sujor source ofnspizaton for Keser. Batlle aff che sexual exces rdve maternal desire and names his mother “loser to God” than anything te hod sen “through che window ofthe church.” The fourth section makes me cesa sessment ofthe extent to which Batail’ thoughts eleva for isto afer the 1990s, Kristeva reads Baal, fst, 25 offering the pos- Alig fo: a revolution in poetic language, then, a a thinker of revel, but F Ae aly inher Ie works, asa thinker of transgression, which leads her to Bataille and Kristeva on Religion pea There hom hin, The conspicuous impovedshment in Krisevds smelecl relation to Bataille deserves avtension and needs explanation, ih Sara eardsworth points out, Kestsreflcions are marked by her Sony about the modern values of her own society, and, afer the 1990s, those wories seem ¢o increase even more and lead her to concentrate on tray of diminishing psychical suffering? This when Kaistrareaens to The rligious and Gnde in it che possibly of reconciling ones with the tain ofmans but the reason fr sis chat hey sgn hc condone law of the father The Christian religion becomes the flillment ofthis rec- posi ofall nowedge about man onlin par excellence because it epresents God asa good, loving and Michel Foucanlt, The Onder of Things forgiving futher: Her late rlecons on religion make one think Kristeva as moved a great intellectual disance fiom Bataille: she now sees him as a ranagessor a psychotic, a victim ofan excesive mother, and 2 soul who ZEYNEP DIREK I is indeed crue that chis Death, and this Desire, and this Law can never ‘meet within the knowledge tha traverses in is positivity the empirical do- Introduction sulfers from the weakness (or absence) of the paternal function. In the . . final anabjsis, Bauallesatheological reflections on religion cannot redeem “This essay concentrates on Bataillés and Kristeva readings of religion in us through reconciliation with a symbolic father, For Bataille, Madame order to discuss what religion signifies for them. Both Balle and Kristeva Fedwarda, an old and mad prosttue, is God. In contrast, Kristeva curns inerpee teligeas sgiificaton In tesuss of desis, law, wud dent, They to a clasical and conservative wouut of religious experience: religion a2 ide as heverogencous experiences a relation with the father, who helps reinsticute stability in the subject's of life. "The role that abjeccion plays in their conception of religion will personal and socal life. . : bbe my focus, and Iwill point to che respects in which their reflections on abjection differ. While Bataille sees, in religious expression, the ambiguity of the erotic objece that is desired in its very horror, Kristeva interprets the ‘The Significance of Bataille for Kristeva in the 1970s same ambiguity in terms ofthe abjetion of the mother, in terms of which Boualle, 2s an inttiguing figure of poetic language, pervades evo of Keis- she offers a critique ofthe Freudian and Lacanian accounts ofthe psycho- thal ey works numly,Realeronn Poe Langage and Publi. Aa analytic development of subjectivity. is well known, he was a source of inspiration for members of the Tel Quel ‘Theft section considers the significance of Batallés thought in Kris- group (19 which Kristeva belonged), in their projects to zethink subjec- tevals early carcer. The second section explains how Bataille's conception of tivity as excess and to explore the political implications of chis new no- religion in The Acrsed Share and Broom differs from his early reading of tion of sbjeciviy In her 1973 essay “Bataille, Experience and Practice.” religion in Theory of Religion. The thitd section concentrates on the essence Kristeva relates the main preoccupation of Bataille’ thought to Hegel's of religious experience for Keisteva and areempts to show how her reflee- Phenomenology of Spirit. She argues that Bataille challenges the notion of atone fie om, Bails While they haven the subject in Hegel’ idealism with a different experience of nogatvity. In tersecting accounts of religion with common elements, Kristeva strives 0 att A of Phenomenology of Spiri, “Consciousness,” Hegel presents three distance herself from Bataille in. Powers of Horror In “Batailleand the Sun, Sifcrent shapes of — each relating to thet on comeatve cor the Gully Test” (in Tlerof Love), we see why Barllecan no longsr be abject, which are presumed to exist separately From consciousness. The 182 Bataille and Kristeva on Religion = 183intentional relation berween these shapes of subjectivties and objects. {ec fom one another. I do not claim to exhaust all the interesting aspects ties are mediated by spiritual essences that deploy themselves in « negative sof heirincellecral relationship. Nonetheles, iti to be kept in mind chat ‘movement. In this movement, Hegel’ task is to show that the individeal {eisera relation to Bataille has 2 history and chac chs history has its own subjects particularity is overcome and that subjectivity reveals isl 1 by fexraordinary moments. Inthe firs phase of Krisrea’s relation to Batalles the very movement in which the sptit, che universal subject, knows ile svotks, he appeats to her as belonging to the group of writers, including In Kristeva reading of Bataille, he interrogates what Hegel fails to think ‘Aniaud and Mallarmé, who were thinkers of “limit experiences” for her. In ina radical way, that is the individual subjects relation ro negativity. He such experiences, madness could say itself at che level of consciousness and, gel thought through subjectivity as knowing, but he filed ro account foe jnso doing, pur the values of modern society into question. Kristeva does the relation to negativity of the subject as “aot knowing” (non-savoi) Ip ‘pot want to celebrate psychosis—as, for example, Deleuze and Guattari “Bataille, Experience, and Practice,” Kristeva claims that Bataille’ new re. did in Capitaliom andl Schizophrenia—because psychosis implies suffering lation to negativity—understood as an experience and a practice—can, at and death by suicide.