Information about Georges Bataille

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

French literature
French literary history
Medieval 16th century - 17th century 19th century -19th century 20th century - Contemporary
French Writers
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Georges Bataille (French IPA: [ʒɔʀʒ ba'taj]) (September 10, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer and philosopher, though he avoided this last term himself.

Life and work

Bataille was born in Billom (Auvergne). He initially considered priesthood and went to a Catholic seminary but renounced his faith in 1922.

Bataille attended the École des Chartes in Paris and graduated in February 1922. Bataille is often referred to, interchangeably, as an archivist and a librarian. While it is true that he worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale, his work there was with medallion collections (he also published scholarly articles on numismatics), and his thesis at the École des Chartes was a critical edition of the medieval manuscript L’Ordre 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.

Founder of several journals and literary groups, 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 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 Tel Quel journal. His influence is felt in the work of Jean Baudrillard, as well as in the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan.

Initially attracted 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, Freud, Marx, Marcel Mauss, the Marquis de Sade, Alexandre Kojève and Friedrich Nietzsche, the last of whom he defended in a notable essay against appropriation by the Nazis^[1].

Fascinated by human sacrifice, he founded a secret society, Acéphale, the symbol of which was a decapitated 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, concerned with Nietzsche's philosophy, and which attempted to think what Jacques Derrida has called an "anti-sovereignty". Bataille thus collaborated with André Masson, Pierre Klossowski, Roger Caillois, , Jean Rollin and Jean Wahl.

Bataille drew from diverse influences and used diverse modes of discourse to create his work. His novel Story of the Eye, 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 the posthumous My Mother (which would become the basis of Ma mère, a French movie written and directed by Christophe Honoré) and The Blue of Noon. The latter, with its necrophilic and political tendencies, its autobiographical or testimonial undertones, and its philosophical moments turns 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 Two, and 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 influential journal "Critique". His singular conception of "sovereignty" (which may be described as "anti-sovereignty") was discussed by Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Jean-Luc Nancy and others.

Bataille's first marriage was to actress ; 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, with whom he had a daughter.

Posthumous reputation

Bataille's works influenced a number of key philosophers and theorists towards the end of his life and after his death, including Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Lacan.

Quotes

• "Man goes constantly in fear of himself. His erotic urges terrify him."
• "Eroticism is assenting to life even in death."
• "The sovereign being is burdened with a servitude that crushes him, and the condition of free men is deliberate servility."
• "Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison."
• "Naturally, love's the most distant possibility."

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 destabilises 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 rationalisation. Base materialism was a major influence on Derrida's deconstruction, and both share the attempt to destabilise philosophical oppositions by means of an unstable "third term." Bataille's notion of Base 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

• eroticism
• accursed share
• potlatch
• acephality
• the pineal eye
• sacred
• the Solar Anus
• heterogeneous matter
• transgression
• immanence

References

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:

• 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.
• , Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie, Jr., 1985, University of Minnesota Press.
• , 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.
• , 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.
• , 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.

Secondary literature

• Ades, Dawn, and Simon Baker, Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and DOCUMENTS. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2006).
• Boldt-Irons, Leslie Anne (ed.), On Bataille: Critical Essays (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).
• Surya, Michel 'Georges Bataille, la mort à l'œuvre' (Gallimard: Paris, 1992)
• 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).
• Perniola, Mario, L'instant étérnel. Bataille et la pensée de la marginalité, translated by François Pelletier, preface to the French edition by the author, Paris, Méridien/Anthropos, 1981, ISBN 2-86563-024-2.
• 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

• Overview of Bataille
• George Bataille biography
• Georges Bataille Electronic Library
• Bataille's Apocalypse
• Extract from Bataille's Eroticism
• IMDb entry for Ma mère
• Hayward Gallery's 'Undercover Surrealism' site
• New Statesman feature on Bataille's exhibition
• Bataille on the Mystical Site www.mysticism.nl
• A sampling of Bataille texts
• Geoffrey Roche, "Bataille on Sade"