system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why is Bataille cited as a post-structuralist?

I've noticed that Bataille is often cited as a precursor to post-structuralism—and while I understand that his work isn't even outwardly structuralist to begin with—I was hoping to get some clarification over here. Thanks.
gpt
Well, during the rise and fall of both French phenomenology and structuralism, Bataille was an extremely marginal figure, perhaps even a black sheep of the academy. Sartre and Breton wanted little do with him and he spent much of his academic life as a librarian as opposed to a distinguished professor. It wouldn't be until after his death in the 1960s that his work would be rediscovered and exhort considerable influence over the "post-structuralists" like Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva, Deleuze, and Baudrillard. In this sense, he's referred to as a precursor because his work was mostly obscured prior to that generation of thinkers. His influence is particularly noticeable in his readings of Nietzsche and de Sade, for example.