L'univers de René Girard est un univers complexe dans lequel se mêlent étroitement les éléments biographiques et les différentes disciplines auxquelles il a fait appel pour mener à bien ses travaux. Centrés sur le phénomène du désir mimétique, ces entretiens dévoilent la genèse de sa théorie dans les domaines littéraires et religieux. Le fil conducteur en est le principe des doubles mimétiques qu'il a analysés chez des auteurs comme Stendhal, Proust, Dostoïevski et Shakespeare. Il se réfère également à (...) la Bible, considérant que " la donnée fondamentale de notre temps est la crise du religieux ". Ses ouvrages relèvent à la fois de la littérature comparée, de l'anthropologie et de l'histoire des religions. Il trouve aussi, dans les échanges économiques, la confirmation de sa théorie. En effet, selon lui, le monde moderne est à la recherche du sacré qu'il a perdu, et, dans ce processus, il se retrouve victime d'un mimétisme exacerbé. René Girard déploie son esprit critique à l'encontre de la société de concurrence et de la consommation ; ce faisant, il compare les sociétés française et américaine du point de vue d'un intellectuel français installé au coeur de l'Amérique. (shrink)

In 1988, Nadine Dormoy conducted a series of interviews with Rene Girard after a number of books and conferences had situated his work in a new context of research on self-organizing systems. In these interviews, Girard discusses the intellectual activity that followed the 1982 Stanford University conference, Disorder and Order. Girard also discusses Theater of Envy, his book on Shakespeare, as well as corrects several misunderstandings of his mimetic hypothesis.

Le 15 décembre 2005, René Girard, lors de son entrée à l'Académie française, prononça l'éloge de son prédécesseur, le révérend père Carré. Michel Serres répondit à ce discours par un tableau de la vie et de l'oeuvre du récipiendaire dont, dit-il, la théorie compte parmi les plus fécondes du XXe siècle.

In 1973 Girard was invited by the editors of Esprit in Paris to discuss his work with several interlocutors from the fields of philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature, and theology. In this exchange Girard addresses challenges to his thinking, and is further prompted to consider the relation between his critique of primitive or archaic religion and the role of Judeo-Christianity, which Western culture has adopted as its own, and to which his book pays scant attention.

In _Battling to the End _René Girard engages Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military theoretician who wrote _On War_. Clausewitz, who has been critiqued by military strategists, political scientists, and philosophers, famously postulated that "War is the continuation of politics by other means." He also seemed to believe that governments could constrain war. Clausewitz, a firsthand witness to the Napoleonic Wars, understood the nature of modern warfare. Far from controlling violence, politics follows in war's wake: the means of war (...) have become its ends. René Girard shows us a Clausewitz who is a fascinated witness of history's acceleration. Haunted by the French-German conflict, Clausewitz clarifies more than anyone else the development that would ravage Europe. _Battling to the End _pushes aside the taboo that prevents us from seeing that the apocalypse has begun. Human violence is escaping our control; today it threatens the entire planet. (shrink)

