Jean Baudrillard

Paul Hegarty (University of Nottingham)
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Born in Reims in 1929, Baudrillard began teaching languages in schools, and then moved into sociology, with a university post in 1966, at Nanterre. He stopped teaching full-time in the mid-1980s. His interest in contemporary culture and its productions have also led him, in later life, to be a photographer. He has often been associated with postmodernism, and even seen as its most radical exponent or advocate. If by postmodernism we mean merely the move beyond the belief that all thought can be grounded, then maybe this definition works, but any more detailed investigation reveals Baudrillard to be doing something quite different to others cited as postmodernists (Lyotard, Jameson). He himself is uninterested in the term, and is much more of a late modernist. The “postmodern scene” of…

2904 words

Citation: Hegarty, Paul. "Jean Baudrillard". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 December 2005; last revised 07 April 2007. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5172, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5172 Jean Baudrillard 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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