ВЕСТНИК ПЕРМСКОГО УНИВЕРСИТЕТА. ФИЛОСОФИЯ. ПСИХОЛОГИЯ. СОЦИОЛОГИЯ

VESTNIK PERMSKOGO UNIVERSITETA. SERIYA FILOSOFIA PSIKHOLOGIYA SOTSIOLOGIYA

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-3-375-383

Human corporeality in Georges Bataille’s heterology

Svetlana A. Gorchakova
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Associate Professor
of the Department of Sociology

Kursk State University,
33, Radishchev st., Kursk, 305000, Russia;
e-mail: gorchackova.svet@yandex.ru
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6668-7958

In the heterology of G. Bataille, a person appears as a being doomed to death and revealing gaps in the depths of himself. That is why the idea of human corporeality turns out to be connected with the idea of inner experience, which represents a movement to the «edge of the possible» and through which death is revealed. It is death and the ability to discover it that makes a person who he is, affirming the transgressiveness of the human body and human being. Death, being absolutely heterogeneous, constitutes a person as a self-that-dies, revealing the gap that comprises its nature. Awareness of death leads to a feeling of eroticism, which contains the simultaneous affirmation of life in combination with the acceptance of death. Moreover, death is the semantic core of eroticism. The human is a «gaping hole» opening wide to the other, and all his being presupposes discontinuity and ecstasy, which means that only excess puts a man on the edge, allowing him to transcend all boundaries. In this case, the inner experience turns out to be in many ways a body experience, because the heterogeneous is constantly manifested in the ultimate experiences of the body and the ultimate manifestations of the human corporeality, where horror and lust, attractiveness and disgust are fused together. Human experience is the experience of the limits and gaps in which a person seeks to get beyond his limits, to surpass his anthropomorphic and body boundaries in an act of self-waste. Thus, being on the extreme edge, the human discovers death through transgression, but exactly in the understanding and acceptance of death he acquires true being and overcomes his own corporeality.

Keywords: heterology, heterogeneous, transgression, corporeality, transgressive body, eroticism, death.

References

Bataille, G. (2010). Alliluyya [Alleluia: The catechism of Dianus]. Bataille D., Bataille G. Angely s pletkami [Bataille D., Bataille G. The whip angels]. Tver: Kolonna Publ., pp. 180–204.

Bataille, G. (1994). Iz «Slez Erosa» [From «The Tears of Eros»]. Tanatografiya Erosa: Zhorzh Batay i frantsuzskaya musl’ serediny XX veka, sost. i per. S.L. Fokin [Thanatography of Eros. Georges Bataille and French thought of the mid-20th century, ed. and trans. by S.L. Fokin]. Saint Petersburg: Mifril Publ., pp. 269–308.

Bataille, G. (1994). Iz «Vnutrennego opyta» [From «inner experience»]. Tanatografiya Erosa: Zhorzh Batay i frantsuzskaya musl’ serediny XX veka, sost. i per. S.L. Fokin [Thanatography of Eros. Georges Bataille and French thought of the mid-20th century, ed. and trans. by S.L. Fokin]. Saint Petersburg: Mifril Publ., pp. 223–243.

Bataille, G. (2006). Teoriya religii [Theory of religion]. Bataille G. Proklyataya chast’. Sakral’naya sotsiologiya, sost., obshch. red. S.N. Zenkina [The accursed share. Sacred sociology, ed. by S.N. Zenkin]. Moscow: Ladomir Publ., pp. 49–105.

Bataille, G. (1997). Vnutrenniy opyt [Inner experience]. Saint Petersburg: Axioma Publ., Mifril Publ., 336 p.

Coelen, М. (2016). Heterology. Georges Bataille: Key concepts, ed. by M. Hewson and M. Coelen. London, New York: Routledge Publ., 220 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315657363

Dorofeev, D.Y. (2006). Samorastraty odnoy geterogennoy suverennosti [Self-wastes of one heterogeneous sovereignty]. Predel’nyy Batay [Limited Bataille]. Saint Petersburg: SPBU Publ., pp. 3–38.

Evstropov, M.N. (2012). Opyt priblizheniya k inomu: Batay, Levinas, Blansho [Experiments in approaches to the other: Bataille, Levinas, Blanchot]. Tomsk: TSU Publ., 346 p.

Fokin, S.L. (2002). Filisof-vne-sebya. Zhorzh Batay [Philosopher-outside-himself. Georges Bataille]. Saint Petersburg: Oleg Abyshko’s Publ., 320 p.

Foucault, M. (1994). O transgressii [About transgression]. Tanatografiya Erosa: Zhorzh Batay i frantsuzskaya musl’ serediny XX veka, sost. i per. S.L. Fokin [Thanatography of Eros. Georges Bataille and French thought of the mid-20th century, ed. and trans. by S.L. Fokin]. Saint Petersburg: Mifril Publ., pp. 111–131.

Labarthe A.S. (dir.) (1997). Zhorzh Batay, naskol’ko khvatayet vzglyada [Georges Bataille, as far as the eye can see].

Pasi, C. (2006). Geterologiya i Atsefal: ot fantazma k mifu [Heterology and Acéphale: from phantasm to myth]. Predel’nyy Batay [Limited Bataille]. Saint Petersburg: SPBU Publ., pp. 132–149.

Podoroga, V. (1995). Fenomenologiya tela. Vvedenie v filosofskuyu antropologiyu. Materialy lektsionnykh kursov 1992–1994 gg. [The phenomenology of the body. An introduction to philosophical anthropology. Materials of lecture courses 1992–1994]. Moscow: Ad Marginem Publ., 341 p.

Richardson, М. (1994). Georges Bataille: Essential writings. London, New York: Routledge Publ., 256 p.

Surya, M. (2000). Zhorzh Batay, ili Rabota Smerti [Georges Bataille, or the Work of Death]. Inostrannaya literatura [Russian Studies in Literature]. No. 4, pp. 164–177.

Tomä, D., Schmid, U. and Kaufmann, V. (2017). Zhorzh Batay. Gryaznaya postel’ [Georges Bataille. Dirty bed]. Tomä D., Schmid U., Kaufmann V. Vtorzhenie zhizni. Teoriya kak taynaya avtobiografiya [Tomä D., Schmid U., Kaufmann V. Invasion of life. Theory as a secret autobiography]. Moscow: HSE Publ., pp. 117–128.

Zenkin, S.N. (2006). Konstruirovanie pustoty: mif ob Atsefale [Constructing the void: The myth about Acéphale ]. Predel’nyy Batay [Limited Bataille]. Saint Petersburg: SPBU Publ., pp. 118–131.

Zenkin, S.N. (2006). Sakral’naya sotsiologiya Zhorzha Bataya [Sacred sociology of Georges Bataille]. Batay Zh. Proklyataya chast’. Sakral’naya sotsiologiya [Bataille G. The accursed share. Sacred sociology]. Moscow: Ladomir Publ., pp. 7–48.

Zenkin, S.N. (1995). Zhorzh Batay [Georges Bataille]. Frantsuzskaya literatura 1945–1990 [French literature of the 1945s – 1990s]. Мoscow: Nasledie Publ., pp. 799–809.

Received 31.07.2020

For citation:

Gorchakova S.A. [Human corporeality in Georges Bataille’s heterology]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2020, issue 3, pp. 375–383 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-3-375-383