Georges Bataille Boeken

"Hailed as "one of France's best minds" by Martin Heidegger, Georges Bataille has become one of the most influential thinkers in America. Barthes, Foucault, Derrida, and Kristeva all acknowledge their debt to him." "For the first time translated into English, On Nietzsche is the third and last volume of Bataille's crowning achievement, The Atheological Summa, which includes the books Inner Experience and Guilty. Originally published in France in 1945, On Nietzsche comes as close as Bataille could ever come to formulating a system of his own - an "atheology."" "Nietzsche was a major influence on Bataille's life. In 1915, in a crisis of guilt after leaving his blind father in the hands of the Germans, Bataille converted to Catholicism. It was Nietzsche's work that led him to abandon Catholicism for an idiosyncratic form of godless mysticism. In this volume Bataille becomes, and goes beyond, Nietzsche, assuming Nietzsche's thought where he left off - with God's death. The heart of this book explores how one can have a spiritual life outside religion." "Throughout, Bataille argues against fascist interpretations of Nietzsche. He writes of Nietzsche's falling out with Richard Wagner and his disgust for German anti-Semitism. He lauds Nietzsche as a prophet foretelling "the crude German fate," and in the appendix Bataille defends himself against Sartre." "On Nietzsche is essentially a journal that brilliantly mixes observations with ruminations in fragments, aphorisms, poems, myths, quotations, and images against the background of the war and the German occupation. Bataille has a unique way of moving breezily from abstraction to confession, and from theology to eroticism, skillfully weaving together his own internal experience of anguish with the war and the destruction raging outside. This volume reconfirms Michel Foucault's words: "[Bataille] broke with traditional narrative to tell us what has never been told before.""--Jacket

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.

The narrative explores a profound spiritual and communal crisis, highlighting how the death of God serves as a catalyst for forging deep friendships. It delves into the transformative power of connection amidst turmoil, revealing how loss can lead to new beginnings and bonds. Through personal reflections, the author navigates themes of faith, companionship, and the human experience in the face of existential challenges.

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 century’s 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.” Bataille’s 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 Bataille’s Oeuvres Complètes, along with an incisive introductory essay by Stuart Kendall that situates the work historically, biographically, and philosophically.

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.

Since the publication of Visions of Excess in 1985, there has been an explosion of interest in the work of Georges Bataille. The French surrealist continues to be important for his groundbreaking focus on the visceral, the erotic, and the relation of society to the primeval. This collection of prewar writings remains the volume in which Batailles's positions are most clearly, forcefully, and obsessively put forward. This book challenges the notion of a "closed economy" predicated on utility, production, and rational consumption, and develops an alternative theory that takes into account the human tendency to lose, destroy, and waste. This collection is indispensible for an understanding of the future as well as the past of current critical theory.Georges Bataille (1897-1962), a librarian by profession, was founder of the French review Critique. He is the author of several books, including Story of the Eye, The Accused Share, Erotism, and The Absence of Myth.

Georges Bataille's exploration of sacrifice, eroticism, taboo, and transgression offers profound insights into social theory, making his work pivotal in modern and postmodern discourse. His influence on prominent thinkers like Foucault and Derrida underscores his significance in contemporary philosophy. This volume curates selections from his extensive academic contributions, highlighting the interplay between identity and societal constructs, thereby enriching discussions surrounding post-structuralism and the complexities of human experience.

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.