René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is (...) trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eating Disorders and Mimetic Desire René Girard Stanford University Among younger women, eating disorders are reaching epidemic proportions. The most widespread and spectacular at this moment is the most recently identified, the so-called bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating followed by "purging," sometimes through laxatives or diuretics, more often through self-induced vomiting. Some researchers claim that, in American colleges, at least one third of the female student (...) population is involved to some degree. (Since nine out of ten sufferers are women I will use feminine pronouns in this paper but some undergraduates at Stanford tell me that the epidemic is spreading to male students.) G.M.F. Russell, the first researcher who focused on the specific aspects ofmodern bulimia, is usually presented as the discoverer of a new illness. The title ofhis 1979 publication contradicts this view: "Bulimia Nervosa: An Ominous Variant ofAnorexiaNervosa." And, indeed, all the symptoms he describes had been mentioned before in connection with anorexia (see Bruch). The insurance companies and the medical profession like only welldefined illnesses, and so does the public. We all try to distance ourselves from pathological contamination by giving it a name. Eating disorders are often discussed as ifthey were new varieties ofmeasles or oftyphoid fever. Why distrust the distinction between two illnesses with symptoms as radically opposed as those of anorexia and bulimia? Because we live in a world where eating too much and not eating enough are opposite but inseparable ways ofcoping with the slenderness imperative that dominates 2 René Girard our collective imaginations. Most of us oscillate all our lives between attenuated forms ofthese two pathologies. The man in the street understands perfectly a truth that most specialists prefer not to confront. Our eating disorders are caused by our compulsive desire to lose weight. Most books on the subject acknowledge the universal calorie phobia but somewhat absent-mindedly, as if it could not be the major cause ofa serious illness. How could a fundamentally healthy desire become the cause ofpathological behavior, even ofdeath? Many people would be healthier, no doubt, ifthey ate less. In view of this fact, it is not illogical to suppose that, in anorexia, there must be some motivation other than this healthy desire, some unconscious drive, no doubt, that generates abnormal behavior. By turning anorexia and bulimia into two separate pathologies, the classificators make it easier for us to lose sight of their common basis. The bankruptcy of modern theories The search for hidden motivations is the alpha and omega, ofcourse, of our modern culture. Our number one principle is that no human phenomenon is really what it seems to be. A satisfactory interpretation must rely on one of the hermeneutics of suspicion that have become popular in the nineteenth and twentieth century, or on several ofthese, on a cocktail of soupçon: psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, etc. We automatically assume that social phenomena have little if anything to do with what is obvious in them, in this case the rejection offood. In anorexia, psychoanalysts usually diagnose "a refusal of normal sexuality," due to the patient's excessive desire "to please her father," etc. These explanations are still invoked in books being written right now but the voice is growing fainter. Around this sort of thing the smell of mustiness is overpowering. Even in Lacan's own land, the old arrogance is gone. Early in my life, I had an opportunity to observe that the eating practices ofyoung women have nothing to do with a desire to please their fathers. Just before World War II, a pretty cousin of mine was dieting furiously and her father, my uncle, was storming about helplessly, trying to get her to eat more. Fathers, as a rule, are not pleased to see their daughters starve themselves. This particular father was also a physician, at a time when the medical profession had not yet caught the disease it was already trying to cure. Eating Disorders andMimetic Desire3 This uncle was our family doctor and, as such, had great prestige in my eyes, at least until that day. I had not yet read Freud but my later skepticism regarding his conception offatherhood may well originate in this incident. I immediately... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eating Disorders and Mimetic Desire René Girard Stanford University Among younger women, eating disorders are reaching epidemic proportions. The most widespread and spectacular at this moment is the most recently identified, the so-called bulimia nervosa, characterized by binge eating followed by "purging," sometimes through laxatives or diuretics, more often through self-induced vomiting. Some researchers claim that, in American colleges, at least one third of the female student (...) population is involved to some degree. (Since nine out of ten sufferers are women I will use feminine pronouns in this paper but some undergraduates at Stanford tell me that the epidemic is spreading to male students.) G.M.F. Russell, the first researcher who focused on the specific aspects ofmodern bulimia, is usually presented as the discoverer of a new illness. The title ofhis 1979 publication contradicts this view: "Bulimia Nervosa: An Ominous Variant ofAnorexiaNervosa." And, indeed, all the symptoms he describes had been mentioned before in connection with anorexia (see Bruch). The insurance companies and the medical profession like only welldefined illnesses, and so does the public. We all try to distance ourselves from pathological contamination by giving it a name. Eating disorders are often discussed as ifthey were new varieties ofmeasles or oftyphoid fever. Why distrust the distinction between two illnesses with symptoms as radically opposed as those of anorexia and bulimia? Because we live in a world where eating too much and not eating enough are opposite but inseparable ways ofcoping with the slenderness imperative that dominates 2 René Girard our collective imaginations. Most of us oscillate all our lives between attenuated forms ofthese two pathologies. The man in the street understands perfectly a truth that most specialists prefer not to confront. Our eating disorders are caused by our compulsive desire to lose weight. Most books on the subject acknowledge the universal calorie phobia but somewhat absent-mindedly, as if it could not be the major cause ofa serious illness. How could a fundamentally healthy desire become the cause ofpathological behavior, even ofdeath? Many people would be healthier, no doubt, ifthey ate less. In view of this fact, it is not illogical to suppose that, in anorexia, there must be some motivation other than this healthy desire, some unconscious drive, no doubt, that generates abnormal behavior. By turning anorexia and bulimia into two separate pathologies, the classificators make it easier for us to lose sight of their common basis. The bankruptcy of modern theories The search for hidden motivations is the alpha and omega, ofcourse, of our modern culture. Our number one principle is that no human phenomenon is really what it seems to be. A satisfactory interpretation must rely on one of the hermeneutics of suspicion that have become popular in the nineteenth and twentieth century, or on several ofthese, on a cocktail of soupçon: psychoanalysis, Marxism, feminism, etc. We automatically assume that social phenomena have little if anything to do with what is obvious in them, in this case the rejection offood. In anorexia, psychoanalysts usually diagnose "a refusal of normal sexuality," due to the patient's excessive desire "to please her father," etc. These explanations are still invoked in books being written right now but the voice is growing fainter. Around this sort of thing the smell of mustiness is overpowering. Even in Lacan's own land, the old arrogance is gone. Early in my life, I had an opportunity to observe that the eating practices ofyoung women have nothing to do with a desire to please their fathers. Just before World War II, a pretty cousin of mine was dieting furiously and her father, my uncle, was storming about helplessly, trying to get her to eat more. Fathers, as a rule, are not pleased to see their daughters starve themselves. This particular father was also a physician, at a time when the medical profession had not yet caught the disease it was already trying to cure. Eating Disorders andMimetic Desire3 This uncle was our family doctor and, as such, had great prestige in my eyes, at least until that day. I had not yet read Freud but my later skepticism regarding his conception offatherhood may well originate in this incident. I immediately... (shrink)