‘ Her attraction co discourses lke Bataille isin the once, escape the nism of modernist literature and ketch a new Manis. way a force or desire pushes language, which is dominated by logic and and dialectical attitude toward subjectviy. Hee frst interest in Bacall grammar, (0 its own critique. This criique amounts to questioning the determined by the fundamental question of seructuralist linguistics: How prevalence of subjectivity as the sold ground of all significations. And, in is signification possible? She rethinks the play of signifiers—their dynamic this period, Kristeva is concerned with describing subjectivity as something movement in which infinite subsicution is possible, their nasion supple. that comes into being, and dissolve, in the movement of negativity ‘meniaire forthe absent center (the absence ofa teanscendental signified). as negativity. This negativity would not lend ise to a conceptual determi nation in terms of an arche(otigin) ora tela (end). For Kristeva, meaning Bataille on Religion is produced and destroyed by a negativity undeslying the signifying of For Bataille, religion has a history and is part of the secret of human exis: speaking subject. As Lacan says, it speaks” (ca parl) through the speaking tence. In monotheisms—in which God becomes unique, exchisively good, subject. According to Kristeva, “it” noc only refers to a movement of the and trarscendent—and in onto-theologies that follow from them this se play of signifiers, to their substicution and combination, but the negativity crce increasingly fades into oblivion. I begin by giving Bataille’ overall of the movement of signification smust also be conceived as a fundamental anguuient in Theory of Religion before discussing how religion comes to ‘opening to the nondiscursive real, an economy of life as a heterogeneous the foreground as a phenomenon of economy and abjection in The Ac- movement, This is to say, the carly Kristeva turns to Bataille for her at- cured Shave, Ltake Erotim o be further developing this idea of the sacred tempt to rethink Lacan's structuralst interpretation of the unconscious. as taboc ot abjet, by describing the relation between the erotic and the Structuralism deprives itself of access to the nondliscursve real; Baalle’s religious in terms of teansgession and inner experience. In other words, rereading of Hegel can provide us with the needed opening, Thus, from nots explores a perspective already opened up in The Accursed Share. Kristeva’ point of view, Bataille isthe firs ehinker of this very negativity ‘Theory of Religion lays out the genesis and development of religion by in which the semiotic elements of meaning make theit appearance at the asking anchropology’s fundamental question, which concems the transi- symbolic level. Clearly, Kristeva reads Bataille for her own philosophical tion from nature to cultute. The humanity of the human originates in project. She believes he is an intellectual resource to whom she can ap- this transition, which Bataille locates in the opposition between imma- peal to reincerpre the negativity of the movement of signification while rence and transcendence. ‘The world of things, individuals, work, util- avoiding idealism and teleology. Bataille helps Kristeva move beyond both ity, and action transcends the “life of immanence.”* Originally, humans structuralist and phenomenological accounts of meaning. ‘were animals—living as immanent to nature, sill lacking the dimension kis necessary to start with this background on the intellectual eation- ‘of trans:endence. ‘They became properly human, as distinct from the rest ship between Bataille and Kristeva because it shows his initial importance of animal life, by eranscending that immanence, thereby constituting the to Kristeva, Nevertheless, my focus her s nor the question ofthe speaking human world. The rem “human world” as Tse it, noc only encompasses, subject in relation to the negative movement of signification: instead, I the profane world of work and utility but also the sacred world. In Theory take up the question of how their reflections on religion relate to, and dif- of Religion, the sacred and the profane realms come into being at once and 184 = Zeynep Disk Betailleand Keston Religion = 185participate in one and the sume dialectical proces. Baile seems to gh gros, Batale realizes that eroicism i the tied most important facro, Uliferene accounts of what constiutes transcendence at diferent momen syhich tase be included in his account of human transcendence.” of his iinerary T contend thatthe account in The Accursed Share and Fg Tn The Accursed Share, Bataille takes history to be the history of man's tim goes beyond the account in Theory af Religion. nation from his own being. Although he borrows terms from the Marx- Theory of Religion carries oue a reflection on transcendence in tems of jx tradition, sich as “alienation” and “reification,” he reinterpret them as the use of instruments and work, Work and the consciousness of death ae Gbjecticn,” “abhorrence,” “disgust” and so forth. According to this views considered as equiprimordial elements chat open up a realm of transoen. alienation starts with abjection and culminates in mans enslavement to the dence. In Theory of Religion, the secret of religions is the unconscious nos. ‘apitalisesystem—his subordination to work and utility and the enclosing. talgia we feel for immanence, our lost intimacy with nature Immaneneeiy of life wthin the sterile limits of bourgeois housekeeping, Life's abjection immediacy, sensibility, corporeal communication, and the absence oF ind manifest itself in the stringent requirement of sterility, excluding abject viduality, whereas transcendence is distinction, separation, individu things, predominantly human bodies. From a Bataillean perspective, ab- objectivity, subjective, and ineligibility. Bataille makes use ofthese pe jesion flys constitutive roe in the disciplining of bodies, the rgiifying positions in order to erase them: his discourse feeds on the awareness that oftheir hordes, their gendering and racialization, and the exclusions chat humans, in their very transcendence, are outside as wells inside animal, follow therefrom, Abjection serves co rif bodies in oder to subordinate ig, Therefore, chere is no nostalgia for whac we have lost; thet is instead hem co productive work. Disgust from che heterogeneity of life itself pre- an unconscious desire for communication with the rest of