Jean Baudrillard | |
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Jean Baudrillard in 2004 at the European Graduate School
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Born |
Reims, France |
27 July 1929
Died | 6 March 2007 Paris, France |
(aged 77)
Alma mater | University of Paris |
Era | 20th- / 21st-century philosophy |
Region | Western Philosophy |
School | Western Marxism · Post-Marxism · Post-structuralism |
Institutions |
Paris X Nanterre European Graduate School |
Main interests
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Mass media · Postmodernity |
Notable ideas
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Hyperreality · Sign value · Simulacra |
Influenced
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Jean Baudrillard (/ˌboʊdriːˈɑːr/;French: [ʒɑ̃ bodʁijaʁ]; 27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism.
Baudrillard was born in Reims, northeastern France, on 27 July 1929. His grandparents were peasant farm workers and his father a policeman. During high school (at the Lycée at Reims), he became aware of pataphysics (via philosophy professor Emmanuel Peillet), which is said to be crucial for understanding Baudrillard's later thought. He became the first of his family to attend university when he moved to Paris to attend the Sorbonne. There he studied German language and literature, which led him to begin teaching the subject at several different lycées, both Parisian and provincial, from 1960 until 1966. While teaching, Baudrillard began to publish reviews of literature and translated the works of such authors as Peter Weiss, Ritik Goyal, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann .