Bataille, Haiti and Vodou with Dr John Cussans The Last Tuesday Society in association with Strange Attractor presents John Cussans' talk "Bataille, Haiti and Vodou " who discusses the influence of Haitian Vodou on the development of social psychopathology in Europe during the 19th century, from the theoretical legacy of Anton Mesmer, through Le Bon, Charcot and Freud, to the Revolutionary Surrealism of Georges Bataille and the Acephale group in the 1930s. The presentation addresses the mythopoeic role of the Bois-Caïman ceremony in the story of Haitian Revoltion, its influence on sociological imagination of Europe in the forthcoming century, and the subsequent racialisation of the collective, revolutionary unconscious. John Cussans Lecturer in Contextual Studies and Critical Theory at Chelsea College of Art and Design. He completed a doctoral thesis - Revolting Subjects and Epidemic Disorder: Georges Bataille, Heterology and Broadcast Horror - at the Royal College of Art in 1996. He is currently working on a number of long term experimental projects exploring the parallel histories of paranormal research, clinical psychology, communication technologies and collective artistic practices. THIS TALK IS PART OF THE HENDRICK’S LECTURE SERIES.