Collège de Sociologie and Acéphale Approach is named after the journal Acéphale, which was edited and published by Georges Bataille, Pierre Klossowski, and Georges Ambrosino, between 1936 and 1939. A Group of authors gathered around this journal drew their intellectual inspiration and theories based on works by Durkheim, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Marx. This group also included authors like Caillois Roger and Kojève Alexander. The major focus of the studies of the members of the Collège was “the problems of power, of the sacred, and of myths”. In their exploration and explanation of the sacred, they used theoretical and empirical data from history and anthropology. French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille is the most notable member of this approach. He wrote novels, poems, and essays. He was passionate about eroticism, myth, sacrifice, profanity, and social transgression. Bataille was close to Surrealism, Marxism, and Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy. He studied politics, philosophy, religion, numismatics, and art. He contributed to sociology and literary criticism. Bataille's greatest contribution to sociology and criminology is his study of the transgression of social taboos and norms in the conditions of rationalized social control of late capitalism. Those who break the rules feel fear but are also full of fascination at the same time, and the enthusiasm and fear they feel during that act stem from aggression and eroticism.
Authors: Bataille Georges. Ambrosino Georges, Caillois Roger, Duthuit Georges, Klossowski Pierre, Guastalla M. René, Kojève Alexander, Leiris Michel, Libra Pierre, Lewitzky Anatole, Mayer Hans, Monnerot Jules, Paulhan Jean, Rougemont Denis de, Wahl Jean, Waldberg Patrick.
Books:
Bataille. Story of the Eye (1987, in French 1928);
- My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man (1989, in French 1941);
- The Tears of Eros (1989, in French 1961);
- The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism (2006);
- Guilty (2011, in French 1944);
- Blue of Noon, (2012, in French 1957a);
- Literature and Evil (2012, in French 1957b);
- Inner Experience (2014, in French 1943);
- Erotism: Death and Sensuality (1986, in French 1957c);
- On Nietzsche (2016, In French 1945);
Klossowski, Pierre. Sade My Neighbor (1991);
- The Suspended Vocation (2020);
- Such a Deathly Desire (2007);
- The Baphomet (1992);
- Diana at Her Bath/the Women of Rome (1998);
- Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (1997);
Caillois, Roger. Man and the Sacred (1960);
- Man, Play and Games (1961);
- The Dream Adventure (1963);.
- The Mask of Medusa (1964);
- The Dream and Human Societies (1966);
Kojève, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (1980).