The Erotic Sacrament: Max Weber and Georges Bataille

Between the 1860’s and 1890’s, starting with realist Orientalism and moving to post-modernism and symbolism, the reoccurring trend of exoticism is repeatedly depicted. The Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr and La Orana Maria are two works of exoticism that portray a distortion of reality, skewed and biased with non-Western subject matter being seen through the European mindsets. The following essay will look at the works of Gérôme and Gauguin, distinguishing their similarities in subject matter, material, and process, and differences in style, color and technique.

Cincinnati Romance Review, 2017

Nancy LaGreca's new critical volume, Erotic Mysticism: Subversion and Transcendence in Latin American Modernista Prose (2016), provides a new interpretive lens for the mystical imagery and themes present in many modernist and, particularly, decadentist texts of Latin America. LaGreca's ability to tie such works into larger literary, existential, and scientific trends of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries helps craft a stimulating analysis that reveals the Modernistas as important players in rewriting ideas surrounding sexuality, faith, death, and artistic production by using the imagery of erotic mysticism. In tracing the separation between modernist mystic and erotic tropes and those traditionally found in Catholic works throughout the introduction to her book, LaGreca aims to present " non-theistic mysticism " (16) as borne of Modernism's " fetishization of sensual beauty in all its permutations " (15). Here, LaGreca proposes that the separation of erotic mysticism from both religious and scientific developments proffered political commentary in three ways: 1) a critique of positivism through the exploration of sensuality and the metaphysical sublime, 2) a break with Catholic discourse to instead explore other existentialist and mystic philosophies, and 3) a rebuke of the requirement of a belief in God to seek immortality and a connection with natural forces (20). Such an approach to the erotic and, in Max Nordeau's view, " degenerate " elements of Modernismo dialogues with the continually evolving interpretation of the movement's social and political critiques, as LaGreca details (34). Erotic Mysticism's analysis thus promises a fresh assessment of some of the thornier aspects of mysticism and the decadent aesthetic. Following the introduction, LaGreca's study takes readers on a journey through the often subtle mystical images present in some modernist Latin American prose works in five chapters analyzing different approaches to erotic mysticism utilized by both canonical and non-canonical authors. The chapters feel well-organized and are subdivided to facilitate comparison between the different authors and texts discussed.

2012

It is diLcult to write about eroticism; it is at once too personal and too common. Phenomenology is supposed to start out from experience, making the task even more diLcult. We can try to hide under the cover of eidos or under what is general, without giving away our own relation to this burning question, but this risks only to show the blindness of our own speci@city, our own personal desires, as one of (at least) two sexes. In the phenomenological attempts to address this issue – such as in the work of Levinas, Marion and Sartre – one could argue that this endeavor has been carried out by a certain kind of (French) man.1 Their speci@city might be more pronounced here than when they broach other subjects. They are, so to say, caught with their pants down, where we often gain an insight into how their own sexual life is structured. All their intellectualism tends to be seen as a facade, behind which lay a male-centric, heterosexist, patriarchal variant of sexuality, the kind of whic...

In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an extraordinarily beautiful divinity and base, illicit feeling. In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the decades preceding the Council of Trent, a handful of writers, thinkers and artists asserted a positive connection between spirituality and sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci, and a group of painters working under his aegis in Lombardy, were keenly aware of painting’s capacity to evoke feeling in a viewer. Pictures they produced for domestic devotion featured knowingly sensuous and unusually epicene beauties. This article suggests that this iconography daringly advocated the value of pleasurable sensation to religiosity. Its popularity allows us to envisage beholders who were neither mired in sin, nor seeking to divorce themselves from the physical realm, but engaging afresh with age-old dialectics of body and soul, sexuality and spirituality.

All eroticism has a sacramental character,' French philosopher Georges Bataille said in his 1957 work Eroticism. For Bataille, eroticism resembles religious and ritual sacrifice because of the rapture and violence associated with orgasm.