life. Religion ig cedes the abjection of bodies that do not conform to the world of work symbolic transposition ofa sentiment about the internal relations ofa ie and utili, and this also accords with the Foucauldian idea that capitalism ing beings. Thus, i gives, at the symbolic level, what we have broken with | and the modern power feed on che life energy of the living body. Abjec- in the profane world. The sacred world both negates and counterbalances tion cortributes to securing the limits of a world of work, which is also a the profane world in which life sufocates from subordination to utility ‘world of class difference and oppression; however, eis is nat the only level Broadly speaking, the sacred world has a double function in relation to ‘on which it functions. As the profane and the sacred worlds are co-original the profane; it secures the boundaties of the profane world, and it does so and belong together, abjection must also play a constitutive role on the precisely by overcoming the profane economy through sovereign mystical level which che sacred is constituted. ‘experiences. Religion sublates immanent communication to a trans Bataille analyzes history in evonomie terms, focusing on the necessary dent symbolic level, functioning to intereupt the world of uclity and work consumption of “the accursed share” in diverse historical worlds. Marx was and culminating in the dissolution of individuality. Thus, it overcomes sight to claim that economic laws govern history; however, he did not have the separation of beings from one another. Religion is a mediated experi- the insight chat sovereign consumption, not production, is the value ofall ‘ence of primary intimacy with animality, which is the greatest value that values. As is well known, Bataille inverts Marx, turning to a study of the ‘man lost in subordinating his life to work and utility. ‘This value is about means aad relations of consumption rather than those of production. His sovereignty, which gives the possibility of a relation beyond utility—with political economy presents history as a domain in which the boundaries ‘oneself and with others—char Bataille names “communication.” of immenence and transeendence change unceasingly and are constantly ‘The second important moment in Bataile’s reflection on religion ap- redrawn, In this very shifting of boundaries, che history of the profane pats in the second volume of The Accured Share. This rext can be read world intersects with the history of the sacred and cannot be separated a8 a new artempr to answer the fundamental question asked in TBeory of | fom it. Bataille’ anthropology pays special attention to the intervals in Religion, Theory of Religion conceived religion as an institution with a tem- which consumption takes an excessive form of destruction and. wasting poral origin that is undergoing a development whose diferent forms can away, thus suspending the orderliness of the profane world of work. Al- be seem as more or less continuous. In this work, Bataille accepts the equip- though influenced by Marcel Mauss's reflections on potlatch, his task is rimordial consciousness of death and of work as the double source of the not limited ro reflecting on the structures or relations of exchange that sacred and the profane worlds. The novelty of The ccursed Share lies in the uunderliesociety ln his attempe to rethink the economy of consumption as influence Claude Lévi-Strauss’s anthropology has on Bataille’s reflection an economy of life, he goes beyond the limits of anthropology toward an ‘on religion. This perspective is fully developed in Brotiom. Through Lévi- ontological analysis. 186 = Zeynep Dire Bataille and Kristeva on Religion = 187In The Accered Share, Balle understands “general economy” a5 economy of encrgy based on the exuberance of living matter asa whole The fundamental problem of general economy, namely, exces resoureg, shows itself from the point of view of general existence." The general xi, tential problem is posed by the essence ofthe biomass, which must "cog. seanty destroy (consume) a surpls of energy” “The accused share” isa economic term with the urmost ontological significance: it refers to rhe ‘excess energy invested in the growth ofan organism, but—when grovel has reached its limic—ie must, willingly or unwillingly, be spene withoy, profit, gloriously or catastrophially. Cleaty, che basic axiom of Bataleg Political economy concerns the living organism, the bod, which is bork grounded in and receives its exces from the play of energy on the lobe, “The body's belonging tothe play of energy on the earth tnderles human realcy. Baalle argues that life, as the source of the bodily forces tha sue tain the worllines ofthe world, cannot ft within the boundaries these seructures draw for it.The inscription ofthe body within the play of en- gy in earth and world, domains of excess it cannot always cope with s the ontological starting poiat for an understanding of Baal’ distinction between “general economy” and “restricted economy,” In the firse volume of The Accuned Share, rcligions, too, are reflected upon in terms ofthis general economy. Baalle conceives religious experi- ence, within this economic ane ontological framework, as an experience of sovereign. The question of sovereignty concerns the humanity ofthe human ing The human bring ce anno be fun no hing to remain in being, 10 consume merely to satisfy needs, A being limited by es mse sengene ned non ls than shaman elg bt by definition, an impossible living being, a paradox. Consumption in the general sens i crucial for an understanding of man’s essence. Man's most Jmportane ist snot co persevere in being having a guaranteed future for its need, but “sovercignty” Sovereignty is not about being self-sulliient: mastery aver the economic conditions of life could still be slavery. fie sacrifices all ife vo work. Sovereignty i a consciousness of self that is made possible by the expenditure of energy, consumption beyond the care and worry for survival, In that sense, limit experiences—sich as erotic expeti- ence, sacrifice, laughter, and death—are cousumptions. These experiences ae “sovercgn experiences” not by ther explosive nature as expenditures of enemy with tun bu by