Georges Bataille

Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
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Name: Georges Bataille
Birth: September 10, 1897 (Billom, France)
Death: July 9, 1962
School/tradition: Continental philosophy
Main interests
Notable ideas
Influences	Influenced
Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Hegel, Sigmund Freud	Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida

Template:French literature (small) Georges Bataille (September 10, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided this last term himself.

Life and work

Bataille was born in Billom (Auvergne). He initially considered the priesthood and went to a Catholic seminary but renounced his faith in 1922. He is often quoted as regarding the brothels of Paris as his true churches, a sentiment which reflects the concepts in his work. He then worked as a librarian, thus keeping some relative freedom in not having to treat his thought as work.

Founder of several journals and groups of writers, Bataille is the author of an oeuvre both abundant and diverse: readings, poems, essays on innumerable subjects (on the mysticism of economy, in passing of poetry, philosophy, the arts, eroticism). He sometimes published under pseudonyms, and some of his publications were banned. He was relatively ignored in his lifetime and scorned by contemporaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre as an advocate of mysticism, but after his death had considerable influence on authors such as Michel Foucault, Philippe Sollers and Jacques Derrida, all of whom were affiliated with the Tel Quel journal. His influence is felt in the work of Jean Baudrillard, as well as in the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan.

Attracted early on to Surrealism, Bataille quickly fell out with its founder André Breton, although Bataille and the Surrealists resumed cautiously cordial relations after World War II. Bataille was a member of the extremely influential College of Sociology in France between World War I and World War II. The College of Sociology was also comprised of several renegade surrealists. He was heavily influenced by Hegel, especially through the humanist reading of Russian emigre,Alexandre Kojève. In addition, he was influenced by the works of Sigmund Freud, Marx, Marcel Mauss, the Marquis de Sade, and Friedrich Nietzsche, the last of whom he defended in a notable essay against appropriation by the Nazis.

Fascinated by human sacrifice, he founded a secret society, Acéphale (the headless), the symbol of which was a decapitated man, in order to instigate a new religion. According to legend, Bataille and the other members of Acéphale each agreed to be the sacrificial victim as an inauguration; none of them would agree to be the executioner. An indemnity was offered for an executioner, but none was found before the dissolution of Acéphale shortly before the war.

Bataille had an amazing interdisciplinary talent — he drew from diverse influences and used diverse modes of discourse to create his work. His novel The Story of the Eye, for example, published under the pseudonym Lord Auch (literally, Lord "to the shithouse" — "auch" being slang for telling somebody off by sending them to the toilet), was initially read as pure pornography, while interpretation of the work has gradually matured to reveal the considerable philosophical and emotional depth that is characteristic of other writers who have been categorized within "literature of transgression." The imagery of the novel is built upon a series of metaphors which in turn refer to philosophical constructs developed in his work: the eye, the egg, the sun, the earth, the testicle.

Other famous novels include "My Mother" and "The Blue of Noon." The latter, with its necrophilic and political tendencies, its autobiographical or testimonial undertones, and its philosophical moments turns "The Story of the Eye" on its head, providing a much darker and bleaker treatment of contemporary historical reality.

Bataille was also a philosopher (though he renounced this title), but for many, like Sartre, his philosophical claims bordered on atheist mysticism. During World War II, influenced by Kojève's reading of Hegel, and by Nietzsche, he wrote a Summa Atheologica (the title parallels Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica) which comprises his works "Inner Experience", "Guilty", and "On Nietzsche". After the war he composed his "The Accursed share", and founded the also extremely influential journal "Critique". His very special conception of "sovereignty" (which may be said an "anti-sovereignty") was discussed by Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy and others.

Bataille was twice married, first with the actress Silvia Maklès; they divorced in 1934, and she later married the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Bataille also had a liaison with Colette Peignot, who died in 1938. In 1946 Bataille married Diane de Beauharnais; they had one daughter.

Key concepts

Base materialism

Bataille developed base materialism during the late 1920s and early 1930s as an attempt to break with mainstream materialism. Bataille argues for the concept of an active base matter that disrupts the opposition of high and low and destabilizes all foundations. In a sense the concept is similar to Spinoza's neutral monism of a substance that encompasses both the dual substances of mind and matter posited by Descartes, however it defies strict definition and remains in the realm of experience rather than rationalization. Base materialism was a major influence on Derrida’s deconstruction, and both share the attempt to destabilize philosophical oppositions by means of an unstable ‘third term’.

Other

• eroticism
• the accursed share
• the potlatch (borrowed from Marcel Mauss's discussion of the kula and the gift economy)
• absolute negativity
• formlessness
• acephality
• the pineal eye- see Pineal: Mythology and Philosophy
• the sacred
• The Solar Anus
• heterogeneous matter (deviant social elements)
• homogeneity's need for deviance
• transgression
• immanence

Bibliography

Primary literature

Complete works

Georges Bataille, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard)