In _Sacrifice_, René Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. Even that which appears to be dissimilar fails to contradict mimetic theory, but instead corresponds to the minimum of illusion without which sacrifice becomes impossible. The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. (...) Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense. Once exposed, the single victim mechanism can no longer function as the model for would-be sacrificers. Recognizing that the Vedic tradition also converges on a revelation that discredits sacrifice, mimetic theory locates within sacrifice itself a paradoxical power of quiet reflection that leads, in the long run, to the eclipse of this institution which is violent but nevertheless fundamental to the development of human culture. Far from unduly privileging the Western tradition and awarding it a monopoly on the knowledge and repudiation of blood sacrifice, mimetic analysis recognizes comparable, but never truly identical, traits in the Vedic tradition. (shrink)

In this lively series of conversations with writer Michel Treguer, René Girard revisits the major concepts of mimetic theory and explores science, democracy, and the nature of God and freedom. Girard affirms that “our unprecedented present is incomprehensible without Christianity.” Globalization has unified the world, yet civil war and terrorism persist despite free trade and economic growth. Because of mimetic desire and the rivalry it generates, asserts Girard, “whether we’re talking about marriage, friendship, professional relationships, issues (...) with neighbors or matters of national unity, human relations are always under threat.” Literary masters including Marivaux, Dostoevsky, and Joyce understood this, as did archaic religion, which warded off violence with blood sacrifice. Christianity brought a new understanding of sacrifice, giving rise not only to modern rationality and science but also to a fragile system that is, in Girard’s words, “always teetering between a new golden age and a destructive apocalypse.” Treguer, a skeptic of mimetic theory, wonders: “Is what he’s telling me true...or is it just a nice story, a way of looking at things?” In response, Girard makes a compelling case for his theory. (shrink)