thet fantion ro make pote a new relationship with life, which the profane world schematies. Sovereign ex perience transgress the boundaries ofthe profane world; as interruptions, they are the moments that make the world of wtlty dissolve: they are ways of exiting the world even while sil belonging chre. Thus, sovereignty isa 188 Zeynep Dirck longing without belonging to the human world of work—transgresion, for example, the phenomenon of festival isthe negation of attachment 10 ihe profane world, a temporary suspension of the validity of the laws of fected economy, which thereby liberates the sacred from calculation asofa a the sacred is the refusal of subordination, entrance to it will be by insutection oF revolt rather than submission. One cannot belong to the sacred by surrendering to the ways of the world, which compel the najorty to give themselves to servinude. ‘The relation to the sacred has a dimension of revoke, which is why the sacred is the negation of negation While tris double negation does not etuen us to the originary realm of jmmanence, it does reinforce our connection with life asthe ground of existenc. Given that the second volume of The Accursed Share is obsessed with figures cf abjection, the question of abjection’s role in Baaill’s account of tdigion must be addressed. Even though various gures of abjection domi- pate cis volume; the relation of che religious o the abject is only generally framed, and Bataille focuses more on the relevance of abjection to the con- stitution ofthe profane world, In modernity, man experiences himself as a subject vho knows world of objects. The predominance ofthe theoretical relation to objects makes the subject overlook his own corporeal being, Enclosing the body’s narural functions inside walls indicates oue shame in the face of fluidity. The body is shameful; we pretend nothing flows from it: Characterizing as abject all that exits the body isa necessary condition for the budys vbjeuifcation;chis objectification conditions the invention of the subject as a separate, rational being capable of disembodied vision. “The abjection ofthe living body as such—and, arguably, the female body, bodies thar would be unintelligible according to heteronormativity, and the mother’s body to which the event of bird refers—is inscribed in the very structure of subjectivity, as modernity conceives it, Baaille thinks subjectivity, as constituted by abjection. is tied to the loss of sovercigny and to humanity’ surrendering of the naked surplus of existence to 1e- stricted economy. In The Accuried Share, abjection lies at the foundation of restricted economy. [tis accounted for with reference to two limit experiences. We feel disgust for what remains of consumption, its corrupting residues, the cexcremental, the putrefying garbage, the corpses of animals and humans, which are abandoned co nature without sacralization; the biological mate- tial, which the narural processes decompose before its absorption in the ‘global play of energy. In that sense the abject isthe organic matter as pres- ‘ently inhabited by death and producsive of other forms of natural life. In the decaying abject, life is on the threshold of reawakening: one form of Baralle and Kesteraon Religion 189life eransforms itself into others through death. This is the moveineng ox sacred thing, forthe later isan object of respect whereas the former is the organic life ints general economy. Second, sot only death bu aig «Both experenecs arc horror in the face ofa forbidden objec." Bualle bir abjece because the event of bh invlves another ranstion gu fu gifs tat religion, mote than being about rus, about anges one form of individual ife nto another Daal says: “cisclear that weg apuls. Terror and nausea are affects that accompany transgression. “Sin sory we came fiom lif, fom meat, rom a whole bloody mess. We mighy | jg transgression condemned” Furthermore, Balle shows how mystic think, ifnced be, chat living mater on the very level at which we sepatng gf apeience (divine love) intersects with erotic experience (sensual love). courses from i is the privileged objet of our disgust” Birth and dea |) ete experience has the ireducible ambiguity of accommodating both are similar movements; the only radical eliference between them lies inthe | oor and deste, which are also present in che spirits mystical expei- face hac the being tha gives life wo another being may endure the geaaiy fence There no erocism without prohibitions and thelr anigresion of another living organism, However, the death of the parent organi Likewise, we become aware of our unity with the sacted world by way of implicated in ee birth of the offiping. Both corpse snd its sexual organ | violent agitation, prohibition, and transgression, Hence, eroticism and re- ate abject, and Bataille chinks they ae not without relation: ligion are understood in terms of “contradictory experiences of taboos and ‘wansgeessions,” which Frosism refers co as “inner experience” and which js not “an experience of clear consciousness.” Nevertheless, the way the abject tears to religion is radically different from the way i relates to the jjuman wodd of work. Abjection helps rigidify the borders ofthe profane svorld by separating life from death, but the sacted realm is par excellence a fluidity of life and death, of transformation of life into death and death In theory, the sexual organs have nothing to do with the disintegra sion ofthe flesh: indeed their function places thei at the oppesite pole. Yet, the look of the exposed inner mucosa makes one chink of ‘wounds about to suppurate, which manifest the connection between the life ofthe body and the decomposition ofthe corpse: ‘The abject is hortifying, yec it isthe other side of desir, as “horror conceals ino life. Inthe religious sphere, we are fascinated with those transforma- always a possibility of desire” tions that aorrfy usin the world of human affairs. Indeed, for Baalle, “There isan anxiety to abjection, an ansiety caused by the fale to sepa tcligion is nor the revelation of a divine being who is creator ofall things. rate neatly life and death inco discrete events. Abjecion isthe limie experie nor is it something to believe in; rathes, it signifies the