Phantom communities

Phantom Communities reconsiders the status of the simulacrum - sometimes defined as a copy of a copy, but more rigorously defined as a copy that subverts the legitimacy and authority of its model - in light of recent debates in literature, art, philosophy, and cultural studies. The author pursues two interwoven levels of analysis. On one level, he explores the poetics of the simulacrum, considered as a form that internalizes repetition, through close readings of a number of exemplary literary texts, paintings, and films from both the Anglo-American and French traditions, including works by Jean Genet, Pierre Klossowski, Rene Magritte, Andy Warhol, J. G. Ballard, Balthus, and Raul Ruiz. On another level, the author offers an account of the role played by the simulacrum as a theoretical concept that assumes varying analytical and ideological valences in the writings of such theorists as Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze.