Fred Botting and Scott Wilson both teach in the Department of English at Lancaster University. They are co-editors of The Bataille Reader (1997), a companion also from Blackwell to the Critical Reader. Fred Bottings publications include Gothic (1996). Scott Wilson is the author of Cultural Materialism: Theory and Practice (Blackwell Publishers, 1995).

• Acknowledgements. Introduction: Fred Botting and Scott Wilson.1. Preface to Transgression: Michel Foucault.2. Affirmation and the Passion of Negative Thought: Maurice Blanchot.3. The Dualist Materialism of George Bataille: Denis Hollier.4. The Roof: Essay in Systematic Reading: Philippe Sollers.5. From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism Without Reserve: Jacques Derrida.6. Death in Bataille: Jean Baudrillard.7. The Laughter of Being: Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen.8. The French Path to Postmodernity: Bataille between Eroticism and General Economics: Jürgen Habermas.9. When Bataille Attacked the Metaphysical Principle of Economy: Jean Baudrillard.10. General Economics and Postmodern Capitalism: Jean-Joseph Goux.Bibliography.Index.

"Bataille: A Critical Reader is a careful selection of some of the best and most interesting critical work on this elusive and often obscure thinker." University of Sussex