Front -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Movements of Luxurious Exuberance -- Sovereignty and Cruelty -- Erotic Ruination -- Desire, Blood, and Power -- Th e Religion of Football -- Violent Silence -- Georges Bataille and the Religion of Capitalism -- Sacrifi ce as Ethics -- Bataille's Contestation of Interpretative Anthropology and of the Sociology of Religion -- T e Traumatic Secret -- Foucault's Sacred Sociology -- Bataille and Kristeva on Religion -- Bataille, Teilhard de Chardin, and the Death of God -- Does the Acéphale Dream of Headless Sheep? -- Afterword -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Contributors -- Index -- Perspectives in Continental Philosophy.