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Theory of Religion
Series: Theory of Religion
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Theory of Religion
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
This book is ideal for readers interested in philosophy, religious studies, anthropology, and critical theory, particularly those exploring the intersections of economics, ritual, and society.
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See moreTheory of Religion, along with its companion volumes of The Accursed Share, forms the cornerstone of Bataille's "Copernican" project to overturn not only economic thought but its ethical foundations as well.
"According to Bataille, religion is the search for a lost intimacy.' Bataille's discussion of this claim moves from the complete immanence of animality to the shattered world of objects and then to the partial recovery of intimacy and immanence through sacrifice. More ominous, Bataille argues that not only was the archaic festival an affirmation of life through destructive consumption, but it also sowed the seeds of war. The book concludes with a discussion of the rise of the modern military order and the origins of modern capitalism. The argument here is wide-ranging and significant. Ethics
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Description
Theory of Religion brings to philosophy what Bataille's earlier book, The Accursed Share, 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.
Framed within his original theory of generalized economics and based on his masterly reading of archaic religious activity, Theory of Religion constitutes, along with The Accursed Share, the most important articulation of Bataille's work.
Georges Bataille (1897-1962), founder of the French review Critique, wrote fiction and essays on a wide range of topics. His books in English translation include Story of the Eye, Blue of Noon, Literature and Evil, Manet, and Erotism.
Robert Hurley is the translator of The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault and co-translator of Anti Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
Distributed for Zone Books.
Series: Theory of Religion
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Theory of Religion
Theory of Religion brings to philosophy what Bataille's earlier book, The Accursed Share, 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. Framed within his original theory of generalized economics and based on his masterly reading of archaic...Paperback$7700Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Critics highlight Bataille's compelling idea that religion emerges as a search for lost intimacy. The book explores themes from primal animal existence to fragmented modern realities, emphasising the role of sacrifice and ritual in reconnecting with immanence. It also discusses how archaic festivals linked life affirmation with destructive consumption, thereby planting the seeds for war, while concluding with insights into the rise of military and capitalist modernity.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780942299090
Publisher: Zone Books
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 09 January 1992
Country: United States
Imprint: Zone Books
Contributors:
- Translated by Robert Hurley
Audience: Tertiary education
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 13.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 224.0mm
Weight: 249g
Pages: 128
About the Author
Georges Bataille (1897-1962) was a French writer, essayist, and philosopher whose works include The Story of the Eye, The Blue of Noon, The Accursed Share, and Theory of Religion.
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Literature and Evil
An extraordinary collection of essays arguing for literature's complicity with evil, new to Penguin Modern Classics. Literature is not innocent, 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. These literary profiles of eight authors and their work, including Emily Brontë's...Paperback$2400Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man
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Story of the Eye
In 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, Story of the Eye finds the parallels in Sade and Nietzsche and in the investigations of contemporary psychology; it also forecasts Bataille's...Paperback$2299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Critical Essays
An introduction for English-language readers to Georges Bataille's postwar philosophical and critical writings. In 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...Hardback$5499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
The Accursed Share
The three volumes of The Accursed Share 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. The first volume, the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that "it is not necessity but its...Paperback$9000Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
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Critical Essays – Volume 1, 1944–1948
This first book in a three-volume collection of Georges Bataille’s essays introduces English readers to his philosophical and critical writings. In 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...Hardback$5699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
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The Accursed Share
Most Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. The Accursed Share 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. Unlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals...Paperback$6499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
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Since the publication of Visions of Excess 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. This collection of prewar writings remains the volume in which Bataille's positions are most...Paperback$9600Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 2-3 weeks -
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This 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. The "system" that emerges from his body of...PaperbackSold Out
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