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Title: Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times by Omar Calabrese ISBN: 0-691-03171-1 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 June, 1992 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: Postmodernism revised: an insghtful analysis of our culture
Comment: What Calabrese terms as neo-baroque culture or aesthetics is what other authors define as postmodern. This is a labeling problem and it is not important. Calabrese, who belongs to the semiology school of Umberto Eco, and is his fellow colleague at the University of Bologna, goes much further than that. Mostly using theories from the field of semiology, he produces a very clever, interesting and systematic analysis of contemporary culture, based on the study of diverse cultural productions, such as films, novels, TV series, art and scientific theories. He asks, for example: "What do Alien, Bonanza, contemporary design, The Name of the Rose, fractal geometry and chaos theories have in common?". This seems an extremely wide range of subjects to tackle in a single book. But they all have one thing in common: they are cultural products, and Calabrese approaches them with his semiotic tools, reading them all as texts that can be structurally interpreted. His aim is to discover and describe a specific character and the main components underlying those products (that of the neo-baroque), which can be identified, structurally, in any manifestation of culture, be it a film, a book, a video game or a scientific theory. The analysis that results is very well articulated, original and insightful. He provides a very interesting set of reflections on the semiological and sociological characteristics of culture, taste and percepcion in contemporary society. The most valuable chapters of the book, in my opinion, are those wihch deal with the analysis of film (Alien, ET, Blade Runner, Star Wars), TV series (Bonanza, Dallas) and books (The Name of the Rose). Coming from the social sciences, it is evident that mass media and art are what Calabrese is most acquainted with. The chapters in which he studies scientific theories from mathematics, geometry of physics are somewhat weaker. However, emphasis is put in the former subjects and the result is, as I have said, an articulated theory of the neo-baroque, which is original and cleverly justified with Calabrese's skill in semiotic analysis. I would say that this book is a bit complex, so it is easier to read if you have some knowledge of semiology or sociology, or some experience in reading social science or art theory. Calabrese is as good as Frederic Jameson or Paul Virilio in interpreting contemporary culture.