Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French philosopher who is best known for his work on eroticism and the role it plays in human experience. He was largely ignored during his lifetime, but has since had a significant influence on post-structuralism and postmodernism. This book provides an overview of Bataille's work, discussing his relationship to surrealism and his importance in French and international philosophy.

Georges Bataille is now recognized as one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Fascinated by the excessive movement of life, Bataille developed a complex philosophy based upon examination of the interplay between death and eroticism. For him, eroticism was the foundation of human experience, providing a sharp insight into the basis of human society and the response of the individual to it. Largely neglected during his lifetime, Bataille's influence has grown during the last thirty years, first in France and more recently in the UK and the US, where it has often been associated with the rise of post-structuralism and postmodernism. This text argues that his work is often misunderstood and conflated too readily with postmodernism; instead, the author treats Bataille as a multi-faceted thinker who does not fit in easily with any simple categorization. Review: The Absence of Myth adds to the collection of Bataillean texts already available in English and provides an interesting selection of his work in and around surrealism. As such, it is an important book for those interested in the surrealist movement. -John G. Watters