Hyperreality

Why is there a Parthenon… in Nashville? Jean Baudrillard might have the answer. In Episode 112 of Overthink, Ellie and David pick apart hyperreality: the provocative suggestion that our reality today is so inundated by signs that the gap between reality and simulation has all but broken down. Your hosts talk through the history and experience of hyperreality, from its presence in Superman and Bridgerton to its uncanny role in legitimizing presidential power. And they wonder: does the idea of hyperreality motivate political action, or does it slide into complacent provincialism?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed
Jean Baudrillard, America
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Sadie Plant, The Most Radical Gesture
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

An American Family (1973)
Superman (1978)
Love Island (2023)
Bridgerton (2005)

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