Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

These considerations of the texts of Bataille—as they transgress all orders of
exchange, as they produce bliss and they define themselves from within their own
system—are essential to illustrate the notion of “pure” transgression mentioned earlier.
Whereas the definitions of Foucault, Kristeva, and Bataille regarding the nature of
transgression are sure to provide for a detailed understanding of its taboo-breaking
properties, the concept of pure transgression is ill-fitted to exclusively serve the purpose
of this study. Pure transgression presupposes a total dissociation from the limit it
transgresses, a separation from any system of meaning such as cultural or political
discourses, and for that reason, it does not consider the inter-exchanges between the
cultural processes of canon-formation and transgression. In order to come to come to an
understanding of how transgression is assimilated and assessed with regard to cultural
capital and canonical processes—which are deeply embedded in cultural ideologies—it is
necessary to consider transgression precisely in relation to those norms and conventions
(i.e. limits) it transgresses. In contrast, the framework proposed earlier, which considers
the properties of shock, scandal, and subversion—as transgressive works successively or
simultaneously break taboos, challenge artistic conventions, and threaten established
ideologies—offers a more didactic approach for understanding the discursive exchanges
between transgression, the processes of popular and critical reception, and canon-
formation.
Transgressions that are taboo-breaking are perhaps the most common for they are
specifically directed towards the widest possible audience and closely mirror the accepted
characterization of the transgressive as that which exceeds established boundaries of the
permissible and the tolerable within society. The standard definition of “taboo” is that of
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