{"product_id":"9780816648191","title":"Bataille's Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability","description":"Our impending post-fossil fuel future appears to offer two alternatives: a bleak existence defined by scarcity and sacrifice or one in which humanity places its faith in technological solutions with unforeseen consequences. Are there other ways to imagine life in an era that will be characterized by resource depletion? Georges Bataille saw energy as the basis of all human activity, and he envisioned a society that would embrace a more radical type of energy expenditure: la depense, or \"spending without return.\" In Bataille's Peak, Allan Stoekl demonstrates how a close reading of Bataille can help us rethink not only energy and consumption but also such topics as the city, the body, eroticism, and religion. Through these cases, Stoekl identifies the differences between waste, which Bataille condemned, and expenditure, which he celebrated. The challenge of living in the twenty-first century, Stoekl argues, will be to comprehend-without recourse to self-denial-the inevitable shift from a civilization founded on waste to one based on Bataillean expenditure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAllan Stoekl is professor of French and comparative literature at Penn State University  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Minnesota Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50008246452464,"sku":"9780816648191","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780816648191_p0.jpg?v=1784249101","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780816648191","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}