• Volume 1: Premiers écrits, 1922-1940: Histoire de l'œil - L'Anus solaire - Sacrifices - Articles.
• Volume 2: Écrits posthumes, 1922-1940
• Volume 3: Œuvres littéraires: Madame Edwarda - Le Petit - L'Archangélique - L'Impossible - La Scissiparité - L'Abbé C. - L'être différencié n'est rien - Le Bleu du ciel.
• Volume 4: Œuvres littéraires posthumes: Poèmes - Le Mort - Julie - La Maison brûlée - La Tombe de Louis XXX - Divinus Deus - Ébauches.
• Volume 5: La Somme athéologique I: L'Expérience intérieure - Méthode de méditation - Post-scriptum 1953 - Le Coupable - L'Alleluiah.
• Volume 6: La Somme athéologique II: Sur Nietzsche - Mémorandum - Annexes.
• Volume 7: L'économie à la mesure de l'univers - La Part maudite - La limite de l'utile (Fragments) - Théorie de la Religion - Conférences 1947-1948 - Annexes.
• Volume 8: L'Histoire de l'érotisme - Le surréalisme au jour le jour - Conférences 1951-1953 - La Souveraineté - Annexes.
• Volume 9: Lascaux, ou La naissance de l’art - Manet - La littérature et le mal - Annexes
• Volume 10: L’érotisme - Le procès de Gilles de Rais - Les larmes d’Eros
• Volume 11: Articles I, 1944-1949
• Volume 12: Articles II, 1950-1961

Selected works:

• Histoire de l'oeil, 1928. (Story of the Eye) (under pseudonym of Lord Auch)
• Le Bleu du ciel, 1935 (Blue of Noon)
• Madame Edwarda, 1937. (under pseudonym of Pierre Angélique)
• L'expérience intérieure, 1943. (Inner Experience)
• La Part maudite, 1949 (The Accursed Share)
• L'Abbe C, 1950.
• L'Erotisme, 1957 (Erotism)
• La littérature et le Mal, 1957. (Literature and Evil)
• Les larmes d'Éros, 1961. (The Tears of Eros)
• L'Impossible, 1962. (The Impossible)
• Ma Mére, 1966 (My Mother)
• Le Mort, 1967 (The Dead Man)
• Théorie de la Religion, 1973. (Theory of Religion)

Translated works:

• Manet, Austryn Wainhouse and James Emmons, 1955, Editions d'Art Albert Skira.
• Literature and Evil, Alastair Hamilton, 1973, Calder & Boyars Ltd.
• Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie, Jr., 1985, University of Minnesota Press.
• Erotism: Death and Sensuality, Mary Dalwood, 1986, City Lights Books.
• Story of the Eye, Joachim Neugroschel, 1987, City Lights Books.
• The Accursed Share: An Essay On General Economy. Volume I: Consumption, Robert Hurley, 1988, Zone Books.
• The College of Sociology, 1937–39 (Bataille et al.), Betsy Wing, 1988, University of Minnesota Press.
• Guilty, Bruce Boone, 1988, The Lapis Press.
• Inner Experience, Leslie Anne Boldt, 1988, State University of New York.
• My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man, Austryn Wainhouse, with essays by Yukio Mishima and Ken Hollings, 1989, Marion Boyars Publishers.
• The Tears of Eros, Peter Connor, 1989, City Lights Books.
• Theory of Religion, Robert Hurley, 1989, Zone Books.
• The Accursed Share: Volumes II and III, Robert Hurley, 1991, Zone Books.
• The Impossible, Robert Hurley, 1991, City Lights Books.
• The Trial of Gilles de Rais, Richard Robinson, 1991, Amok Press.
• On Nietzsche, Bruce Boone, 1992, Paragon House.
• The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism, Michael Richardson, 1994, Verso.
• Encyclopaedia Acephaclica (Bataille et al.), Iain White et al., 1995, Atlas Press.
• L'Abbe C, Philip A Facey, 2001, Marion Boyars Publishers.
• Blue of Noon, Harry Matthews, 2002, Marion Boyars Publishers.
• The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge, Stuart Kendall and Michelle Kendall, 2004, University of Minnesota Press.

Secondary literature

• Boldt-Orons, Leslie Anne (ed.), On Bataille: Critical Essays (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).
• Connor, Peter, Georges Bataille and the Mysticism of Sin (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).
• Derrida, Jacques, "From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve," in Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 1978).
• Gill, Carolyn, Bataille: Writing the Sacred, (London: Routledge, 1995).
• ffrench, Patrick, The Cut (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
• Gemerchak, Christopher, The Sunday of the Negative: Reading Bataille Reading Hegel (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003).
• Hill, Lesley, "Bataile, Klossowski, Blanchot: Writing At The Limit" (Oxford University Press, 2001).
• Hollier, Denis, Against Architecture: The Writings of Georges Bataille (MIT Press, 1992).
• Hussey, Andrew, Inner Scar: The Mysicism of Georges Bataille (Amsterdam: Rudopi, 2000).
• Land, Nick, The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (an essay on atheistic religion) (London: Routledge, 1992).
• Nancy, Jean-Luc, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis & Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
• Noys, Benjamin, Georges Bataille: a critical introduction (London: Pluto, 2000).
• Richardson, Michael, Georges Bataille (London: Routledge, 1994).
• Sollers, Philippe, Writing and the Experience of Limits (Columbia University Press, 1982).
• Stoekl, Allan (ed.), On Bataille: Yale French Studies 78 (1990). Includes: Bataille, "Hegel, Death and Sacrifice"; Bataille, "Letter to René Char on the Incompatibilities of the Writer"; Jean-Luc Nancy, "Exscription"; Rebecca Comay, "Gifts without Presents: Economies of 'Experience' in Bataille and Heidegger"; Jean-Joseph Goux, "General Economics and Postmodern Capitalism."
• Surya, Michel, Georges Bataille: an intellectual biography, trans. by Krzysztof Fijalkowski and Michael Richardson (London: Verso, 2002).

External links

• Bataille material by James Comas at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
• Overview of Bataille
• George Bataille biography
• Georges Bataille Electronic Library
• Bataille's Apocalypse
• Extract from Bataille's Eroticism
• Bataille on the Mystical Site www.mysticism.nl

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