Scottish Journal of Theology, 2023

In this article I propose an erotic theosis as a fruitful possibility for conceptualising our final participation in union with God in the beatific vision and for imaging said participation on earth. Particularly, I propose a synthesis of recent work from Oliver Crisp on theosis with that of Sarah Coakley on sexual desire as an especially helpful way in which to conceive of our ever-deepening participation in God's love. Further, this synthesis uses contributions from Erin Dufault-Hunter on the intersections of sexual desire and ethics as a catalyst for its recommendations.

2014

The oral, narcissistic and perhaps depressed woman lover introduced in the first article of the same title by the present author in this issue of the Journal for Semitics is nothing but a shadow cast by her bright background. Her neediness and narcissism are due to her false self, which makes her available for projective identification with all the diverse religiosities carried by her but also allows her to dissolve in the feeling of being in an embracing love, her own projection. In this transcendental aspect the feminine resembles the divine. Contrary to the traditional or common reception of Song of Songs as either transcending the foreground sexuality through an allegorical interpretation where exclusive attention is given to its spirituality or, in contrast, a literal approach where a greater holding background is ignored respectively, the text can be read in its openness to sexuality as a pointer towards various religious subtexts. This is despite the fact that no explicit ref...

Gnosis, 2011

What is the relation between the horror of death and eroticism? Such a relation may seem initially unapparent, but 20 th century French philosopher Georges Bataille candidly describes the various ways in which eroticism and death interpenetrate in his Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Such interpenetration is elucidated through Bataille's consideration regarding how taboos are interrelated, namely that they give us a glimpse of our continuous nature. Bataille's project is rare insofar as it examines human nature in terms of its passions as opposed to stripping away the passions in order to see what is left (the latter being perhaps the more common methodology of many philosophers). This means that transgressions need to be addressed and examined instead of being ignored if we are to have an accurate understanding as to what makes us human. His exposition of eroticism is multi-faceted and provocative, albeit disturbing and controversial, utilizing anthropological, sociological, as well as philosophical approaches. Interestingly, his account of eroticism is pertinent to modernity because it involves the notion of individuality, and investigates how this phenomenon runs counter to eroticism and transgressions. Bataille's account of experiencing life as a discontinuous phenomenon (through work and other productive means) illuminates this point. He rethinks the relationship between death and transgression through three key tensions: 1) continuity and discontinuity, 2) taboo and transgression, and 3) productivity and unproductiveness. I want to explore how eroticism is to be distinguished from sex for the purpose of reproduction, how this dynamic transgression breaks down discontinuity, and why such a dynamic is absent in non-human animals. I also want to attempt to explain the power struggle between taboo and transgression within individuals (its allure and repugnancy), which will lead me to consider the soundness of his characterization of women, their bodies, and how he chiefly represents the distastefulness of sexual transgression through reference to females. Finally, I want to address the violent aspect of transgression and whether Bataille succeeds in making a case for the idea that the goal of transgressive violence is to return to a lost intimacy.

In November 2011, artists, professors, students and scholars from around the world gathered in Prague, Czech Republic, to attempt to define what could be considered the erotic. The conference sought submissions that addressed interactions of the erotic with history, art, literature, practices, performances, pedagogy, and sexuality, among many others. This wide focus brought together an intellectually rich meeting that interrogated the boundaries between eroticism, sex, and desire. This volume represents a sampling of papers presented at the conference, and the diverse focuses within these papers are indicative of the inter- and trans-disciplinary work that was presented. Each work within this collection brings a fresh and unique approach to the erotic and, in its own way, tries to answer the question, ‘What is erotic?’

Journal of Religious Ethics, 2011

Georges Bataille agrees with numerous Christian mystics that there is ethical and religious value in meditating upon, and having ecstatic episodes in response to, imagery of violent death. For Christians, the crucified Christ is the focus of contemplative efforts. Bataille employs photographic imagery of a more-recent victim of torture and execution. In this essay, while engaging with Amy Hollywood's interpretation of Bataille in Sensible Ecstasy, I show that, unlike the Christian mystics who influence him, Bataille strives to divorce himself from any moral authority external to the ecstatic episode itself. I argue that in his attempt to remove external authority he abandons the only resources that could possibly protect his mystical contemplation from engendering sadistic attitudes.