Phantom Communities: The Simulacrum and the Limits of Postmodernism

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 t...