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French Philosopher Jean Baudrillard Dies at 77

The French philosopher and Sociologist Jean Baudrillard died in France, last week. Baudrillard is considered one of the most important post-structuralisms thinkers, and is one of the last thinkers of the generation brought on by the French Student Revolution of 1968. His writings portrayed the collapse of the traditional perception of consumer society, a topic he dealt with mainly in his important book "Simulacra and simulation."

Baudrillard was born in 1929, in Reims, France, and was well known as a avid provoker. For example, he stirred up quite a storm with his book "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place," in which he claimed that the (first) Gulf War was the first war to take place on the television screen. He studied German at the Sorbonne University in Paris and taught German in a lyc?e, from 1958 to 1966. He had worked as a translator and critic and continued to study philosophy and sociology. In 1966 he completed his Ph.D. thesis "The system of objects" under the tutelage of Henri Lefebvre. From 1966 to 1972 he worked as assistant professor. In 1972 he finished his habilitation "The Other, by oneself," and started teaching Sociology at the Universit? de Paris-X Nanterre as a professor.

From 1986 to 1990 Baudrillard served as scientific director at IRIS (Institut de Recherche et d`Information Socio-?conomique) at the Universit? de Paris-IX Dauphine. He continued to support the Institut de Recherche sur l`Innovation Sociale at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and was Satrap at the Coll?ge de Pataphysique until his death, on March 6, after a long illness.