The System of Objects (Latin American And Iberian Studies)
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- Synopsis
- The System of Objects is a tour de force—a theoretical letter-in-a-bottle tossed into the ocean in 1968, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day.Pressing Freudian and Saussurean categories into the service of a basically Marxist perspective, The System of Objects offers a cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society. Baudrillard classifies the everyday objects of the &“new technical order&” as functional, nonfunctional and metafunctional. He contrasts &“modern&” and &“traditional&” functional objects, subjecting home furnishing and interior design to a celebrated semiological analysis. His treatment of nonfunctional or &“marginal&” objects focuses on antiques and the psychology of collecting, while the metafunctional category extends to the useless, the aberrant and even the &“schizofunctional.&” Finally, Baudrillard deals at length with the implications of credit and advertising for the commodification of everyday life.The System of Objects is a tour de force of the materialist semiotics of the early Baudrillard, who emerges in retrospect as something of a lightning rod for all the live ideas of the day: Bataille&’s political economy of &“expenditure&” and Mauss&’s theory of the gift; Reisman&’s lonely crowd and the &“technological society&” of Jacques Ellul; the structuralism of Roland Barthes in The System of Fashion; Henri Lefebvre&’s work on the social construction of space; and last, but not least, Guy Debord&’s situationist critique of the spectacle.
- Copyright:
- 1996
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781788739436
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781859840689
- Publisher:
- Verso Books
- Date of Addition:
- 04/07/20
- Copyrighted By:
- James Benedict
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics and Government
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.