“Why is there so much violence in our midst?” René Girard asks. “No question is more debated today. And none produces more disappointing answers.” In Girard’s mimetic theory it is the imitation of someone else’s desire that gives rise to conflict whenever the desired object cannot be shared. This mimetic rivalry, Girard argues, is responsible for the frequency and escalating intensity of human conflict. For Girard, human conflict comes not from the loss of reciprocity between (...) humans but from the transition, imperceptible at first but then ever more rapid, from good to bad reciprocity. In this landmark text, Girard continues his study of violence in light of geopolitical competition, focusing on the roots and outcomes of violence across societies latent in the process of globalization. The volume concludes in a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, where Girard’s twenty-first century emphases on the continuity of all religions, global conflict, and the necessity of apocalyptic thinking emerge. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:René Girard LOVE DELIGHTS IN PRAISES: A READING OF THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA Valentine and Proteus have been friends since their earliest childhood in Verona, and their two fathers want to send them to Milan for their education. Because of his love for a girl named Julia, Proteus refuses to leave Verona; Valentine goes to Milan alone. In spite ofJulia, however, Proteus misses Valentine greatly and, (...) after a while, he, too, goes to Milan. The two friends are reunited in the ducal palace; the duke's daughter, Silvia, is present and Valentine briefly introduces Proteus. After she departs, Valentine announces that he loves her and his hyperbolical passion irritates Proteus. Once alone, however, Proteus has his own announcement to make: he no longer loves Julia; he, too, has fallen in love with Silvia: Even as one heat another heat expels, Or as one nail by strength drives out another, So the remembrance of my former love Is by a newer object quite forgotten.1 If there ever was a "love at first sight," this must be it, we think, but Proteus is not so sure: in three crucial lines, he suggests a different explanation: Is it mine eye, or Valentinus' praise, Her true perfection or my false transgression, That makes me reasonless, to reason thus? (Il.iv. 196-98) 231 232Philosophy and Literature The entire comedy massively confirms the crucial role of Valentine in the genesis of Proteus's sudden passion for Silvia. According to our romantic and individualistic ideology, a borrowed sentiment such as this one is not genuine enough to be really intense. This is not true in Shakespeare; Proteus's desire is so furious that he would actually rape Silvia if Valentine did not rescue her in extremis. When Shakespeare wrote his plays, the second-hand desire he portrays had no name, no official existence, but this is no longer true. We call it mimetic or mediated desire. Valentine is the model or mediator of this desire. Proteus is its mediated subject and Silvia is their common object. Mimetic desire can strike with the speed of lightning because it does not really depend upon the visual impact made by the object; it only seems to. Proteus desires Silvia not because their brief encounter made a decisive impression on him but because he is predisposed in favor of whatever Valentine desires. Mimetic desire is not some modern idea that I would force upon an unwilling writer; it is Shakespeare's own idea and we can see this again in Proteus's soliloquy, which keeps minimizing the role of perception in the genesis of his desire for Silvia: She is fair; and so is Julia that I love, That I did love,... (Il.iv. 199-200) IfSilvia is no more desirable objectively thanJulia, her only advantage is that Valentine already desires her. Shakespeare undermines the predominance of sight in the expression love at first sight. In A Midsummer Night's Dream as well, the two girls are said to be equally beautiful, also for the purpose of reinforcing the case for mimetic desire. II The dramatic context of this first mimetic desire, and of many others in Shakespeare, is the close and ancient friendship of the two protagonists. When Proteus is about to arrive in Milan, Valentine describes this friendship to Silvia and her father: I knew him as myself; for from our infancy We have convers'd and spent our hours together. (II.iv.62-63) René Girard233 When two young men grow up together, they learn the same lessons, they read the same books, they play the same games, and they agree on just about everything. They also tend to desire the same objects. This perpetual convergence is not incidental but essential to the friendship ; it occurs so regularly and inevitably that it seems preordained by some supernatural fate; it really depends on a mutual imitation so spontaneous and constant that it remains unconscious. When we think of imitation, we imagine two people copying each other's manners, habits, accents, and even their likes and dislikes in the still childish and innocent manner of two childish friends. We never think of what Proteus's desire for... (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a comprehensive overview of René Girard’s reflections on the issue of modern jihadism. It addresses three key aspects of his reasoning: (I) the rise of Islamic terrorism in the context of a globalization of resentment; (II) modern jihadism understood as an “event internal to the development of technology;” (III) the hypothesis that modern jihadism “is both linked to Islam and different from it.”.

