Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents ix
3. Acknowledgments xi
4. Introduction 1
5. Movements of Luxurious Exuberance 19
6. Sovereignty and Cruelty 38
7. Erotic Ruination 51
8. Desire, Blood, and Power 68
9. Th e Religion of Football 81
10. Violent Silence 95
11. Georges Bataille and the Religion of Capitalism 106
12. Sacrifice as Ethics 123
13. Bataille’s Contestation of Interpretative Anthropology and of the Sociology of Religion 138
14. The Traumatic Secret 153
15. Foucault’s Sacred Sociology 169
16. Bataille and Kristeva on Religion 182
17. Bataille, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Death of God 202
18. Does the Acéphale Dream of Headless Sheep? 217
19. Afterword 239
20. Notes 245
21. Works Cited 285
22. Contributors 303
23. Index 307
24. Perspectives in Continental Philosophy 313