Download The Bataille Reader by Georges Bataille (Collection of 35 essays) Free PDF book





In the most literal sense, Bataille's writings are personal: the narrations (pornography, poems), philosophical discourses (Inner Experience, On Nietzsche) and interpretations (book review, art criticism) he put forward are originated from his intense desire to appropriate life's meaning/mystery. Interspersed over the pages in present Reader are principal leitmotivs of Bataille: laughter, death, chance, gift, transgressions, etc. In these texts, we shall never encounter the stiff coldness common to certain analytical philosophers. Bataille uplifts us from solid ground and forces us to head for the furthest in our intellectual research. Sometimes, if not always, reading Bataille could be an unbearable experience. Passages from "Madame Edwarda" in this Reader can be served as a test for your tolerance. To me, it is the most important theological investigation ever written by Bataille - the prostitute as an incarnation of divinity. After reading this text maybe you would agree with Sartre in calling Bataille a "New Mystic". This Bataille Reader is indeed an ideal 'book of initiation' to Bataille - the most inspiring French thinker born over one hundredAcknowledgments viiIntroduction: From Experience to Economy 1Part I Inner Experience 351 Chance 372 Guilt 553 Laughter 594 The Torment 645 Christ 926 Love 947 Life 988 Poetry 1059 Autobiographical Note 113Part II Heterology 11910 Program (Relative to Acephale) 12111 The Psychological Structure of Fascism 12212 The Use-Value of D. A. F. de Sade (An Open Letter toMy Current Comrades) 14713 Base Materialism and Gnosticism 160Part III General Economy 1 651 4 The Notion of Expenditure 16715 The Meaning of General Economy 18216 Laws of General Economy 18817 The Gift of Rivalry: ‘Potlatch’ 19918 Sacrifice, the Festival and the Principles of theSacred World 210Part IV Eroticism 22119 Madame Edwarda 22320 Preface to the History of Eroticism 23721 Death 24222 The Festival, or the Transgression of Prohibitions 24823 The Phaedra Complex 25324 Desire Horrified at Losing and at Losing Oneself 25825 The Object of Desire and the Totality of the Real 26426 Epilogue to the History of Eroticism 271Part V Sovereignty 27527 To Whom 27728 Hegel, Death and Sacrifice 27929 Letter to X, Lecturer on Hegel 29630 Knowledge of Sovereignty 3013 1 The Schema of Sovereignty 31332 Un-knowing and its Consequences 32133 Un-knowing and Rebellion 32734 On Nietzsche: The Will to Chance 330Bibliography 343Index 348