Baudrillard and Signs: Signification Ablaze

219 Pages·1994·0.78 MB·English

by  Gary Genosko

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.