general movement ence in which life presents a challenge to the human world, The restricted ‘fle, in which lfe and death pass into each other. economy of the hnvman world ie governed by the principle of the walicl separation of life ftom death. On the other hand, the general economy of life shows the ilusory pretence of that separation. Abjecton is areacive | ‘Kristeva on Religion feeling we have when faced withthe interlacing of lfe and death. We cane In the 198¢s, Kristeva publishes a wilogy—Powers of Horror (1980), Tales of ‘not reckon with the fact that life comes from death. “One day this living ove (1983), and Black Sun (1984)—in which narcissism is her main focus. world will pullulate in my dead mouth," wrices Basile thus denouncing | _Itis in cis framework that she stars to relec on what religions may signify the tate of mind that is anxious to protec the limits of che profane worlds ‘when interpreted from a psychoanalytic perspective. In Jn the Beginning ur effort to keep sterile lfe separate from filth is not only a separation ‘Wes Love: Bychoanabss and Fai, an essay ftom 1984, Kristeva makes clear of life from death but also a tefusal co atest to, and affirm, their intimate thar she is interested in religion as an analyst. She reads the Credo (Symbol telation. The abject is a domain of not knowing, a domain in which im- fof Apostles) not as a representation of Christian dogma but as signifying ‘manence returns via the remains ofthe human world. ‘phanvasms thar reveal desires or essential traumatisms.” In doing so, she fol- Although Bataille’ desctiption of abjection in The Accursed Shave sims lows Freud, who, in Totem and Taboo, wanslate religious expressions into to establish char itis pare of transcending the profane world, that che re- symbolic expressions ofthe desires and frustrations of the human psyche. ligious realm is opened by the very ambiguity of the desired and horti- Kristeva contebutes to this stracegy by distinguishing berween the semiotic fying abject belongs within the general framework. Erotiom supplements and the symbolic. Religious signfications are the semiotic manifestations The Accursed Share, puting an account of religion in che foreground. Is of impulses at the level of symbolic forms. In other words, processes of fundamental thesis is: “Whatever i the subject of probibition is basically signification that precede and escape the subject (in the classical sense, as a sacred,”® The relation to an abject thing seems diferent from the relation conscious abject of intentional act) are ar workin religious signifcaions 190 w Zeynep Direc ‘Balle and Kristeva on Religion» 191ing as social or divine sovereignty, but iti not located on he same lee iis precisely located in the domain of things and not like soveeigny, in the domain of persons. Ie differs from the late in the same way thep anal eroticism differs from sadism.” Kristeva interprets these sentences ty mean that, for Bataille, abjecion concerns the subject/object relationship and not the subject/other (subject) relationship. However, Bataille dag, rot say chat abjection does noe play out in relations beeween people, Hig overall argument is that the abjection of things underlies and makes sible the abjection of persons. Abjection establishes both the individua) sovereignty of the oppressor on the social level and divine sovereignty. The dlscnction berween “anal eroicism” and “sadism” is central ro accounting forthe difference between the kvels on which abjection of people may oe. cur. Anal eroticism refers to the oppressors exclusion of the miserable (or swretched) clases tothe level of abject things. These things have no worth and therefore can simply be cleared away. In sadism, on the other hand, the oppressed other is also desired in person, which is why sadism is divine sovereignty—beyond the sovereignty of social oppression. Although ab- jection of things founds both the profane and the sacred (divine) worlds, divine sovereignty cannot be reduced to the abjection of things because in sadism the other is not reduced co a thing: hence, the religious realm muse also be understood in terms of a specific type of abjection that operates between people. This explains why. in Erotis, erotic experience plays an exemplary role in shedding light on the religious. Kristeva closes the political and eligi horizane of Raraille's essay in order to argue for her specific thesis about abjection, which enables her ro distinguish her position from his. Kristevas discussion of abjection em- phasizes chat in abjection the “I comes to a limit at which it gives birth {0 itself through “the violence of sobs, of vomit.” I extricate myself from the abject at the limits of my condition as living being. Hence, abjection is both about a loss of identity, system, and order and about identifying ‘oneself through separation, Ultimately, primal repression “appears through the gaps of secondary repression.” “The contrast between this structural analysis of che human psyche and Baaille’s historicopolitical analysis of fascism is sharp. In Power of Horrar, (Caline—whose compromise with fascism isa historically kaowen facts ‘the main literary figure, and abjection supplies Kristeva with the theoreti= cal framework for interpreting Baualle’s work, Ivis quite puzzling chat, in developing a theoretical framework for Céline, she marginalizes Bataille both asa thinker of abjection and as. thinker of fascism. For example, she does not even mention his 1933 text "La structure psychologique du fas- 194m Leynep Dirck sis.” One may think Kristeva distances herself from Bataille because she tunderstnds herself as thinking through abjection in the subject’ relation tothe other and, more specifically, the masher At the level of personal a cheology, the original event of abjecion occurs in the mother-child dyad Wich cur earliest attempts to release the hold of maternal entity even before cristing outside of her, thanks co the autonomy of language. It isa violent, clumsy breaking away, with the constane risk of falling back under the sway of a power as securing as it is siling."