{"title":"Georges Bataille","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the provocative and enigmatic works of Georges Bataille, where philosophy, literature, and eroticism converge. His writings traverse themes of excess, transgression, and the sacred, offering profound reflections on human experience through essays, fiction, and critical thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders will encounter a rich blend of \u003cem\u003ephilosophy \u0026amp; psychology\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003earts \u0026amp; culture\u003c\/em\u003e, and experimental narrative that challenges conventional ideas. Bataille’s texts invite contemplation on desire, knowledge, and the limits of reason, making this collection essential for those drawn to intellectual and literary avant-garde.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"eroticism-by-georges-bataille-9780141195568","title":"Eroticism","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn influential exploration of sex and its surrounding taboos.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA philosopher, essayist, novelist, pornographer, and fervent Catholic who came to regard the brothels of Paris as his true 'churches', Georges Bataille ranks among the boldest and most disturbing of twentieth-century thinkers. In this influential study, he links the underlying sexual basis of religion to death, offering a dazzling array of insights into incest, prostitution, marriage, murder, sadism, sacrifice, and violence. It also includes comments on Freud, Sade, and Saint Theresa.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eEverywhere, \u003cem\u003eEroticism\u003c\/em\u003e argues, sex is surrounded by taboos, which we must continually transgress in order to overcome the sense of isolation that faces us all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House Distribution","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46249890808044,"sku":"9780141195568","price":27.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780141195568.jpg?v=1741523421"},{"product_id":"literature-and-evil-by-georges-bataille-9780141195575","title":"Literature and Evil","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn extraordinary collection of essays arguing for literature's complicity with evil, new to Penguin Modern Classics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLiterature is not innocent,\u003c\/em\u003e stated Georges Bataille in this extraordinary 1957 collection of essays, arguing that only by acknowledging its complicity with the knowledge of evil can literature communicate fully and intensely.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Brontë's \u003cem\u003eWuthering Heights\u003c\/em\u003e, Baudelaire's \u003cem\u003eLes Fleurs du Mal\u003c\/em\u003e, and the writings of Sade, Kafka, and Sartre, explore subjects such as violence, eroticism, childhood, myth, and transgression, in a work of rich allusion and powerful argument.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46249922330860,"sku":"9780141195575","price":24.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780141195575.jpg?v=1741561660"},{"product_id":"my-mother-madame-edwarda-the-dead-man-by-georges-bataille-9780141195551","title":"My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThree works of erotic prose fusing sex and spirituality, new to Penguin Modern Classics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn these three works of erotic prose, Georges Bataille fuses sex and spirituality in a highly personal and philosophical vision of the self. \u003cem\u003eMy Mother\u003c\/em\u003e is a frank and intense depiction of a young man's sexual initiation and corruption by his mother, where the profane becomes sacred, and intense experience is shown as the only way to transcend the boundaries of society and morality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMadame Edwarda\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of a prostitute who calls herself God, and \u003cem\u003eThe Dead Man\u003c\/em\u003e, published in 1964 after Bataille's death, is a startling short tale of cruelty and desire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis volume also contains Bataille's own introductions to his texts, as well as essays by Yukio Mishima and Ken Hollings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46250031612140,"sku":"9780141195551","price":27.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780141195551.jpg?v=1741561013"},{"product_id":"story-of-the-eye-by-georges-bataille-9780872862098","title":"Story of the Eye","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1928, Georges Bataille published this first novel under a pseudonym, a legendary shocker that uncovers the dark side of the erotic by means of forbidden obsessive fantasies of excess and sexual extremes. A classic of pornographic literature, \u003cem\u003eStory of the Eye\u003c\/em\u003e finds the parallels in Sade and Nietzsche and in the investigations of contemporary psychology; it also forecasts Bataille's own theories of ecstasy, death, and transgression which he developed in later work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46715109638380,"sku":"9780872862098","price":36.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/21117563482498.jpg?v=1754384532"},{"product_id":"critical-essays-by-georges-bataille-9781803094342","title":"Critical Essays","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn introduction for English-language readers to Georges Bataille's postwar philosophical and critical writings.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the aftermath of World War II, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by \"a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way,\" and to reject any compartmentalization of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal \u003cem\u003eCritique\u003c\/em\u003e. Continuing the publication of his postwar writings, this second book in a three-volume collection of Bataille's work collects his essays and reviews from the years 1949 to 1951.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn this period of intellectual isolation and intense reflection, Bataille developed and refined his genealogy of morality through a sustained reflection on the fate of the sacred in the modern world. He offered a critique of the limits of existing morality, especially in its denial of excess, while sketching the lineaments of a new hyper-morality. Bataille's wide-ranging reflections are true to the intellectual mission of \u003cem\u003eCritique\u003c\/em\u003e, which he founded as a space open to the broadest considerations of the present. As well as discussing significant figures like Samuel Beckett, André Gide, and René Char, Bataille also offers fascinating reflections on American politics, Nazism, existentialism, materialism, and play.