This text offers diverse and relevant examples of ways of reading literary and cultural texts in the light of Bataille's work. The chapters explore the significance of Bataillean notions like heterology, general economy, transgression and eroticism through detailed readings of Shakespeare and early modern literature, Gothic and postmodernist fiction and popular movies. Bataillean concepts are situated in relation to the ideas of renowned critical and cultural theorists like Lacan, Derrida, Kristeva, Baudrillard and Deleuze, among others. Here the influence of Bataille is outlined in intellectual and historical terms, and the significance of his work can be seen for both contemporary and futural modes of cultural analysis.