Georges Bataille

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Georges Bataille

Born
Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille
10 September 1897
Billom, France
Died
9 July 1962 (aged 64)
Paris, France
Era 20th-century philosophy
Region Western Philosophy
School Continental philosophy
Influenced by[show]

Influenced[show]



Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (French pronunciation: [ou ba'taj]) (10
September 1897 9 July 1962) was a French intellectual and literary figure working in
literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art. Eroticism,
sovereignty, and transgression are at the core of his writings.
Contents
1 Life and work
2 Key concepts
o 2.1 Base materialism
o 2.2 Other
3 Bibliography
o 3.1 Primary literature
o 3.2 Secondary literature
4 References
5 External links
Life and work
Georges Bataille was the son of Joseph-Aristide Bataille (b. 1851), a tax collector, and
Antoinette-Aglae Tournarde (b. 1865). Born in Billom in the region of Auvergne, his
family moved to Reims in 1898, where he was baptized.
[1]
He went to school in Reims
and then pernay. Although brought up without religious observance, he "converted" to
Catholicism in 1914, and became a devout Catholic for about nine years. He considered
entering the priesthood and attended a Catholic seminary briefly. However, he quit,
apparently in part in order to pursue an occupation where he could eventually support
his mother. He eventually renounced Christianity in the early 1920s.
[2]

Bataille attended the cole des Chartes in Paris, graduating in February 1922. Though
he is often referred to as an archivist and a librarian because of his employment at the
Bibliothque Nationale, his work there was with the medallion collections (he also
published scholarly articles on numismatics). His thesis at the cole des Chartes was a
critical edition of the medieval manuscript LOrdre de chevalerie which he produced
directly by classifying the eight manuscripts from which he reconstructed the poem.
After graduating he moved to the School of Advanced Spanish Studies in Madrid. As a
young man, he befriended, and was much influenced by, the Russian existentialist, Lev
Shestov.
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, eroticism). He sometimes published
under pseudonyms, and some of his publications were banned. 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 and Julia Kristeva, and recent anthropological
work from the likes of Michael Taussig.
Initially attracted to Surrealism, Bataille quickly fell out with its founder Andr 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 which
included several other renegade surrealists. He was heavily influenced by Hegel, Freud,
Marx, Marcel Mauss, the Marquis de Sade, Alexandre Kojve, and Friedrich Nietzsche,
the last of whom he defended in a notable essay against appropriation by the Nazis.
[3]

Fascinated by human sacrifice, he founded a secret society, Acphale, the symbol of
which was a decapitated man. According to legend, Bataille and the other members of
Acphale 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 Acphale shortly before the war. The group
also published an eponymous review of Nietzsche's philosophy which attempted to
postulate what Jacques Derrida has called an "anti-sovereignty". Collaborators in these
projects included Andr Masson, Pierre Klossowski, Roger Caillois, Jules Monnerot,
Jean Rollin and Jean Wahl.
Bataille drew from diverse influences and used various modes of discourse to create his
work. His novel Story of the Eye (Histoire de l'oeil), published under the pseudonym
Lord Auch (literally, Lord "to the shithouse" "auch" being short for "aux chiottes,"
slang for telling somebody off by sending him to the toilet), was initially read as pure
pornography, while interpretation of the work has gradually matured to reveal the same
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 the posthumously published My Mother (which would
become the basis of Christophe Honor's film Ma mre), The Impossible and Blue of
Noon, which, with its necrophilia, politics, and autobiographical undertones, is a much
darker treatment of contemporary historical reality.
During World War II Bataille produced Summa Atheologica (the title parallels Thomas
Aquinas' Summa Theologica) which comprises his works "Inner Experience," "Guilty,"
and "On Nietzsche." After the war he composed The Accursed Share, which he said
represented thirty years' work. The singular conception of "sovereignty" expounded
there would become an important topic of discussion for Derrida, Giorgio Agamben,
Jean-Luc Nancy and others. Bataille also founded the influential journal Critique.
Bataille's first marriage was to actress Silvia Makls, 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, 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.
[4]
He died seven years later, on
9 July 1962.
Key concepts
Base materialism
Bataille developed base materialism during the late 1920s and early 1930s as an attempt
to break with mainstream materialism. He argues for the concept of an active base
matter that disrupts the opposition of high and low and destabilises all foundations. In a
sense the concept is similar to Spinoza's neutral monism of a substance that
encompasses both the mind and the matter posited by Descartes; however, it defies
strict definition and remains in the realm of experience rather than rationalisation. Base
materialism was a major influence on Derrida's deconstruction, and both thinkers
attempt to destabilise philosophical oppositions by means of an unstable "third term."
Bataille's notion of materialism may also be seen as anticipating Althusser's conception
of aleatory materialism or "materialism of the encounter," which draws on similar
atomist metaphors to sketch a world in which causality and actuality are abandoned in
favor of limitless possibilities of action.
Other
The Accursed Share
Erotism
Heterogeneous matter
Immanence
Limit-experience
The Pineal Eye
Potlatch
Sovereignty
The Sacred
Slow slicing
The Solar Anus
Transgression
Bibliography
Primary literature
Complete works
Georges Bataille, uvres compltes (Paris: Gallimard)
Volume 1: Premiers crits, 19221940: Histoire de l'il - L'Anus solaire -
Sacrifices - Articles.
Volume 2: crits posthumes, 19221940
Volume 3: uvres littraires: Madame Edwarda - Le Petit - L'Archanglique -
L'Impossible - La Scissiparit - L'Abb C. - L'tre diffrenci n'est rien - Le Bleu
du ciel.
Volume 4: uvres littraires posthumes: Pomes - Le Mort - Julie - La Maison
brle - La Tombe de Louis XXX - Divinus Deus - bauches.
Volume 5: La Somme athologique I: L'Exprience intrieure - Mthode de
mditation - Post-scriptum 1953 - Le Coupable - L'Alleluiah.
Volume 6: La Somme athologique II: Sur Nietzsche - Mmorandum - Annexes.
Volume 7: L'conomie la mesure de l'univers - La Part maudite - La limite de
l'utile (Fragments) - Thorie de la Religion - Confrences 1947-1948 - Annexes.
Volume 8: L'Histoire de l'rotisme - Le surralisme au jour le jour -
Confrences 1951-1953 - La Souverainet - Annexes.
Volume 9: Lascaux, ou La naissance de lart - Manet - La littrature et le mal -
Annexes
Volume 10: Lrotisme - Le procs de Gilles de Rais - Les larmes dEros
Volume 11: Articles I, 19441949
Volume 12: Articles II, 19501961
Georges Bataille: Une libert souveraine: Textes et entretiens, 2004. (Articles,
Book Reviews and Interviews not included in Oeuvres Compltes, 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'Amit, 1940 (Friendship) (under pseudonym of Dianus - Early version of Part
One of Le Coupable)
Madame Edwarda, 1941. (under pseudonym of Pierre Anglique - Fictitiously
dated 1937; 2nd Edition - 1945; 3rd Edition - 1956 published with preface in
Bataille's name)
[5]

