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Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History

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Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism.

What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

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Amy Hollywood

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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for scrapespaghetti.
145 reviews1 follower
April 9, 2021
A principal criticism of Bataille’s meditation, as we saw, is that he wrests suffering individuals out of the political, social, and historical contexts in which they meet their victimization. Hollywood’s response to this criticism is that such decontextualization is necessary to encounter the individual in her or his specificity, without appeal to the narratives that would strive to make sense of the individual’s suffering. Hollywood insists that it is not Bataille who instrumentalizes suffering individuals, but those who incorporate the sufferings of others into their own meaning-giving narratives, whether soteriological or political. In appropriating the suffering that another has undergone into one’s own attempt to make sense of the universe or to direct political action, one subordinates the victim to one’s own aims and agendas. According to Hollywood, the communication that Bataille establishes with the victim is oriented toward the individual, in his or her specificity, but also takes the individual as a representative of suffering humanity in general. So by abstracting the suffering individual out of history, one acknowledges the element in trauma that defies articulation even as one connects to those who have suffered throughout history. Hollywood contrasts Bataille with the medievals on this point, because however much his practice resembles theirs, it is a crucial difference that Christ’s suffering is an episode in a larger narrative of salvific redemption, whereas Bataille’s victim is removed from all redemptive narratives.
Profile Image for Jessica Zu.
1,248 reviews172 followers
November 8, 2014
only read assigned chapters on Bataille. seen from this part, the proper title of the book should be tantric ecstasy. the argument is flawed: if aimless transgression is the point, why would bataile desire for change, even the kind -- incomplete, unfinished, without limit?
theology without god, mythticism without salvation--aren't you talking about madhymaka?
what's the point of embracing the paradox of history when embracing only means transgressing?
Profile Image for Ella.
1,743 reviews
April 15, 2025
Hollywood is brilliant, and I think this is really quite vital as a history of French theoretical reception of mysticism (although I do think there was some space for some discussion of Kristeva in there. Possibly I’m just biased because I’ve found her frameworks for discussion of mysticism the most useful and as a whole I find her less tedious than some of Irigaray’s later work).
Profile Image for Laura.
358 reviews5 followers
December 13, 2013
Hollywood. I liked the beginning; I liked the end. Everything in between got a little squishy for me.

I mean, really, I am just not smart enough to be writing commentary on these books. Good thing The Puppet and the Dwarf is not on Goodreads. Zizek - wowza.
Profile Image for Stacey Rice.
Author 1 book8 followers
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April 9, 2018
Required reading for class, only read the intro and conclusion. Can't really provide a good review because I was lost in all the other philosopher's analysis's.
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