Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille
French Nietzscheanism[a]
Main interests	Eroticism, theory of sovereignty, sacredness, mysticism, surrealism, transgression, literary criticism
Notable ideas	Base Materialism, limit-experience, 'solar economy',[1] 'general economy'
Signature

Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (

Founder of several journals and literary groups, Bataille is the author of a large and diverse body of work: readings, poems, essays on innumerable subjects (on the mysticism of economy, poetry, philosophy, the arts and eroticism). He sometimes published under pseudonyms, and some of his publications were banned.^{[citation needed]} He was relatively ignored during 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 journal Tel Quel. His influence is felt most explicitly in the phenomenological work of Jean-Luc Nancy, but is also significant for the work of Jean Baudrillard, the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, and recent anthropological work from the likes of Michael Taussig.

Initially attracted to

Fascinated by human sacrifice, he founded a secret society, Acéphale, the symbol of which was a headless man. 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. The group also published an eponymous review of Nietzsche's philosophy which attempted to postulate what Derrida has called an "anti-sovereignty". Collaborators in these projects included André Masson, Pierre Klossowski, Roger Caillois, Jules Monnerot, Jean Rollin and Jean Wahl. The German philosopher and cultural critic, Walter Benjamin, described Bataille and Acéphale’s fascination with sacrifice as a “pre-fascist aestheticism”.^[7]

Bataille drew from diverse influences and used various modes of discourse to create his work. His novel

Bataille's first marriage was to actress Silvia Maklès, in 1928; they divorced in 1934, and she later married the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Bataille also had an affair with Colette Peignot, who died in 1938. In 1946 Bataille married Diane de Beauharnais (author, pseudonym, Selena Warfield),^[9] with whom he had a daughter.

In 1955 Bataille was diagnosed with cerebral arteriosclerosis, although he was not informed at the time of the terminal nature of his illness.^[10] He died seven years later, on 9 July 1962.

Bataille was an atheist.^[11]

Key concepts

Base materialism

Bataille developed base materialism during the late 1920s and early 1930s as an attempt to break with mainstream

The "accursed share"

La Part maudite is a book written by Bataille between 1946 and 1949, when it was published by Les Éditions de Minuit. It was translated into English and published in 1991, with the title The Accursed Share. It presents a new economic theory, which Bataille calls "general economy," as distinct from the "restricted" economic perspective of most economic theory. Thus, in the theoretical introduction, Bataille writes the following:

I will simply state, without waiting further, that the extension of economic growth itself requires the overturning of economic principles—the overturning of the ethics that grounds them. Changing from the perspectives of restrictive economy to those of general economy actually accomplishes a Copernican transformation: a reversal of thinking—and of ethics. If a part of wealth (subject to a rough estimate) is doomed to destruction or at least to unproductive use without any possible profit, it is logical, even inescapable, to surrender commodities without return. Henceforth, leaving aside pure and simple dissipation, analogous to the construction of the Pyramids, the possibility of pursuing growth is itself subordinated to giving: The industrial development of the entire world demands of Americans that they lucidly grasp the necessity, for an economy such as theirs, of having a margin of profitless operations. An immense industrial network cannot be managed in the same way that one changes a tire… It expresses a circuit of cosmic energy on which it depends, which it cannot limit, and whose laws it cannot ignore without consequences. Woe to those who, to the very end, insist on regulating the movement that exceeds them with the narrow mind of the mechanic who changes a tire.^[13]

Thus, according to Bataille's theory of consumption, the accursed share is that excessive and non-recuperable part of any economy which is destined to one of two modes of economic and social expenditure. This must either be spent luxuriously and knowingly without gain in the arts, in non-procreative sexuality, in spectacles and sumptuous monuments, or it is obliviously destined to an outrageous and catastrophic outpouring in war. Though the distinction is less apparent in Hurley's English translation, Bataille introduces the neologism "consummation" (akin to a fire's burning) to signal this excess expenditure as distinct from "consommation" (the non-excess expenditure more familiarly treated in theories of "restricted" economy).

