Date: 16 Nov 96 13:34:12 EST
From: Alan Shapiro <100143.1302-AT-compuserve.com>
Subject: Douglas Kellner


Mr. Kellner, I _have_ read your book  "Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to
Postmodernism and Beyond" (1989). I am willing to revise the second half of my
statement to "although Kellner likes certain aspects of B.'s writings, there is
lots and lots about them that he doesn't like". I think this is a fairly
accurate re-stating of what you yourself just wrote in your posting.

In Gary Genosko's "Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze" (1994) he
criticizes your book for being weak in the area of semiotics. You are also not
especially sympathetic to fatal theory or the idea of a virtuality syndrome. You
think that Jarry's pataphysics is some terrible form of regression.

As far as I can tell, your position in the book is that of a critical theorist
who is influenced by many different writers in the critical and cultural theory
tradition. You have certain specific ideas of what leftist cultural critique is
/ should be, and you place a lot of importance on a certain idea of political
practice. The side of you that is sympathetic to B. is saying "let's see what
there is of value in his work that can be added to our critical theory
repetoire". 

This is different from, say, fully entering into the Weltanschauung of B., who
rejects critical theory and says he is a fatal theorist who wants to analyze the
possibilities for radical change in the "ironic reversibility of objects" and
the "revenge of mirrors."

As far as I understand it, the methodology of intellectual history should be to
really enter into the world-view of the author under study, and let this
world-view live in the light of day (as a true other!), before then going on to
criticize that world-view if you wish.

I think the strength of Genosko's book, for example, is that he tries to situate
B. in relation to the universe of texts with which B. has true affinities
(Artaud, Ballard, Bataille, Chatwin, Jarry, Segalen, Vattimo, Virilio, etc.).

And you are certainly entitled to your critical theory perspective on B., and
you may even be right in your negatives. 

And as a concession to your non-ironic sensibility vis-a-vis consumer culture, I
will suspend posting my football picks here.

However: football may suck, but gambling rules!

Alan Shapiro
Frankfurt, Germany
e-mail 100143.1302-AT-compuserve.com