2. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) French intellectual, anthropologist, writer, economist, sociologist, philosopher initially a big fan of surrealism* interested in human sacrifice, ritual, expenditure pure loss, pleasure, total commitment potlatch, human sacrifice, orgasm, annihilation

3. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) SURREALISM founded in Paris between WWI and WWII focus on the unconscious, dreams, the occult belief that the conscious mind keeps us from the truth automatic writing, exquisite corpse game, ouja boards drugs, séances, altered states of consciousness juxtaposing ordinary items to make the everyday superreal the chance meeting of an umbrella and a sewing machine on an operating table Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Max Ernst, Giorgio di Chirico, Man Ray, Paul Eluard, Michel Leiris, &c. &c. aim is to discover the truth that is hidden from us by civilization, consciousness, prudery

4. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) SURREALISM

5. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) SURREALISM

6. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) SURREALISM

7. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) story of erotic awakening of the narrator and Simone teen love, tender discovery of their erotic/sensual sides they wait to make love, preserve their innocence as love blooms

8. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) story of erotic awakening of the narrator and Simone teen love, tender discovery of their erotic/sensual sides they wait to make love, preserve their innocence as love blooms

9. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) story that begins with innocence and rapidly moves through depravity Episodes: I – Narrator and Simone on the beach (avec Marcelle) II – Narrator, Simone at Simone’s III – orgy at Simone’s @ which Marcelle masturbates in the wardrobe (not in Narnia anymore!) and urinates and breaks down IV – 2 Attempts to break Marcelle out of asylum; final success V – Marcelle hangs self in wardrobe and narrator and Simone have sex next to her corpse VI – they flee to Spain (as one does) and meet Sir Edmund VII – bull fight and ughness

10. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) we have to talk orbs – this is after all the story of the eye - eyeballs - eggs - testicles Castration, testicles, fertility, origins, muck and fuck Bullfight – masculinity, display, seduction, sex and death el Granero’s eyeball inter urinas et faeces nascitur selfhood and subjectivity there is nothing inside you, no core self just a void, absence, pleasure – orgasm (jouissance) is the vision of this emptiness a cosmic nothingness

11. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and we have to talk fluids - egg - urine - semen - blood madness sex/death pain/pleasure the self and others “l’enfer, c’est les autres” (Sartre) at the same time, the unruliness of desire, lust, pleasure the danger of unsavoury revelation

12. The Story of the Eye Georges Bataille (1897-1962) unsavoury revelations: - children are sexual beings - children are violent beings - morality is learned and repressive Freud – Civilisation and Its Discontents true enjoyment must be unfettered and unburdened only pure expenditure, pure release can be fully gratifying Hard to believe it, but this will make de Sade look vanilla and the mid-term seem like …

13. The Mid-Term Next class is the mid-term you may NOT bring any books, notes, devices, etc. with you it will take the whole class; when you are done, you are done when we return: from Myra Breckenridge from Justine, or Philosophy in the Bedroom [both selections] “Marriage à la Mode”