Le Petit, 1943. (under pseudonym of Louis Trente; fictitious publication date of
1934)
L'exprience intrieure, 1943. (Inner Experience)
L'Archanglique, 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)
Mthode de mditation, 1947. (Method of Meditation)
La Haine de la Posie, 1947. (The Hatred of Poetry - reissued in 1962 as The
Impossible)
La Scissiparit, 1949. (The Scission)
La Part maudite, 1949. (The Accursed Share)
L'Abbe C, 1950.
L'exprience intrieure, 1954 (second edition of Inner Experience, followed by
Method of Meditation and Post-scriptum 1953)
L'tre indiffrence n'est rien, 1954. (Undifferentiated Being is Nothing)
Lascaux, ou la Naissance de l'Art, 1955.
Manet, 1955.
Le Bleu du ciel, 1957 (Written 1935-36) (Blue of Noon)
La littrature 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'ros, 1961. (The Tears of Eros)
L'Impossible : Histoire de rats suivi de Dianus et de L'Orestie, 1962. (The
Impossible)
Posthumous works:
Ma Mre, 1966 (My Mother)
Le Mort, 1967 (The Dead Man)
Thorie 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, 193739 (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'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.
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.
"WC" Georges Bataille and Antonio Contiero - W.C. a surrealistic novel of sex,
madness and death edited by Transeuropa Edizioni - Massa (Italy) 9/2011
Accompanied with Music by Alessandra Celletti & Jaan Patterson
Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, Mark Spitzer, 1998, 1999, Dufour
Editions. Hardback is titled Collected Poetry of Georges Bataille, 1998.
Secondary literature
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).
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:
Rudopi, 2000).
Krauss, Rosalind, No More Play in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and
Other Modernist Myths (MIT Press, 1985)
Nancy, Jean-Luc, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis & Oxford:
University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Jacques Lacan & Co.: a history of psychoanalysis in
France, 1925-1985, 1990, Chicago,Chicago University Press
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Jacques Lacan, Outline of a Life, History of a System of
Thought, 1999, New York, Columbia University Press.
Roudinesco, Elisabeth, Our Dark Side, A History of Perversion, Cambridge,
Polity Press, 2009.
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).
References
1. ^ This fact is not mentioned in the biography by Michel Surya, but see the Chronology
in Georges Bataille, Romans et rcits, Pleiade 2004, p. XCIV.
2. ^ Michel Surya, Georges Bataille: an intellectual biography; Georges Bataille, Choix
de lettres (Paris: NRF)
3. ^ Bataille, Georges. "Nietzsche and Fascists", Acphale, January 1937
4. ^ Surya, Michel. Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography, p. 474.
5. ^ Oeuvres Completes III, pg. 491

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