* In Pres af Hor- tor abjection isthe very experience that precedes the subjeccobject divide and conditions the coming into being of both subjectiviey and ebjectiv- jig The child must abject the mother and separate himself from her. The constitusion of the child’ corporeal subjectviey and the objecivation of the objets, self-relation, and object relation follow from that separation. Now, chese remarks could imply chat, at the foundation of the fascisic ilentifcatory exclusion of other human beings, one finds the abjection of the mother, bt I am not sure Kristeva really makes this claim. And, ifshe docs then she takes a political risk: if abjection is structural to the human psyche, hen fascism, racism, sexism, religious discrimination, and such ‘would be necessary to social identification. Let me return to Kristevals reading of religion. For hes, religion con- fionts us with the uncepresentable limits of the psychic experience. In “Reading the Bible” in New Maladie: of she Soul (1993), she argues that struceurlst readings of the Bible ar silent about the dimensions in which scligion gives expression to the limit experiences of sufering and desire." “These various experiences refer inthe lst analysis, vo desire for the mother, which must be renounced because of the prohibition of incest. She attends tw other forms of prohibitions, such as those concerning nuttin in Juda- jm, and connects this anxiety for purity with the primordial preoedipal hhorror during the chile’ separation from the mother. The religious limit experience sublates the moment of the abjection of the mother, which is the original experience of ambiguity when desire and horror (disgust) are present at the same time. Abjection gives birth to the mother as a being that is both debased and exalted. Kristeva notes that anthropologists, in- cluding Baualle, are aware of this ambiguity as a characteristic of taboo, bur—avoiding him in delicate ways—she elis instead on Mary Douglas. Douglas focuses on the purification rituals that see menstrual blood and ‘excrement as pollutants. On the basis of Douglas’ findings, Kristeva ex- plotes che role of the maternal in the genesis ofthe sacred. Indeed, Freud had already suggested thar excrement, as that which separates from. the body, could signify birth, the original event of separation from the mother. Bataille and Kristen Religion «195Like exerement, the mother poses a threat to the identity of the body sion of religion from Bataille’. This need is apparent in Tales of Lave, which to its autonomous corporeal limits. ulure to separate oneself from ongy jocludes a shore piece on Bataille’s My Mosher. At stake in this short essay, ‘mother implies death and destruction, and—in a society where the pater fnicled “Bazille and the Sun, or the Guilty Text,” is precisely Baail’s nal function is no longer strong—the whole society feels threatened by ke) frmatio of his relation with his mother—more sharply, his detication abject. As Sara Beardsworth argues, “The presence of purification rituals ig fher. Bataille writes: pseaalinton™ ———— ‘Mose offen it seems co me that 1 adore my mother. Could T have Gants reading ofiseliplon irmsiacibly Scones oh ensiasl aM ceased to adore het? Yes: God is what I adote. And yer I do not be- csi pss clio toe Rela aon TY Kee in God. Am Then cry? What Tony know 1a fundamentally about che law of the Father, which is why i offers us the pos. the midst of tortures, fallacious as this mighe be, I would answer che sibility of reconciling with that law. For Freud, our civilization is neurotic, questior I asked while looking at my mother, the one my mother and Lacan explains that we must enter the symbolic system as castrated ‘sked while looking at me. What is thete to laugh about in cis subjects because the privileged signifier of the phallus organizes deste, pris ounils of Godt Kristeva shows that the abjection of the mother procedes the dialectic of | Banilles identification of his mother with a God in whom he does not need, demand, and desire—that is, her constitution as an object of desire, believe but sovercignly affirms in laughter is even clearer here: “Death, We suffer not only because we become aware of our own limits in the jn my eyes was no less divine than the sun, and my mother, though her castrating discovery that our desires go Further than our powers but alsa crimes, was closer to God than anything I had seen chrough the window because our very identity is constituted by 2 threat. The mother gives life of the church.”® In this brief rexe on Baualle, Kristeva cakes him to be a but death also comes from heras she ehreatens the child with psychological psychotic going through the turmoil of passion atthe sight of “the naked, and emotional absorption. Kristeva argues that a relation to a loving and sublime, o: disgusting body of the loved one” Barail’s meditation on forgiving father may concribute to our srugele with narcissistic sufferings: the sublime isa ‘paradoxical meditation’: God is revealed through obscen- although she questions the role ofthe feminine in religion and understands ity or destruction, a “deadly, or simply painful and abject medium.” For the sacred in terms of abjection, at root, religion offers the possibility of Kristeva, Bataille’s God is the almighty feminine libido who knows no lim- poychically reworking the relation with the father. She is convinced the is. Alfsiing such a feminine bibido gencrare disgust with the self guile, subject suffers much more without the means for a loving relation with che solirude, and suicide, Kristeva categorically refuses to give any value to father. Religion offers such means a the symbolic level. Inn the Beginning Baralle’s intexpretation of cis libido as God, For Bataille, the self attains Was Love: Pyohoanalss and Faith, she writes: sovereign joyful ecstasy in adoring suck a God, and, in that adoration, the general economy of life chat sustains all beings i affirmed. Although she never confesses it, Kristeva’ problem is that religion appears through the transgression of the father’s law in Bataille. The name ofthe father is entirely absent from Kriseva’ discussion of Baaile’s understanding of re- ligion in fy Mother. She docs not comment on the father’ insignificance 10 the adoration of God for this text. She repudiates Bataille’ text without saying a word about he absence of the