Notes on Jean Baudrillard and critical theory

These notes present some ways of calibrating critical theory to each phase of Jean Baudrillard's developing problematic of the relation of subject and object formations.These figure in his transition from critical to fatal theory -from his critique of the subject of history to his extrapolation of the objective strategies that challenge "integral technological reality."I identify them according to Baudrillard's writing primarily with the categories presented in critical thought as the proletariat, the masses and the mass media.These connect with themes of manipulation, emancipation, revolution, resistance, and with historical formations of subject-object relations based on a rejection of models of reification, alienation and commodity fetishism.I have focused mainly on Baudrillard's writings themselves to draw out the subject-object relations as they alter from power over the subject to the fatal strategies of the object.This parallels Baudrillard's increasing interest in the "destiny" of the object in his later writing.I then offer some less-known variants on the role of objective strategies he addresses in the final phase of his writing in relation to 'radical alterity'.