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In this paper, I explore the affective dimensions of what Jean-Luc Nancy calls "exscription," particularly the affective dimensions of failure, or even more specifically, those of the failure to die at the right time, all of which I find bracketed out, or even "exscribed," in Nancy. I argue, however, that those dimensions, along with the sense of needing to die at the right time (yet failing to do so), are but an undeniable part of existence for some of us, a sense of existence by which one wants a real out of existence, a real ek-in ek-sistence. "Exscription," if it is to be attentive to the sense of existence in all its senses, as Nancy would want it, cannot ignore or exclude that sense of ek-sistence and all its affects, therefore. Put another way, as long as we fail to sense and acknowledge that particular ek-sistence and its affects, "exscription" will only mark our failure as such. That latter failure is what I try to reduce here in my readings of Georges Bataille's citation of the Aztec myth and Édouard Levé's Suicide, both of which I also propose to be regarded as "exscriptions." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the potentiality of life's excess in situations such as detention at Guantánamo Bay and how these challenging and oppressive situations can constitute a different relationship between life and sovereign power/violence. Instead of condemning the concept of sovereignty as a whole, the paper first draws a distinction between sovereign violence (which aims to imprison life) and sovereign experience (as an experience of life's excess) and, following Georges Bataille, delves into the latter. In doing so, the paper engages with moments where life is at the limit of sovereign order and with its excess defies it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract I argue that the political significance of Georges Bataille's work has been underdeveloped and that his work provides significant resources for understanding and evaluating contemporary societies. We should interpret Bataille's historical analysis of political societies as an account of the management and exploitation of sacred desire by elites that recognize its power. This analysis yields a normative principle: all societies must develop outlets to satisfy sacred desire, and the most effective means to do so is to channel it into avenues that build intimacy with the violent squandering at the heart of nature, rather than abstract forms that falsify reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contrasts Paul Otlet's epistemology of documents with that of Georges Bataille's in the late 1920s and early 1930s in regard to the body parts that they assign as sites and analogues for documents. A double meaning to the notion of documents emerges, defensive and offensive of and to twentieth-century European scientific epistemology, morality, and aesthetics: documents as the full and truthful representation of reality, and documents as the material inscription of social, cultural, and physical affordances leading to the reality of irrational drives. The brain as the site of the mind is said to be the physical location given to the former, and "the body" is the physical site given to the latter, reinforcing a traditional Western anatomical psychology determined by ideational and materialist ontologies and corresponding traditional bodily tropes for "reason" and "the senses." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents literary criticism of the book "Thoughts for the Times" by Sigmund Freud. It discusses that Freud's third proposition that death is inaccessible to the mind, is contradictory to his first two propositions in his book. It also emphasized the paradox of the irrepresentability of death and its consequences as related by Freud in his book. Also presented is the comparison of Sigmund Freud's propositions as against that of philosopher Georges Bataille.

Revisits Kate Chopin's novel "The Awakening" and compares its text to that of "Inner Experience," by George Bataille. Reconsideration of the apparently familiar notion of awakening; Consideration of consequences for feminist theorizing; Examination of the desires of the character Edna; Moment of laughter as the time when awakening acquires communal dimensions.

This article discusses a study on philosophical conceptions of modernism mentioned in author Georges Bataille's writings regarding surrealism. Nature of division between post modernism and modernism; Relation between surrealism and modernism; Elaboration of the structure of temporal experience appropriate to surrealism.

Investigates the literary theory and practice of Georges Bataille in relation to contemporary context of reading and theory. Account of the residual subjectivity at stake in communication; Assessment of the contemporary critical thought; Consideration of Bataille's communication as idiosyncratic and fairly conventional.

This essay resituates Georges Bataille's Lascaux, ou la naissance de l'art in the context of archaeological investigations into the origins and the social dynamics of mark-marking. As opposed to other accounts of the book, 'Bataille Looking' is concerned specifically with the ways in which Bataille's argument and methodology reflect the conventions of the early twentieth-century discipline known as 'prehistory' while at the same time anticipating the insights of contemporary research on the peculiar conditions responsible for the emergence of ancient visual culture. Bataille's attention to the phenomenon of superimposition'the layering of one image on top of another'leads him to hypothesize what contemporary researchers are increasingly confirming, namely, that mark-making derives from the rhythmic repetition of gestural routines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critiques the book "Lascaux, ou la naissance d'art," or "Lascaux, or The Birthplace of Art," by Georges Bataille, commenting on the book's significance to modern archaeology and the understanding of art. It comments on the book's focus on archaeological content rather than social scientific methodology and epistemology. It comments on the importance of researching prehistory.

Demonstrates the ways in which systems of valuations can function as violent forces of constraint. Arguments raised by French philospher and writer Georges Bataille; Overview of Bataille's `Literature and Evil'; Discussion on the ethics of sacrifice.

ARRAY(0x5625a84a1b78) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]