The three volumes of The Accursed Share address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end ...

This volume collects the most intimate writings of one of the foremost French thinkers of the twentieth century on the central topic of his oeuvre. These essays, aphorisms ...

His is a journey marked by the questioning of experience itself, until what is reached is sovereign laughter, non-knowledge, and a Presence in no way distinct from Absence ...

For Bataille, 'the absence of myth' had itself become the myth of the modern age. In a world that had 'lost the secret of its cohesion', Bataille saw surrealism as both a ...

Bruce Holsinger identifies and explains an affinity for medievalism and medieval studies among the leading figures of critical theory. His book contains original essays by ...

Reprint. Originally published: Death and sensuality. New York: Walker, 1962.

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 ...

The Tears of Eros is the culmination of Georges Bataille's inquiries into the relationship between violence and the sacred. Taking up such figures as Giles de Rais, Erzebet ...