father. One might say that what More than any other religion, Christianity has unraveled the sym- bolic and physical importance of the paternal function in human life, Identification with this third party separates the child from its jubilant but destructive physical relationship with its mother and subjects it to another dimension, tha of symbolizaion, where frus- tration and absence, language unfolds. Kristevas priority is wo find the culeural resources that may help the instates her in Bataille is not only the father’s absence but also the denial subject achieve psychie well-being by offeing the possibility of becoming of religion as re-ligare to the father. Her silence about the father’s absence a speaking subject. Religion can be such a resource because it makes it affirms het faith in the fathers provective power against the mother's po- posible co alfitm the relation with the father, with his lave. Inasmuch as tential dangers. “Bataille and the Sun, or the Guily Text” marks Kristevals Kristeva’ interpretation of religion culminates in a well-known psycho- break from Batalle’s thought and explains why she refers to Bataille less in logical affirmation of religion (tligion offers comfore through a relation her later works. with an almighty father), she fels the need to distance her own interpreta- 196 = Zeynep Discleoo skewise in Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt, Kristeva challenges Lacan by eee etn Berk that, even though psychic life may have been organized by lan- ‘Whac are che politcal implications of Banal’ thought for Kristeva? Hey ‘we cannot reduce its dynamism to its symbolise.” reading of Bail shifts from a politics of revolution (which is now impo, “Their continuity of thoughe is probably best assessed by tracking the sible) into a politics of revolt (which is becoming meaningless) and k term "heterogeneous" in Kristeva text. Doubting whether the relation vo behind just a polities of eransgression (which is already obsolete)” fhe heterogencous can produce a revolution, Kristeva thematizes the dif For Bauaille, the transgression, as erotic experience of the law of re. ference between “revolt” and “revolution” in Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt sited economy, reveals the truth of existence as communication, In jy Having 2eady given up a reflection on revolution in the 1980s, Kristen ser Experience, the negativity of communication leads me co renounce my sakes another distinction beeween “religious revolt” and “aesthetic revol” ‘pseand to reject to submit to knowledge an erotic encounter with a fellow jn the 1990s and claims that “religious revolt” is no longer viable. being emblable) Erotic communication articulates itself in language 3g “The cucstion arises whether Baraille becomes a thinker of revole for poetry, generosity of silence, or a sacrifice of words rather than as logical {Kriseva in che 1990s. In Sense and Non-Sense of Revolt, se says that the discourse.” Baalle thinks of inner experience” as relation withthe het syentita century is pervaded by the figure of the intrinsically contesting ‘crogencous i terms ofboth “revolt” and “revolution.” He insists that res {prellectual and thae crotic literature is subversion of that contest lution can be otherwise than a restitution of homogeneity through abjec- ‘he makes Bails The Blue af Noon a significant example of that litera- tion, and Keisteva shares his thinking of revolution Formulated in terms of | ture While she finds this “tansgression” fascinating, Kristeva questions whether ic stil makes sense atthe end of the century. Why is Bataillean of social and communal existence means “revolution.” In 1973, she already transgression no longer viable? “The dialectic of law-transgression” or “the cutlines her major interest in the relations of sexuality-anguage-thoughe logic of interdiction- transgression” depends upon a space of pure and sa ‘asan interest in the possibility of social communication. In contrast to de- ‘le values; indeed, this logic or dialectic organizes the religious space and pictions of Bataille as an extravagant thinker of human sexuality who has arts that stem from it. We no longer have such a pure space of values: an unconvincing, even absurd view of politics, in ehe 1970s Kristva ses *ransgression” is appropriated by the capitalist market economy in order Bataille as a political thinker. Nore, however, chat the term “revo” which to transform us into better consumers, and the paternal function is in pervades Kristeva’ wetings in che 1990s, occurs only once in “Bataille, Exe pol. According 10 Kristeva, eligion provides smooth. nonviolent phan- perience, and Practice,” and i s not used in the same sense. Kristeva often fasms, charged with a certain dose of aggression, and flattens the obscure ‘questions the revolutionary potential of her account of signification. desire tc enjoy revolt. In a sense, priests and “horse-boys” are complemen- the heterogeneous. In the 1970s Keisteva is a Maoist for whom the renewal In the 1980s, she gives up her aspirations for evolution and—with the tary figures that dialectically presuppose each other. In religion, one can logy Powers of Horror, Black Sun, and Tales af Love—eurns to an analysis satisfy one’ side of *horse-boy”* but “religious revolt” has nov become of narcisism. Bataille remains a source of inspiration for Kristeva’ theor- impossible because the paternal function is rapidly weakening. zation of the acted, religion, eove, abjecton, language, revolt, and such, Tis mashable chat Kristeva ties her concept of revolt ro Freud! genes- but now she disavows his legacy and secks to distance herself from his logical account of the symbolic system. Revolt occurs in a symbolic system thought, As we have shown, both Bataille and Kristeva take the idea that that imolies paticide, the abjection of the mother or the evacuation of the sacred is originally chat which is dirty, the taboo, ertously. ‘They share the feminine, the fundamental social contract between brothers, and the an interest in “abjection”: for Kristeva abjection primasiy refers to the ‘experience ofthe sacred. I signifies because of this prehistory, which Freud ‘event of the separation and identification of the corporeal