The Desert of Cool Theory takes its name from Jean Baudrillard's formulation, the desert of the real, in which reality becomes so manufactured as to become hyperreality, empty in itself, a barren possibility.

"Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal. The territory no longer preceds the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory - precession of simulacra - that engenders the territory, and if one must return to the fable, today it is the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself." - Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

This TFU faculty primarily serves as a reference page for obscure theoretical concepts, providing definitions with bibliography, and the occasional essay. TFU believes that academic knowledge does not belong in a ivory tower, but in the hands of the masses, and that academia must constantly prove its relevance to the outside world.

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(The Desert of Cool Theory is undergoing a sandstorm, navigation is temporarily disabled. Look for the Blind Camel on your way out.)