Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille (September 16, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided the latter term himself.

Life and work

Bataille was initially tempted by priesthood and went to a Catholic seminary but lost his faith in 1922. He is often quoted as regarding the brothels of Paris as his true churches, a sentiment which reflects the concepts in his work. He then worked as a librarian, thus keeping some relative freedom in not having to treat his thinking as work.

Related Topics:
Priesthood - 1922 - Librarian

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Founder of several journals and groups of writers, 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 publications were banned. He was relatively ignored in his lifetime and scorned by contemporaries such as Jean-Paul Sartre as an advocate of mysticism, but has had considerable influence after his death on authors such as Michel Foucault, Philippe Sollers and Jacques Derrida, all of whom were affiliated with the Tel Quel journal. More recently he has influenced the work of major English-language philosophers such as Crispin Sartwell.

Related Topics:
Jean-Paul Sartre - Mysticism - Michel Foucault - Philippe Sollers - Jacques Derrida - Tel Quel - Crispin Sartwell

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Bataille was a member of the extremely influential College of Sociology in France between World War I and World War II. He was heavily influenced by Hegel, Freud, Marx, Marcel Mauss, the Marquis de Sade, and Friedrich Nietzsche, the last of whom he defended in a notable essay against appropriation by the Nazis.

Related Topics:
College of Sociology - World War I - World War II - Hegel - Freud - Marx - Marcel Mauss - Marquis de Sade - Friedrich Nietzsche - Nazis

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Fascinated by human sacrifice, he founded a secret society, Acéphale (the headless), the symbol of which was a decapitated man, in order to instigate a new religion, and planned to sacrifice his lover of the time as an inauguration. An indemnity was offered to the executioner, but a willing executioner was never found.

Related Topics:
Human sacrifice - Acéphale

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Bataille had an amazing interdisciplinary talent — he drew from diverse influences and used diverse modes of discourse to create his work. His novel The Story of the Eye, for example, 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.

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