subject; for Ba ‘conjectures in Tose and Taboo. At times, Kristeva speaks as if “revolt” ap- taille, abjection is part of the movement of transcendence through which peases tac excluded brothers, who do not feel they have sufficiently bene- the profane and the sacred worlds come into being, From Bataille’s point fitted from the social contract, and, ifthe revolt is successful, may result in ofvew, Kristeva drives and their semiotic fluidity Row with the erotic en- their indusion inthe system. In sum, “religious revolt” gives the possibilty ergy tat perades the general economy of if. His ask isto showy against of reworking and repeating the relation with paternal authority. At stale in Hoge, that igi cannot be aubmicted to the philosophy of the concept “revolt isa radical experience a reorganization of our psychic life, Revolt absolute knowing, but it helps us rethink ehe subjectivity of the subject. is not aetumn to the past but a displacement, a modification, ofthe pas. 198 = Zeynep Disc Satalle and Kristeva on Religion = 199is chat of the furure anterior for ic isa “reformulation of 4 Revolt is defined asa process of signifying (un procs de siguificancd) of the speaking being, opening such a being to its own being by a teformulation ofits psychic life. Kristeva connects what we can ell a struggle for recognition beeween brothers with a general semiology (bee ‘account of the semiotic break and fluidity within the symbolic). The poine is that revolt chus organizes psychic life and helps renew political and social instcutions, making them more inclusive. In Sense and Non-Sense of Revol, Kristeva concems herself with the pas- sibilcy-impossibility oa revolt beyond the dialectic in which transgression ‘presupposes the purity flaw. Her objection othe grid “law-transgression* caplains why Bataille is not a central figure here and why Kristeva prefers to ask the question of revolt of other literary figures or thinkers, such as Aragon, Sartre, and Barthes. Could not Bataille be taken as a thinker of “aesthetic revolt?” Unlike the arly Kristeva, the later Kristeva seems reluc- tant to sce Bataille’ practice of signification as providing the resources for renewing the symbolic system. While his influence on her was substantial inthe past, in the 1990s she seems to situate him asa thinker oF transgres- sion and not of “aesthetic revolt.” As her worry about nihilism grows, she ‘comes to suspect the very possibility of any revolt. Modern nihilism has transformed our relation co law and made us indifferent ro our own psy- chic life: new patients appear with new sicknesses ofthe soul ‘Thus, in the twenty-first century, Kristeva sees Bataille asa historical, even nostalgic, figure of transgression fiom the mid-twentieth century. ‘Letme remark that this supports a poor reading of Bataille. Baraillecon- ‘tinues 1 inspire contemporary citical theory but is ofien oversimplified as a thinker of “transgression” who acknowledges the necessity for the exis- ‘ence of prohibitions and sexual taboos and claims that cher transgression helps the realization of human potential.“ He is also presented as pursuing an erotic experience, understood in purely heterosexual terms, chat makes possible an experience of the totality of being.” Such characterizations of| huis thoughe enclose Bataille within the simple grid of “law-transpression” and set his complicated philosophical relation wo Hegel’ idealism aside, entirely neglecting the question of signification and language init elation ‘to negativity, which is central to Bataille’ literary efforts. Such oversimpli- fications have no understanding or account of what is so challenging in Baill, namely, his writing In contrast co the trend of underrepresenting Bataille’s thought in order co dismiss it as extravagant and politically use- Jess, Kristeva’ early reading of Bataille is still important for a more philo- sophically interesting view of his thought. She concentrates on the “im- ‘mediate experience” in Baralle and understands it as the nondiscursive, 200» Zeynep Dirck immediste experience of life that already exceeds the unified subject. She jsinteresed in whether this nonknowledge ean be an affirmative moment {n the process of signification and serve to question the power relations of social sutures. She holds that the semiotic fluidity of the forces wiehin the corporeal being that lives within a social and familial world can enable, or motivate, a discursive expression in the symbolic. For her, Bataillés writ- ings are valuable because he both acknowledges the thetic break and offers an outle from the level preceding it. Thus, his writings provide resources for the renewal of social and communal existence. This reading is artac- tive because she focuses on the question of meaning/signfication, taking, his contestation of Hegel’ idealism (by reopening the problem ofthe rela tion of lived experience to language) into account, and then addeesses the problem ofa social and political transformation of human existence in the world. She reflects on Bataille’ inner experience insofar as it involves an intersecting of sexuality and thought. In Revolt She Said, she remarks that French thought is in general, characterized by eorporalty and sexuality Bataille is one of these French thinkers who take sexual experience in its copresence with thought into account. Kristevas characterization of French ‘thought in general applies a fortiori to Bataille: “a strange valorization of a very particular psychic life, inasmuch asic is sustained by sexual desire and rooted in bodily needs."* The tak of such a valorization is not to deay transcendence, which it exhaust, but to make it incarnate and bring “such Jncarnate transcendence back into meaning.” As Kristeva says in 2002, Bataille interpreted erotic experience in terms of a nonreligious sacred, but this elaboration of sexuality was a way of liberating speech in order to join private enjoyment (jouisance) to public happiness." Nonetheless, some of ner later remarks on Bataille may also reinforce simply dismissing Batailles thought, Ir seems to me that she now seeks redemption in art and psychoanalysis, and what she describes as “aesthetic revole” sounds like a Bataille and Kristeva on Religion 20!