Includes bibliographical references and index.

Foreword: Why Bataille Now? / Alphonso Lingis -- Introduction / Shannon Winnubst -- Part 1: Situating Bataille -- Dare to know, dare to sacrifice : Georges Bataille and the crisis of the left / Jesse Goldhammer -- Sovereign consumption as a species of communist theory : reconceptualizing energy / Amy E. Wendling -- The use value of G.A.M.V. Bataille / Pierre Lamarche -- Part 2: Pleasures and the myth of transgression -- Bataille's queer pleasures : the universe as spider or spit / Shannon Winnubst -- Erotic experience and sexual difference in Bataille / Zeynep Direk -- Malvolio's revenge / Alison Leigh Brown -- Part 3: Bodies and animality -- The private life of birds : from a restrictive to a general economy of reason / Ladelle McWhorter -- Slaughter and anima-lēthē / Lucio Angelo Privitello -- Bodies at play : a general economy of performance / Dorothy Holland -- Part 4: Sovereign politics -- The accursed share and The merchant of Venice / Andrew Cutrofello -- Politics and the thing : excess as the matter of politics / Richard A. Lee, Jr. -- Excess and depletion : Bataille's surprisingly ethical model of expenditure / Allan Stoekl.