“Belonging” means the fact of belonging to something or someone. A serf belongs to an estate. A slave belongs to his master. In our democratic universe, no one belongs to a lord and master anymore, at least in principle. Nowadays, people only belong to communities of free individuals who are equal under the law—again, in principle.We all belong to the human race. Nearly all of you here belong to the nation of Italy, to Sicily, to the city of Messina, to (...) such and such a milieu, to such and such a family. Most of you now even have a new level of supranational belonging: your passports are no longer merely Italian but European.While some relationships of belonging are mainly spatial in nature, they necessarily have a... (shrink)

Using specific examples drawn from Sartre’s oeuvre, I propose to treat the contemporary problem of critical method—or, more precisely, of critical interpretation—in literary texts. I begin by examining the meaning of Sartre’s The Flies, one of his earliest dramatic works.The themes of the play are easily grouped into pairs of opposing concepts: authenticity versus inauthenticity, lucidity versus bad faith, revolt versus conformism, atheism versus religion, revolution versus reaction, and so on. All these themes appear, and are organized, as a function (...) of the conflict between Orestes and Aegisthus. The drama is the embodiment of thematic oppositions. If these oppositions were overcome, the.. (shrink)

I now come to an idea that is important to me and that I address in an article from 1957 entitled “Où va le roman?” Both André Malraux and Jean-Paul Sartre made use of the novel early in their careers before abandoning it. Is this development inevitable? Against the naturalist novel, which eliminates the subject in favor of the object, we see the rise, after the Second World War, of the metaphysical novel, which will, on the contrary, gradually destroy its (...) object. I contend in this article that Malraux’s and Sartre’s transcendence of the novel—in Malraux’s The Voices of Silence (Les Voix du silence) and in Sartre’s engagement with an overly rational subjectivism—neither can nor should become a rallying cry. I .. (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard’s mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture’s theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

What was René Girard’s attitude towards philosophy? What philosophers influenced him? What stance did he take in the philosophical debates of his time? What are the philosophical questions raised by René Girard’s anthropology? In this interview, Paul Dumouchel sheds light on these issues.

Rene Girard, Prăbuşirea Satanei Ed. Nemira, Bucureşti, 2006.

In _René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis_, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged (...) thanks to the Bible’s exposure of the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism._ In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard’s basic intellectual vision and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of “secularization” and “modernity,” as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard’s own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: “What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?” "Scott Cowdell's book is the first comprehensive study of modernity and secularity in René Girard's thought. Cowdell brings Girard's theory into a fruitful dialogue with leading approaches on secularization like those of Max Weber, Hans Blumenberg, Peter Berger, and Charles Taylor. Scholars and students of theology, philosophy, and sociology will benefit from this wide-ranging overview of the relationship between religion, modernity, and secularization." — Wolfgang Palaver, Institute of Systematic Theology, University of Innsbruck __ "In a stunning analysis, Cowdell shows that Girard’s sustained intellectual pursuit, which began in the 1960s with his mimetic analysis of modern realist fiction, has always been about the religiosity of the modern and postmodern social condition, even when it has dealt explicitly with the religious origins of antique culture. Cowdell demonstrates the 'highly explanatory and predictive' quality of Girard’s cultural anthropology, within which the 'secular' does not escape the 'religious.' This is a powerful book." — Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame __ "Scott Cowdell is one of the most interesting theological voices of his generation. The themes in Cowdell's work are always cosmic and vast in scope. This is a remarkable reading of our contemporary situation through the lens of René Girard. Accurate, informed, and illuminating, Cowdell has written a fabulous book. For the person needing a way into Girard and for the person who is already using Girard's work, Cowdell brings out the implications of Girard for the moment in which we live. An absolutely essential addition to your personal library." — The Very Rev Dr. Ian Markham, Virginia Theological Seminary_. (shrink)

