Description: Despite Georges Bataille's acknowledged influence on major poststructuralist thinkers--including Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Lacan, Baudrillard, and Barthes--and his prominence in literary, cultural, and social theory, rarely has he been taken up by scholars of religion, even as issues of the sacred were central to his thinking. Bringing together established scholars and emerging voices, Negative Ecstasies engages Bataille from the perspective of religious studies and theology, forging links with feminist and queer theory, economics, secularism, psychoanalysis, fat studies, and ethics. As these essays demonstrate, Bataille's work bears significance to contemporary questions in the academy and vital issues in the world. We continue to ignore him at our peril.
Brief description: Kent L. Brintnall is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Review Quotes: Negative Ecstacies provides a welcome appraisal of Bataille's contribution to religious thought and experience in a post-sacred society. With scholarly rigor, this impressive collection extends his provocative ideas to daringly new terrain.-----Michèle Richman, University of Pennsylvania