is situated in the broad spectrum of European and American semiotic traditions. His key concept of symbolic exchange is critically examined and is traced through its maturation and development over some thirty years of theorizing. Also examined are Baudrillard’s engagements with and debts to French theatre and literature with reference to Antonin Artaud, Alfred Jarry and Victor Segalen. Discussion of Baudrillard’s relation to the thought of Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, de Certeau and Lyotard casts light on many neglected features of his work. Gary Genosko is Visiting Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. Baudrillard and Signs Signification Ablaze Gary Genosko London and New York First published 1994 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1994 Gary Genosko All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-415-11256-7 (Print Edition) ISBN 0-415-11257-5 (pbk) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Genosko, Gary. Baudrillard and signs: signification ablaze/Gary Genosko. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-11256-7 : $50.00–ISBN 0-415-11257-5 (pbk.): $16.50 1. Baudrillard, Jean—Contributions in semiotics. 2. Semiotics. 3. Structuralism. 4. France—Intellectual life—20th century. I. Title. P85.B36G46 1994 302.2–dc20 93–49039 CIP ISBN 0-203-20114-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-20117-5 (Glassbook Format) For Hannah Contents List of figures and tables viii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Signs must burn! xi 1 Bar games 1 The table of conversions 6 Bar gains: neither Saussure nor Lacan 17 2 Simulation and semiosis 28 The metaphysics of the referent 34 The model of simulation as a condensed history of modern semiotic debate on the referent 41 A Peircean turn 55 Deleuze and Guattari in the polysemiotic field 57 A Peircean return 68 3 Varieties of symbolic exchange 72 Affirmative weaknesses 72 Juste pour rire 82 Anagrammatic dispersion 84 Lyotard and the primitive hippies 88 The weak and the dead 90 Hostage anti-value 93 Pataphysical gestures 104 4 Empty signs and extravagant objects 117 Salt, sand and simulation 119 Exotes like us 129 Wily props and vengeful objects 135 viii Contents Conclusion: Signs of Baudrillard 152 Notes 165 Bibliography 172 Name index 189 Subject index 193 Figures and tables FIGURES 1 Two-sided physical sign, after Saussure 25 2 Hjelmslev in the polysemiotic field, after Guattari 66 TABLES 1 Logics of value 7 2 The orders of simulacra 42 Acknowledgements I began to think seriously about Baudrillard while I was a doctoral student in the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought at York University in Toronto, Canada. Sitting around the dining room table at John O’Neill’s house during his Monday evening seminars was conducive to dispelling as much as distilling the theoretical fictions of Baudrillard. I would also like to thank loan Davies, with whom I have worked for many years on the editorial collective of Borderlines and who read an early version of this book, for his encouragement. I also wish to acknowledge the critical advice I received along the way from Brian Massumi, Brian Singer, Marie-Christine Leps, and Ray Morris. In addition, I have learned so much about semiotics from Paul Bouissac that a mere acknowledgement seems to diminish his contribution. Jean-François Côté helped me when Baudrillard’s French became overwhelming, and Baudrillard himself deserves mention for letting a virtual stranger into his apartment. Finally, this book could not have been completed without the support of my partner Rachel Ariss. Much of my work on this book was made possible by awards from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship Program in the Province of Ontario. Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of the McLuhan Program at the University of Toronto, and Chris Jenks, Deputy Head of the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths’ College, University of London, both provided me with institutional, intellectual, and convivial social support while I was research fellow in both cities in 1992–93 and 1993–94 respectively.
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