Life as voyeurism, the individual as trivialized spectator. “In society where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation.”

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 154 pages

This gorgeously bound reprint of Sacher-Masoch’s 1870 novel, Venus in Furs, which includes a thesis on masochism by Gilles Deleuze, is one of the most emotionally intense and beautifully written explorations of what Plato called “the desire and pursuit of the whole, which is called love.” One at times feels literally hypnotized while reading the book, as the protagonist erects layer upon layer of pathos for his plight: that of an obsessive, fetishistic dandy addicted to pain, servitude and the sight of fur around a woman’s bare shoulders, relentlessly imploring a reticent, disdainful Mistress to give him the treatment that he craves. Deleuze makes the point that masochism is not the opposite of sadism, locates its importance at the core of human psychology, and explains in depth Masoch’s “peculiar way of desexualizing love while at the same time sexualizing the entire history of humanity.” A complex and satisfying text that even vanilla-sexers will cherish. MG

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 293 pages

Most individuals in the late 20th century take for granted what they consider to be the “natural” division of the human race into two genders, male and female, based on the biological attributes of these sexes—the only two to be had. Using both anthropological and historical research, the authors whose work appears in Third Gender, Third Sex explore “how, in particular places and times, people construe not only the natural body,” but what have been called the “cultural genitals.” As a result, in different societies throughout the centuries, there have existed multiple genders and sexes. From eunuchs in Byzantine Rome to “sapphists” in early modern London, from the Berdache tradition in the American West to hermaphrodites in New Guinea, these essays cover a wide range of behaviors, cultures and time periods. While the focus in Third Gender, Third Sex is academic, the writing is largely jargon-free and the subject definitely fascinating. LP

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 614 pages
Illustrated

“This book by the legendary Situationist activist and author of The Revolution of Everyday Life is a fiercely partisan historical reflection on the ways religious and economic forces have shaped Western culture. Within this broad frame, Raoul Vaneigem examines the heretical and millenarian movements that challenged social and ecclesiastical authority in Europe from the 1200s into the 1500s… At the core of these heresies, Vaneigem sees not only resistance to the power of the state and church but also the immensely creative invention of new forms of love, sexuality, community and exchange. Vaneigem vividly portrays the radical opposition presented by these movements to the imperatives of an emerging market-based economy and he evokes crucial historical parallels with other anti-systemic rebellions throughout the history of the West.”

Publisher: Zone
Hardback: 302 pages

Within the background of ever-escalating black budgets and big-dick politics, funding for intelligent machines of mayhem, and the developments of computational power and its worldwide sociological impact, the shift in the age-old relationship between people and machines is profound. There is a growth of a very real war machine, seeking its own paths of destruction and ultimately of survival. With the assistance of powerful personal computers, both individuals and the state can now study and effect the behavior of singularities, and in the process speed the evolution of this new machine phylum. It’s not unreasonable to consider the distinct possibility that our current human biological system of organization and deployment is but the onset of a more advanced and capable machine intelligence without sinew, soul or skin. BW

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 272 pages
Illustrated

The Accursed Share is Bataille’s warped three-volume study of political economy. As Bataille described his project, “I had to add that the book I was writing did not consider the facts the way qualified economists do, that I had a point of view from which a human sacrifice, the construction of a church or the gift of a jewel were no less interesting than the sale of wheat.” The first volume, titled “Consumption,” looks at these questions from an economic standpoint, concluding that utility can only end in uselessness. AP

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 197 pages

The Accursed Share is Bataille’s warped three-volume study of political economy. As Bataille described his project, “I had to add that the book I was writing did not consider the facts the way qualified economists do, that I had a point of view from which a human sacrifice, the construction of a church or the gift of a jewel were no less interesting than the sale of wheat.” The second volume, “The History of Eroticism,” in sections such as “The Problem of Incest” and “Unlimited Fusion, the Orgy,” takes an in-depth look at the uselessness of erotic life: “Sexuality, at least, is good for something, but eroticism… We are clearly concerned with a sovereign form that cannot serve any purpose.” The third volume, then, takes up the question of sovereignty, and after an examination of feudal society and the negative sovereignty of communism, Bataille concludes that sovereignty lies in a life beyond utility. AP

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 460 pages

“Theory of Religion, along with its companion volumes of The Accursed Share, forms the cornerstone of Bataille’s ‘Copernican’ project to overturn not only economic thought but its ethical foundations as well… He proceeds to develop a ‘general economy’ of man’s relation to this intimacy: from the seamless immanence of animality, to the shattered world of objects, and the partial, ritual recovery of the intimate order through the violence of the sacrifice. Bataille then reflects on the archaic festival in which he sees not only the glorious affirmation of life through destructive consumption but also the seeds of another, more ominous order—war. Bataille then traces the rise of the modern military order in which production ceases to be oriented toward the destruction of a surplus and violence is no longer deployed inwardly but is turned to the outside. In these twin developments may be seen the origins of modern capitalism.”

Publisher: Zone
Paperback: 127 pages