Georges Bataille was a French essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often referred to as the "metaphysician of evil." His work delves into themes of sex, death, degradation, and the potent allure of the obscene, challenging conventional literary boundaries. Bataille posited that the ultimate goal of all intellectual, artistic, and religious endeavors should be the annihilation of the rational self within a violent, transcendental act of communion. His profound explorations have garnered enthusiastic commentary from notable figures like Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers.
Exploring the depths of surrealism, this collection of essays by George Bataille offers a thought-provoking analysis that challenges conventional perspectives. Renowned for his controversial views, Bataille delves into the intersection of art, philosophy, and the human experience, making a significant contribution to the understanding of surrealism. His incisive writing invites readers to confront complex themes and embrace the provocative nature of the surrealist movement.
Georges Bataille's postwar writings reflect his quest to navigate the moral and political challenges of his time. Through the journal Critique, which he founded in 1946, he explored the sacred's role in modernity and critiqued existing moral frameworks, advocating for a new hyper-morality that embraces excess. This collection features essays addressing influential figures like Samuel Beckett and themes such as American politics, existentialism, and the nature of play. Bataille's work challenges readers to reconsider societal limitations on expression and human experience.
Including a number of short essays by Bataille and Leiris on aspects of the other's work as well as excerpts on Bataille from Leiris' diaries, this collection of correspondence throws new light on two of Surrealism's most radical dissidents. In the autumn of 1924, just before André Breton published the Manifeste du surréalisme, two young men met in Paris for the first time. Georges Bataille, 27, starting work at the Bibliothèque Nationale; Michel Leiris, 23, beginning his studies in ethnology. Within a few months, they were both members of the Surrealist group, although their adherence to Surrealism (unlike their affinities with it) would not last long: in 1930 they were among the signatories of "Un cadavre," the famous tract against Breton, the "Machiavelli of Montmartre," as Leiris put it. But their friendship would endure for more than 30 years, and their correspondence, assembled here for the first time in English, would continue until the death of Bataille in 1962.
The first English-language translation of an essential, early work key to understanding the French philosopher's later thought. In the decade prior to the publication of Inner Experience (L’expérience intérieure), the twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille produced a nascent masterwork containing some of his most original and extensive reflections on a range of subjects. With thoughts on ritual sacrifice and military conquest, the nature of laughter, and the mechanisms of capitalism, The Limit of the Useful, as Bataille had planned to title the work, illuminates the philosopher’s later corpus, yet it remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and untranslated until now. This is the first English-language translation of what Cory Austin Knudson and Tomas Elliott argue is one of Bataille’s most structurally consistent works. Paired with draft essays and plans for The Accursed Share, along with over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes, the volume distinctively elaborates Bataille’s thought. The Limit of the Useful spans a decade of rich intellectual ferment in Bataille’s life as he first formulated his challenge to capitalism, engaging with concepts and ideas in ways not seen in his other published works. The volume bridges the gap between Bataille’s surrealist literary writings and later scientific pretensions, drawing attention to, and filling in, an overlooked lacuna in his oeuvre.
Exploring the complexities of an enigmatic thinker, this book delves into the literary, philosophical, and theological themes that define their work. It offers fresh insights and perspectives, illuminating the intricate connections between their ideas and broader cultural contexts. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the intellectual landscape shaped by this influential figure, enriching their appreciation of their contributions to literature and thought.
Having spent the early thirties in far-left groups opposing Fascism, in 1937 Georges Bataille abandoned this approach so as to transfer the struggle onto the mythological plane, founding two groups with this aim in mind. The College of Sociology gave lectures attended by major figures from the Parisian intelligentsia - intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society that appeared to be bordering on collapse. The texts in this book comprise lectures given to the College; essays from the Acephale journal and a large cache of the internal papers of the secret society of Acephale.
Outlines a mystical theology and experience of the sacred founded on the absence of god. Originally published in 1943, Inner Experience is the single most significant work by one of the twentieth centurys most influential writers. It outlines a mystical theology and experience of the sacred founded on the absence of god. Bataille calls Inner Experience a narrative of despair, but also describes it as a book wherein profundity and passion go tenderly hand in hand. Herein, he says, The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy take shape. Batailles search for experience begins where religion, philosophy, science, and literature leave off, where doctrines, dogmas, methods, and the arts collapse. His method of meditation, outlined and documented here, commingles horror and delight. Laughter, intoxication, eroticism, poetry, and sacrifice are pursued not as ends in and of themselves but as means of access to a sovereign realm of inner experience. This new translation is the first to include Method of Meditation and Post-Scriptum 1953, the supplementary texts Bataille added to create the first volume of his Summa Atheologica. This edition also offers the full notes and annotations from the French edition of Batailles Oeuvres Complètes, along with an incisive introductory essay by Stuart Kendall that situates the work historically, biographically, and philosophically.