The notion of "excess" energy is central to Bataille's thinking. Bataille's inquiry takes the superabundance of energy, beginning from the infinite outpouring of solar energy or the surpluses produced by life's basic chemical reactions, as the norm for organisms. In other words, an organism in Bataille's general economy, unlike the rational actors of classical economy who are motivated by scarcity, normally has an "excess" of energy available to it. This extra energy can be used productively for the organism's growth or it can be lavishly expended. Bataille insists that an organism's growth or expansion always runs up against limits and becomes impossible. The wasting of this energy is "luxury." The form and role luxury assumes in a society, are characteristic of that society. "The accursed share" refers to this excess, destined for waste.

Crucial to the formulation of the theory was Bataille's reflection upon the phenomenon of

The "dépense"

In his economic theory, Georges Bataille introduced the concept of "dépense," which refers to the non-productive expenditure of excess energy that transcends the mere requirements for survival. This concept challenges traditional economic paradigms by emphasizing the importance of unproductive uses of surplus that contribute to societal and cultural enrichment, rather than mere economic growth. Bataille's exploration of dépense highlights the philosophical and existential dimensions of how societies utilize their surplus resources.^[14]

Bibliography

A work-in-progress listing of Bataille's work and English translations can be found at Progressive Geographies.

Complete works

• Georges Bataille, Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard):
  • Vèolume 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 indifférencié 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
• Georges Bataille: Une liberté souveraine: Textes et entretiens, 2004 (articles, book reviews and interviews not included in Oeuvres Complètes, Michel Surya Ed.)

Works published in French

• Histoire de l'oeil, 1928 (Story of the Eye) (under pseudonym of Lord Auch)
• L'Anus solaire, 1931 (The Solar Anus)
• The Notion of Expenditure, 1933
• L'Amitié, 1940 (Friendship) (under pseudonym of Dianus; early version of Part One of Le Coupable)
• Madame Edwarda, 1941 (under pseudonym of Pierre Angélique, fictitiously dated 1937; 2nd Edition: 1945; 3rd Edition: 1956 published with preface in Bataille's name)^[15]
• Le Petit, 1943 (under pseudonym of Louis Trente; fictitious publication date of 1934)
• L'expérience intérieure
  , 1943 (Inner Experience)
• L'Archangélique, 1944 (The Archangelical)
• Le Coupable, 1944 (Guilty)
• Sur Nietzsche, 1945 (On
  Nietzsche
  )
• Dirty, 1945
• L'Orestie, 1945 (The Oresteia)
• Histoire de rats, 1947 (A Story of Rats)
• L'Alleluiah, 1947 (Alleluia: The Catechism of Dianus)
• Méthode de méditation, 1947 (Method of Meditation)
• La Haine de la Poésie, 1947 (The Hatred of Poetry; reissued in 1962 as The Impossible)
• La Scissiparité, 1949 (The Scission)
• La Part maudite
  , 1949 (The Accursed Share)
• L'Abbé C, 1950
• L'expérience intérieure, 1954 (second edition of Inner Experience, followed by Method of Meditation and Post-scriptum 1953)
• L'Être indifférencié n'est rien, 1954 (Undifferentiated Being is Nothing)
• Lascaux, ou la Naissance de l'Art, 1955
• Manet, 1955
• Le paradoxe de l'érotisme, Nouvelle Revue Française, n°29, 1er Mai 1955.
• Le Bleu du ciel
  , 1957 (written 1935–36) (Blue of Noon)
• La littérature et le Mal, 1957 (Literature and Evil)
• L'Erotisme, 1957 (Erotism)
• Le Coupable, 1961 (Guilty, second, revised edition, followed by Alleluia: The Catechism of Dianus)
• Les larmes d'Éros, 1961 (The Tears of Eros)
• L'Impossible : Histoire de rats suivi de Dianus et de L'Orestie, 1962 (The Impossible)

Posthumous works

• Ma Mère, 1966 (My Mother)
• Le Mort, 1967 (The Dead Man)
• Théorie de la Religion, 1973 (Theory of Religion)

