Seeking the dereified imaginary: the desire in mind as a source of the self in the eroticism of Georges Bataille.

The crucial stake of the present paper lies in the dereification of the human being, in the abrogation of the psychological, ethical homogeneity, and the objectified sociocultural representations of the imaginary. The imaginary can be conceived not only as a term able to confirm the mental structure...

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Published in:Journal for Cultural Research Vol. 29; no. 1/2; pp. 92 - 107
Main Author: Papanikolaou, Andreas
Format: Article
Published: Taylor & Francis Ltd Mar-Jun2025
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Mar-Jun2025
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        10.1080/14797585.2024.2408327
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        atl: Seeking the dereified imaginary: the desire in mind as a source of the self in the eroticism of Georges Bataille.
      aug:
        au: Papanikolaou, Andreas
        affil: French Language and Literature, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
      su:
        Moral norms
        Sexual excitement
        Self-perception
        Human beings
        Psychological distress
      sug:
        subj:
          Moral norms
          Sexual excitement
          Self-perception
          Human beings
          Psychological distress
      keyword:
        Desire
        eroticism
        imaginary
        neoliberalism
        subjectivation
        transgression
      ab: The crucial stake of the present paper lies in the dereification of the human being, in the abrogation of the psychological, ethical homogeneity, and the objectified sociocultural representations of the imaginary. The imaginary can be conceived not only as a term able to confirm the mental structures of the subject that constitute the identity and bounds of human thought, but also as the way in which ethical norms become manifest. Norms, which through their internalisation dictate the perception of both the self and the social. Countering the neoliberal representation of the world presupposes an erogenous discourse. The originality of Bataille is to invert the meaning of desire as lack. Far from being conceived as a sign of our finitude, it is indicative of our excess of being. The 'secret of desire' thus appears in the intrinsic relationship that weaves the archaic sacred between eroticism and death. Excess and anguish in front of the emptiness, allow us to escape the subject, to liberate the self from the commercialisation of our imagination. Bataille shows us how erotic desire could be fundamentally creative of social relations, as it eliminates the self-other dualism.
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    language: English
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      custom: Copyright of Journal for Cultural Research is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
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