Georges Bataille (1897- 1962) was a French philosopher, novelist, poet, librarian, art critic, essayist, and political theorist. While most noted for his transgressive literature and critical work on eroticism, Bataille’s contributions to media theory surpass these subjects, extending into political and apolitical frameworks based on the acéphale, excess, expenditure, and base materialism. Bataille’s critical position during Surrealism’s emergence in the 1920s, through one of the most devastating periods in European intellectual history, 1939-1944, to Europe’s attempt at a post-war recovery, was one of “contre-attaque” and transgression. In this seminar we will encounter Bataille’s key ideas on art, philosophy, and society by studying his Pre-War critical journalism, examples of auto-theory from his war period, and writings on political theory and the sacred from his post-War period. We will track Bataille’s theoretical developments alongside those of his peers (Caillois, Leiris, Laure, Kojève, Klossowski, Blanchot) and critics (Breton, Sartre, Weil) and conclude by considering Georges Bataille’s legacy in contemporary conversations on ecology, political economy, and mediation.