C LIT 596: Special Studies

Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio are generally regarded as two of media studies most notorious pessimists and hyperbolists. Yet they are also theorists who treat the media as technological systems that transcend the traditionally held boundaries of the cultural, economic, social and political. This course will place Baudrillard and Virilio in a context of media theory and technology studies rooted in the work of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan while demonstrating important differences between these figures. We will engage in close readings of Baudrillard?s and Virilio?s major works as well as some of the writings of their interlocutors.