Introduction Mark Hewson and Marcus Coelen Part 1: Contexts 1. Surrealism Marina Galletti 2. Sociology and Ethnography Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi 3. Fascism and the Politics of the 1930s in France Andrew Hussey 4. Nietzsche Giulia Agostini Part 2: Key Concepts 5. Expenditure Stuart Kendall 6. Heterology Marcus Coelen 7. Sacrifice Elisabeth Arnould-Bloomfield 8. Inner Experience Gerhard Poppenberg 9. Sovereignty Claire Nioche 10. Eroticism Nadine Hartmann 11. Art Michèle Richman 12. Religion Mark Hewson 13. Evil Tiina Arppe 14. Bataille’s Literary Writings Patrick ffrench. Index
Biography
Mark Hewson teaches at the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy and at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Blanchot and Literary Criticism (2011), and of articles on Wordsworth, Mallarmé and the history of literary criticism.
Marcus Coelen is an affiliate of ICI Berlin, and a practicing psychoanalyst. He is the author of a study on Proust and the problem of aesthetic judgment in the Recherche, and several translations and editions in German of texts by Maurice Blanchot. He is a co-editor (with Felix Ennslin, Johannes Klein Beck and Claire Nioche) of the book series Neue Subjektile.
Hewson (Univ. of Melbourne, Australia) and Coelen (Institute for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin, Germany) offer a superb overview of the key concepts - literary, philosophical, and sociological - that animated the thought and writing of Georges Bataille (1897-1962). The 14 essays, contributed by an international assembly of scholars, take up the focal points of Bataille's considerable literary and speculative output. This broad-reaching book will serve scholars of French philosophy, literature, and cultural studies very well - both as a valuable introduction for beginning studies and an enriching set of studies for the more advanced scholar.
--M. Uebel, University of Texas
October 2016 issue of CHOICE
