Seduction
| Author | Jean Baudrillard (translated by Brian Singer) |
|---|---|
| Published | 1979 |
| Format | Book |
TL;DR — Baudrillard’s 1979 essay that sets seduction, a play of appearances and signs, against production, sex and psychoanalysis as ways of thinking about society.
First published as De la séduction by Éditions Galilée in 1979; Brian Singer’s English translation appeared in 1990 in the CultureTexts series edited by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker. This copy is the 2001 CTheory Books electronic edition.
Baudrillard argues that modern thought, from Marx to Freud to the sexual liberation movements, reduces everything to production and hidden truth, while seduction works through surfaces, games, ritual and artifice. He develops the idea through readings of femininity, Kierkegaard’s Diary of a Seducer, games and chance, and media. It sits between his earlier work on consumer society and his later Simulacra and Simulation.
What it is: a well-known, in-copyright work of French postmodern theory; dense and deliberately provocative rather than empirical.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
187 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.