30 pages 1 hour read

Guy Debord

The Society of the Spectacle

Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1967

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Key Figures

Guy Debord

Guy Debord was born 1931 in Paris; since the early 1950s, Debord spearheaded radical critiques of life in modern society. For the French radicalization processes of May 1968, he was crucially involved with the Situationist International. His handful of films are meanwhile considered the earliest attempts at a radical use of the medium; as early as 1952, using an extremely formal and content-related skeletal structure, his films waged an organized attack on cinema as the medium of the ruling class. More important, however, was the concept of the “Construction of the Situation” introduced by Debord in the mid-1950s, in the context of discussing artistic means, and later used only formally but while allowing for meaningful reassessments of the Situationists. From the mid-1970s onward, Debord led a secluded life. He committed suicide in Paris in 1994 and had his remains cremated in order to avoid his grave becoming another spectacle for tourists to come visit. 

Karl Marx

Karl Marx is perhaps best known for being one of the co-authors of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which is typically referred to as the Communist Manifesto. Marx was born on May 5, 1818 in Trier, Germany. He originally began his university studies in law but soon switched to philosophy.

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