John Lechte is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is best know for his writing on French philosophers, Julia Kristeva and Georges Bataille and for his best selling Key Contemporary Thinkers (Routledge, 2006). He is co-editor of Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights: Statelessness, Images, Violence (EUP, 2015) and The Kristeva Critical Reader (EUP, 2003). His most recent book is The Human (Bloomsbury, 2020).

One of the great undisclosed threads in contemporary theory lies in the connection between thinkers seemingly as diverse as Bataille, Agamben and Girard. Though each deals in their writing with sacrifice, victimization and violence, rarely do we find these thinkers conjoined in a study of their shared and divergent perspectives. What Lechte delivers in these pages is a highly original presentation of how a critical analysis of these thinkers might assist us in finding the truth behind the images routinely presented in our world. This is an insight, he successfully argues, which can only be illuminated by addressing how the mechanisms of sacrifice and violence ceaselessly continue to function behind nearly everything we see.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsNoteIntroductionVictim and Violence: Bataille versus NietzscheBataille: Image and VictimRethinking Agamben on ViolenceRethinking Agamben on the ImageGirard on Violence and the VictimImage, Violence, Victim and the Crucifixion: Girard’s VersionConclusion: Understanding Violence, Image and VictimReferencesIndex

John Lechte is Emeritus Professor in Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is best know for his writing on French philosophers, Julia Kristeva and Georges Bataille and for his best selling Key Contemporary Thinkers (Routledge, 2006). He is co-editor of Agamben and the Politics of Human Rights: Statelessness, Images, Violence (EUP, 2015) and The Kristeva Critical Reader (EUP, 2003). His most recent book is The Human (Bloomsbury, 2020).

One of the great undisclosed threads in contemporary theory lies in the connection between thinkers seemingly as diverse as Bataille, Agamben and Girard. Though each deals in their writing with sacrifice, victimization and violence, rarely do we find these thinkers conjoined in a study of their shared and divergent perspectives. What Lechte delivers in these pages is a highly original presentation of how a critical analysis of these thinkers might assist us in finding the truth behind the images routinely presented in our world. This is an insight, he successfully argues, which can only be illuminated by addressing how the mechanisms of sacrifice and violence ceaselessly continue to function behind nearly everything we see.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsNoteIntroductionVictim and Violence: Bataille versus NietzscheBataille: Image and VictimRethinking Agamben on ViolenceRethinking Agamben on the ImageGirard on Violence and the VictimImage, Violence, Victim and the Crucifixion: Girard’s VersionConclusion: Understanding Violence, Image and VictimReferencesIndex