Translated works

• Lascaux; or, the Birth of Art, the Prehistoric Paintings, Austryn Wainhouse, 1955, Lausanne: Skira.
• 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 Acephalica (Bataille et al), Iain White et al., 1995, Atlas Press.
• L'Abbé C, Philip A Facey, 2001, Marion Boyars Publishers.
• Blue of Noon, Harry Mathews
  , 2002, Marion Boyars Publishers.
• The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge, Stuart Kendall and Michelle Kendall, 2004, University of Minnesota Press.
• The Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture, Stuart Kendall, Michelle Kendall, 2009, Zone Books.
• Divine Filth: Lost Scatology and Erotica, Mark Spitzer, 2009, Solar Books.
• W.C., (fragmented) novel by Georges Bataille and
  ISBN 978-88-7580-150-2; accompanied with music by Alessandra Celletti and Jaan Patterson
  (Bubutz Records).
• Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, Mark Spitzer (ed.), 1998, 1999, Dufour Editions. Hardback is titled Collected Poetry of Georges Bataille, 1998.
• The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology, with additional texts by Roger Caillois, translated by Natasha Lehrer, John Harman and Meyer Barash, Atlas, 2018.

References

Further reading

• Ades, Dawn, and Simon Baker, Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and Documents. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
• Barthes, Roland. "The Metaphor of the Eye". In Critical Essays. Trans. Richard Howard. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1972). 239–248.
• Blanchot, Maurice. "The Limit-Experience". In The Infinite Conversation. Trans. Susan Hanson. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993). 202–229.
• Blanchot, Maurice. The Unavowable Community. Trans. Pierre Joris. (Barrytown, NY: Station Hill Press, 1988).
• Derrida, Jacques, "From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism without Reserve," in Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 1978).
• Duarte, German A. “La chose maudite. The concept of reification in George Bataille’s The Accursed Share”. in Human and Social Studies - De Gruyter Open. Vol. 5. Issue 1.(2016): 113–134.
• Foucault, Michel. "A Preface to Transgression". Trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon. In Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984. Ed. James D. Faubion (New York: New Press, 1998). 103–122.
• Hussey, Andrew, Inner Scar: The Mysticism of Georges Bataille (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000).
• Kendall, Stuart, Georges Bataille (London: Reaktion Books, Critical Lives, 2007).
• Krauss, Rosalind, No More Play in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (MIT Press, 1985).
• Land, Nick. The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism (London: Routledge, 1992)
• Lawtoo, Nidesh, The Phantom of the Ego: Modernism and the Mimetic Unconscious (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013).
• Nancy, Jean-Luc, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis & Oxford: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
• Roudinesco, Élisabeth, Jacques Lacan & Co.: a history of psychoanalysis in France, 1925-1985, 1990, Chicago: Chicago University Press.
• Roudinesco, Élisabeth, Jacques Lacan, Outline of a Life, History of a System of Thought, 1999, New York, Columbia University Press.
• Roudinesco, Élisabeth, Our Dark Side, A History of Perversion, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2009.
• Lexington Books
  , 2015).
• Sollers, Philippe, Writing and the Experience of Limits (Columbia University Press, 1982).
• Sontag, Susan. "The Pornographic Imagination." Styles of Radical Will. (Picador, 1967).
• Surya, Michel, Georges Bataille: an intellectual biography, trans. by Krzysztof Fijalkowski and Michael Richardson (London: Verso, 2002).
• Vanderwees, Chris, "Complicating Eroticism and the Male Gaze: Feminism and Georges Bataille's Story of the Eye." Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature. 38.1 (2014): 1–19.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Georges Bataille.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Georges Bataille.

• "Architecture" - short essay by Georges Bataille
• Petri Liukkonen. "Georges Bataille". Books and Writers.
• Popsubculture, Bio Project, George Bataille biography
• SOFT TARGETS Journal, Bataille's Apocalypse Archived 29 August 2018 at the Wayback Machine
• University of Wolverhampton, Extract from Bataille's Eroticism Archived 7 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine
• IMDb entry for Ma mère
• Hayward Gallery's 'Undercover Surrealism' site
• New Statesman, Bataille's exhibition
• Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts. Geoffrey Roche, "Bataille on Sade" Archived 7 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• Revue Silène, From Heterogeneity to the Sacred
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Jérome Bourgon's Bataille essay
• Out of line theatre's devised theatre creation based upon Bataille's "The Dead Man"
• "Toward General Economy," in the journal Scapegoat, issue 05, 2013