what I might be doing for the next 4 months? thoughts?
For my history thesis. This isn't an official prospectus or anything, so don't get me on professionalism, but I need to know, yay or nay? Lame or game? Initially, I wanted to do something on Post World War II french history, but this subject ties in my background in sociology, intellectual history, french history, gender studies, art history, the avant-garde and even Benjamin (he apparently attended the lectures given by the College!).
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At the time of growing fascism in Germany and Italy, and upon the eve of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, Georges Bataille and a group of other prominent intellectuals in France (Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, Jean Wahl, Alexandre Kojève, among others) came together to study and discuss the Durkheimian idea of the sacred. Defined in opposition to the profane, the sacred is the communifying sphere of human experience which elicits awe and veneration. Rituals and festivals are examples of events which induce this feeling of collective effervescence. Acknowledging the alienating individuation of humanity in modern society, the College wished to preserve and reassert the sacred within that society. Therefore, the College was not only a place to discuss “Sacred Sociology”, it was also a site for its implementation. Bataille founded a secret society, where assumably rituals were carried out although the nature of their activities still remain obscured, named Acéphale. This would also be the title of a journal published by the group. In a similar role, Bataille envisioned himself and those of the group as “Sorcerer’s apprentices” who could, through their allegiance to the sacred, return the “virility” of action back to a “castrated” modern man paralyzed by his autonomous, partialized position in relation to the totality of society. Now, given Fascism’s use of mass mobilization by ritual (one calls to mind Triumph of the Will) it seems odd that vehement anti-fascists such as Bataille and his cohort would espouse a politics which similarly celebrates the totality of society over man. In addition, both share a masculinist quality in their common reverence for virility and brotherhood. Why were these ideas of virility and brotherhood of interest to the College of Sociology during this time, especially given the rise of fascism? Why was it that the sacred was so compelling for these thinkers at this particular juncture in history? What were the antecedents of a study of the sacred in the work of Bataille and within the surrealist movement in which many members of the College of Sociology were involved? What is the relation between the College of Sociology’s study of the sacred and primitivism in surrealism? How is that study related to a colonialist perspective of the other? How were their critiques of modernity and their proposed solutions gendered? Is this gendering related in any way to the masculinist gender bias of surrealism? The masculinist gender bias of Bataille’s work itself? These are an example of the questions I would like to address in my thesis.
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At the time of growing fascism in Germany and Italy, and upon the eve of World War II and the Nazi occupation of France, Georges Bataille and a group of other prominent intellectuals in France (Michel Leiris, Roger Caillois, Jean Wahl, Alexandre Kojève, among others) came together to study and discuss the Durkheimian idea of the sacred. Defined in opposition to the profane, the sacred is the communifying sphere of human experience which elicits awe and veneration. Rituals and festivals are examples of events which induce this feeling of collective effervescence. Acknowledging the alienating individuation of humanity in modern society, the College wished to preserve and reassert the sacred within that society. Therefore, the College was not only a place to discuss “Sacred Sociology”, it was also a site for its implementation. Bataille founded a secret society, where assumably rituals were carried out although the nature of their activities still remain obscured, named Acéphale. This would also be the title of a journal published by the group. In a similar role, Bataille envisioned himself and those of the group as “Sorcerer’s apprentices” who could, through their allegiance to the sacred, return the “virility” of action back to a “castrated” modern man paralyzed by his autonomous, partialized position in relation to the totality of society. Now, given Fascism’s use of mass mobilization by ritual (one calls to mind Triumph of the Will) it seems odd that vehement anti-fascists such as Bataille and his cohort would espouse a politics which similarly celebrates the totality of society over man. In addition, both share a masculinist quality in their common reverence for virility and brotherhood. Why were these ideas of virility and brotherhood of interest to the College of Sociology during this time, especially given the rise of fascism? Why was it that the sacred was so compelling for these thinkers at this particular juncture in history? What were the antecedents of a study of the sacred in the work of Bataille and within the surrealist movement in which many members of the College of Sociology were involved? What is the relation between the College of Sociology’s study of the sacred and primitivism in surrealism? How is that study related to a colonialist perspective of the other? How were their critiques of modernity and their proposed solutions gendered? Is this gendering related in any way to the masculinist gender bias of surrealism? The masculinist gender bias of Bataille’s work itself? These are an example of the questions I would like to address in my thesis.