Stratagem of the Corpse: Dying with Baudrillard, a Study of Sickness and Simulacra

This book is unique in its dedicated tackling of the subject of death in the work of Jean Baudrillard. Through new readings of his work, the book makes so patently clear the importance of Baudrillard’s tendency to poeticize, his core indebtedness to Georges Bataille, Alfred Jarry, and others, and his reliance on paradox. Ultimately, Stratagem of the Corpse is less a making sense of death and more a transcript of what occurred when death made sense of us, a reverse thanatology in which death delineates the variant forms of our encroachment, not so much death as seen by Baudrillard but Baudrillard as seen by death.

Gary J. Shipley, independent scholar and writer, is the author of ten books, and has published widely in literary journals, academic journals and anthologies. He has taught philosophy at the University of Kent.