The accursed share : an essay on general economy / Georges Bataille ; translated by Robert Hurley.

Author
Bataille, Georges, 1897-1962 [Browse]
Uniform title
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
New York : Zone Books, 1988-1991.
Description
3 volumes in 2

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Architecture Library - Stacks HB173 .B35513 1991 Browse related items Request
  • Location has
  • Vol. 1-v. 3 (published in 1993)
    Firestone Library - Religion Graduate Study Room HB173 .B35513 1991 Browse related items Request
    • Location has
    • Vol. 1-v. 3 (published in 1993)
      Firestone Library - Stacks HB173 .B35513 1991 Browse related items Request
      • Location has
      • Vol. 1-v. 3 (published in 1993)
        Forrestal Annex - ReserveHB173 .B35513 1991 Browse related items Request
        • Location has
        • Vol. 1-v. 2-3
          Forrestal Annex - ReserveHB173 .B35513 1991 Browse related items Request
          • Location has
          • Vol. 1

            Details

            Subject(s)
            Summary note
            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 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. 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 contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems." In the second and third volumes, "The History of Eroticism" and "Sovereignty", Bataille explores the same paradox of utility from an anthropological and an ethical perspective, respectively. "The History of Eroticism" 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. In the third volume, Bataille raises the ethical problems of sovereignty, of "the independence of man relative to useful ends."
            Notes
            Translation of: La part maudite.
            Bibliographic references
            Includes bibliographical references.
            Contents
            • v. 1. Consumption
            • v. 2-3. The history of eroticism. Sovereignty.
            ISBN
            • 0942299116 ((v. 1, pbk.))
            • 9780942299113 ((v. 1, pbk.))
            • 0942299213 ((v. 2 & 3, pbk.))
            • 9780942299212 ((v. 2 & 3, pbk.))
            OCLC
            639864961
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