Bücher von Yibing Zhang

This book mainly reads the three works of early Baudrillard, and challenges the current research findings on his philosophical journey. Zhang Yibing also reads Baudrillard''s other works to fully situate him theoretically. He asserts that Baudrillard''s texts cannot be classified as postmodernist or neo-Marxist in any period. Zhang belongs to the third generation of Marxist philosophers in China and is renowned for his textological researches, having developed a unique reading methodology. Since the end of 1960s, Baudrillard wrote three important works: For a Critique of Political Economy of the Sign, The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death, which furiously attacked Marx, aiming to refute historical materialism and deconstruct Marx''s theory of labour value. The Mirror of Production in particular was intended to demolish the logic of Marxist theories from within, by deconstructing and disordering them. This was ignored by many Marxist researchers. What was real thinking behind, and historical context of, the shift in his critique, and how was symbolic exchange combined with death? The author with his sharp insight shows that the Early Baudrillard''s thought is trapped in the logic of symbolic exchange, based on the grassroots'' romanticism (radicalism) of Mauss-Bataille. He then keenly follows the secret of Baudrillard''s transformation process in his critical logic, his passage from the dissolution of the ideographic material to the symbolic value of coding structure, then to quasi-real existence without a model, until finally his symbolic miscoding of death becomes a hopeless waiting for Baudrillard''s tentative salvation of the world. This is indeed a death trilogy, which occurs in Baudrillard''s academic scenery and in which the real existence is murdered. The thinking of late Baudrillard is a discourse like virus and paranoia. This kind of logical violence of theoretical terrorism has become an absurd modern academic caricature of excessive rational interpretation. In this book the reader will also find Zhang''s innovative interpretation and updating of Marx''s historical materialism.

This book prefers a hard polemic on Baudrillard's post-modern turn, and deals in a direct and frontal debate against refutations claimed by early (young) Baudrillard to historical materialism and his deconstruction of Marxian theory of labor value. Making advantage of the brand-new method of Marxist context constitution, the author makes a critical and detailed reading of Youth Baudrillard's three most important academic books: For a Critique of Political Economy of Signs, The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death. And he makes a deep analysis on the academic and thinking basis of the Young Baudrillard, namely his logic of symbolic exchange based on grassroots' romanticism inspired from Mauss-Bataille; Furthermore, the author makes a clear distinction of the utmost secret transformative process of critical logic in the development of Baudrillard's thinking: from the dissolution of the ideographic material to the symbolic value of coding structure, then to the quasi-real existence without a model. And in the end the symbolic miscoding of death becomes the hopeless desire of Baudrillard's tentative salvation of the world. This is a death trilogy, which occurs in Baudrillard's academic scenery and in which the real existence is murdered. The thought of late Baudrillard, is something like a virus and paranoia. This kind of logical violence by theoretical violence has become an absurd modern academic cartoon in the excessive rational interpretation.