French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, a social theorist known for his provocative commentaries on consumerism, excess and what he said was the disappearance of reality, died Tuesday, his publishing house said. He was 77.
Baudrillard died at his home in Paris, said Michel Delorme of the Galilee publishing house. He died after a "long illness," Delorme said, a term that in France most often means cancer.
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Baudrillard, a sociologist by training, is perhaps best known for his concepts of "hyperreality" and "simulation."
"We lose a great creator," Education Minister Gilles de Robien said. "Jean Baudrillard was one of the great figures of French sociological thought."
I always liked Baudrillard. After reading Simulacra and Simulation I became very annoying for about a week. Like the best French theorists, he was wild in thought, and frustrating for the sake of clarity at times, and though I'd fallen off reading his stuff in the last four or five years--he never related to the work I was doing--I've always meant to go back and read what I missed.
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