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe connecting thread in these diverse essays remains Bataille's concern with the extremes of human experience and the possibilities of transcending the limits of societies founded on utility and restraint. His writings remain a provocative incitement to rethink the boundaries we impose on expression and existence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000580456684,"sku":"9781803094342","price":54.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/27043513482829.jpg?v=1763286792"},{"product_id":"the-accursed-share-by-georges-bataille-9780942299212","title":"The Accursed Share","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe three volumes of \u003cem\u003eThe Accursed Share\u003c\/em\u003e address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end of utility can only be uselessness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe first volume, the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that \"it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the second and third volumes, \u003cem\u003eThe History of Eroticism\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSovereignty\u003c\/em\u003e, Bataille explores the same paradox of utility from an anthropological and an ethical perspective, respectively.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe History of Eroticism\u003c\/em\u003e analyzes the fears and fascination, the prohibitions and transgressions attached to the realm of eroticism as so many expressions of the \"uselessness\" of erotic life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the third volume, Bataille raises the ethical problems of sovereignty, of \"the independence of man relative to useful ends.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000760811756,"sku":"9780942299212","price":87.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13343953482523.jpg?v=1763302668"},{"product_id":"unfinished-system-of-nonknowledge-by-georges-bataille-9780816635054","title":"Unfinished System of Nonknowledge","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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, notes, and lectures on nonknowledge, sovereignty, and sacrifice clarify and extend Bataille's radical theology, his philosophy of history, and his ecstatic method of meditation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe \"system\" that emerges from his body of work is \u003cem\u003eatheology\u003c\/em\u003e, a study of the effects of nonknowledge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000834867436,"sku":"9780816635054","price":61.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/20562923482478.jpg?v=1763308746"},{"product_id":"correspondence-georges-bataille-and-michel-leiris-by-georges-bataille-9781803091914","title":"Correspondence – Georges Bataille and Michel Leiris","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eIncluding a number of short essays by Bataille and Leiris on aspects of the other's work as well as excerpts on Bataille from Leiris' diaries, this collection of correspondence throws new light on two of Surrealism's most radical dissidents.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the autumn of 1924, just before André Breton published the \u003cem\u003eManifeste du surréalisme\u003c\/em\u003e, two young men met in Paris for the first time. Georges Bataille, 27, started work at the Bibliothèque Nationale; Michel Leiris, 23, began his studies in ethnology. Within a few months, they were both members of the Surrealist group, although their adherence to Surrealism (unlike their affinities with it) would not last long: in 1930 they were among the signatories of \"Un cadavre,\" the famous tract against Breton, the \"Machiavelli of Montmartre,\" as Leiris put it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut their friendship would endure for more than 30 years, and their correspondence, assembled here for the first time in English, would continue until the death of Bataille in 1962.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47460544413932,"sku":"9781803091914","price":46.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781803091914-correspondence-georges-bataille-and-michel-leiris.jpg?v=1774949592"},{"product_id":"critical-essays-volume-1-19441948-by-georges-bataille-9781803090603","title":"Critical Essays – Volume 1, 1944–1948","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThis first book in a three-volume collection of Georges Bataille’s essays introduces English readers to his philosophical and critical writings.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the aftermath of the Second World War, French thinker and writer Georges Bataille forged a singular path through the moral and political impasses of his age. In 1946, animated by \"a need to live events in an increasingly conscious way,\" and to reject any compartmentalisation of intellectual life, Bataille founded the journal \u003cem\u003eCritique\u003c\/em\u003e. Adopting the format of the review essay, he surveyed the post-war cultural landscape while advancing his reflections on excess, non-knowledge, and the general economy. Focusing on literature as a mode of sovereign uselessness, he tackled prominent and divisive figures such as Henry Miller and Albert Camus.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn keeping with \u003cem\u003eCritique\u003c\/em\u003e’s mission to explore the totality of human knowledge, Bataille’s articles did not just focus on the literary but featured important reflections on the science of sexuality, the Chinese Revolution, and historical accounts of drunkenness, among other matters. Throughout, he was attuned to how humanity would deal with the excessive forces of production and destruction it had unleashed, his aim being a way of thinking and living that would inhabit that excess.