Georges Bataille : Core Cultural Theorist

by Paul Hegarty

• ISBN13: 9780761960782
• ISBN10: 0761960783
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-11-13
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

Summary

Long recognized in France as a central figure in French cultural thought, the range and significance of Batille's ideas are now being grasped in the English speaking world. His influence on Derrida, Foucault, Kristeva and Baudrillard is now more clearly understood and Bataille has emerged as a front-rank cultural theorist who posed questions and paradoxes that were extraordinarily prescient. This book offers a comprehensive and detailed presentation and analysis of the full range of his writings - political, philosophical, aesthetic, literary, anthropological and cultural. And tackles his thoughts on waste, sacrifice, death, eroticism, surplus, ecstasy and drunkenness, offering the best available guide to this challenging and utterly unique thinker.

Table of Contents

Note on References	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(15)
System	16	(16)
General Economy	32	(23)
Death	55	(16)
Sovereignty	71	(17)
Community and Sacrifice	88	(16)
Eroticism and Transgression	104	(26)
Art and Aesthetics	130	(16)
Politics	146	(12)
End: Silence	158	(3)
Bibliography	161	(10)
Index	171