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.
"This collection makes a significant and timely contribution to the still emergent scholarship on Georges Bataille. The authors have not given in to the temptation to tame the texts, but neither is this an uncritical celebration; rather, the consistently thoughtful essays take up Bataille's work seriously and carefully in a range of new approaches and ideas."
Le Moyne College
"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."