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the first of three volumes collecting Bataille’s post-war essays. Beginning with an article on Nietzsche and fascism written shortly after the liberation of Paris and running to the end of 1948, these texts make available for the first time in English the systematic diversity of Bataille’s post-war thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47460562338028,"sku":"9781803090603","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781803090603-critical-essays-volume-1-1944-1948.jpg?v=1774949794"},{"product_id":"the-cradle-of-humanity-by-georges-bataille-9781890951566","title":"The Cradle of Humanity","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA radically interdisciplinary inquiry into the origins of human consciousness, community, and potential. \u003cem\u003eThe Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture\u003c\/em\u003e collects essays and lectures by Georges Bataille spanning 30 years of research in anthropology, comparative religion, aesthetics, and philosophy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese were neither idle nor idyllic years; the discovery of Lascaux in 1940 coincides with the bloodiest war in history—with new machines of death, Auschwitz, and Hiroshima. Bataille's reflections on the possible origins of humanity coincide with the intensified threat of its possible extinction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor Bataille, prehistory is universal history; it is the history of a human community prior to its fall into separation, into nations and races. The art of prehistory offers the earliest traces of nascent yet fully human consciousness—of consciousness not yet fully separated from natural flora and fauna, or from the energetic forces of the universe. A play of identities, the art of prehistory is the art of a consciousness struggling against itself, of a human spirit struggling against brute animal physicality. Prehistory is the cradle of humanity, the birth of tragedy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBataille reaches beyond disciplinary specialisations to imagine a moment when thought was universal. Bataille’s work provides a model for interdisciplinary inquiry in our own day, a universal imagination and thought for our own potential community.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Cradle of Humanity: Prehistoric Art and Culture\u003c\/em\u003e speaks to philosophers and historians of thought, to anthropologists interested in the history of their discipline and in new methodologies, to theologians and religious comparatists interested in the origins and nature of man's encounter with the sacred, and to art historians and aestheticians grappling with the place of prehistory in the canons of art.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47559027654892,"sku":"9781890951566","price":64.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781890951566-the-cradle-of-humanity.jpg?v=1776927284"},{"product_id":"theory-of-religion-by-georges-bataille-9780942299090","title":"Theory of Religion","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTheory of Religion\u003c\/em\u003e brings to philosophy what Bataille's earlier book, \u003cem\u003eThe Accursed Share\u003c\/em\u003e, brought to anthropology and history; namely, an analysis based on notions of excess and expenditure. Bataille brilliantly defines religion as so many different attempts to respond to the universe's relentless generosity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFramed within his original theory of generalized economics and based on his masterly reading of archaic religious activity, \u003cem\u003eTheory of Religion\u003c\/em\u003e constitutes, along with \u003cem\u003eThe Accursed Share\u003c\/em\u003e, the most important articulation of Bataille's work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGeorges Bataille (1897-1962), founder of the French review \u003cem\u003eCritique\u003c\/em\u003e, wrote fiction and essays on a wide range of topics. His books in English translation include \u003cem\u003eStory of the Eye\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eBlue of Noon\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLiterature and Evil\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eManet\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eErotism\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRobert Hurley is the translator of \u003cem\u003eThe History of Sexuality\u003c\/em\u003e by Michel Foucault and co-translator of \u003cem\u003eAnti Oedipus\u003c\/em\u003e by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDistributed for Zone Books.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47608120803564,"sku":"9780942299090","price":74.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780942299090-theory-of-religion.jpg?v=1778184206"},{"product_id":"visions-of-excess-by-georges-bataille-9780816612833","title":"Visions of Excess","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSince the publication of \u003ci\u003eVisions of Excess\u003c\/i\u003e in 1985, there has been an explosion of interest in the work of Georges Bataille. The French surrealist continues to be important for his groundbreaking focus on the visceral, the erotic, and the relation of society to the primeval.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection of prewar writings remains the volume in which Bataille's positions are most clearly, forcefully, and obsessively put forward. The book challenges the notion of a \"closed economy\" predicated on utility, production, and rational consumption and develops an alternative theory that takes into account the human tendency to lose, destroy, and waste.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis collection is indispensable for an understanding of the future as well as the past of current critical theory. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGeorges Bataille (1897-1962), a librarian by profession, was founder of the French review \u003ci\u003eCritique\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eStory of the Eye\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Accursed Share\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eErotism\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Absence of Myth\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"NewSouth Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47995661746412,"sku":"9780816612833","price":56.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780816612833-visions-of-excess.jpg?v=1784899135"},{"product_id":"the-accursed-share-by-georges-bataille-9780942299113","title":"The Accursed Share","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. \u003cem\u003eThe Accursed Share\u003c\/em\u003e provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher. Here he uses his unique economic theory as the basis for an incisive inquiry into the very nature of civilization.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eUnlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy. The result is a brilliant blend of ethics, aesthetics, and cultural anthropology that challenges both mainstream economics and ethnology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48010617782508,"sku":"9780942299113","price":70.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9780942299113-the-accursed-share.jpg?v=1785154367"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.live\/collections\/georges-bataille.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}