This paper will address René Girard’s critique of the “humanization of nothingness” in modern Western philosophy. I will first explain how the “desire for death” is related to a phenomenon that Girard refers to as “obstacle addiction.” Second, I will point out how mankind’s desire for death and illusory will to self-divinization gradually tend to converge within the history of modern Western humanism. In particular, I will show how this convergence between self-destruction and self-divinization gradually takes shape (...) through the evolution of the concept of “the negative” from Hegel to Kojève, Sartre and Camus. Finally, we shall come to see that in Girard’s view “the negative” has tended to become an ever-preoccupying and unacknowledged symptom of mankind’s addiction to “model/obstacles” of desire. (shrink)

The modern concept of reason called one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity into question: the universal value of the salvation brought to all humanity by Jesus. From a modern point of view, it is not possible for a historic and contingent event, such as the death of Jesus, to bear universal meaning for men of all times. In this article I aim to show how René Girard’s anthropological hypothesis offers an alternative answer to the seemingly impossible universale concretum.

El término “doble vínculo” fue utilizado por primera vez por el antropólogo Gregory Bateson. René Girard asume esta aportación de la Escuela de Palo Alto para formular su teoría del “deseo mimético”. El presente artículo expone la transformación de esta noción en la antropología contemporánea.

The reception of René Girard’s work in France deserves book-length treatment to fully describe the heated debates, conflicting expectations, and controversy that it inspired before its lasting importance was eventually recognized. We must keep in mind that, although he lived in the US and became a citizen in 1956, he always kept his sights on his native land. He watched the transformations of French thought from the other side of the ocean; he forged his own writing strategies in (...) response to French thought; and it was within the context of French debates that he chose to formulate, through the conjoined hypotheses concerning mimetic desire, the scapegoat, and Judeo-Christian writing, the founding event of his... (shrink)

A systematic introduction into the mimetic theory of the French-American literary theorist and philosophical anthropologist René Girard, this essential text explains its three main pillars with the help of examples from literature and philosophy. This book also offers an overview of René Girard’s life and work, showing how much mimetic theory results from existential and spiritual insights into one’s own mimetic entanglements. Furthermore it examines the broader implications of Girard’s theories, from the mimetic aspect of (...) sovereignty and wars to the relationship between the scapegoat mechanism and the question of capital punishment. Mimetic theory is placed within the context of current cultural and political debates like the relationship between religion and modernity, terrorism, the death penalty, and gender issues. Drawing textual examples from European literature and philosophy, Palaver uses mimetic theory to explore the themes they present. A highly accessible book, this text is complemented by bibliographical references to Girard’s widespread work and secondary literature on mimetic theory and its applications, comprising a valuable bibliographical archive that provides the reader with an overview of the development and discussion of mimetic theory until the present day. (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard's mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture's theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

For half a century René Girard’s theories of mimetic desire and scapegoating have captivated the imagination of thinkers and doers in many fields as an incisive look into the human condition, particularly the roots of violence. In a 1993 interview with Rebecca Adams, he highlighted the positive dimensions of mimetic phenomena without expanding on what they might be. Now, two decades later, this groundbreaking book systematically explores the positive side of mimetic theory in the context of the multi-faceted (...) world of creativity. Several authors build on Adams’ insight that loving mimesis can be understood as desiring the subjectivity of the other, particularly when the other may be young or wounded. With highly nuanced arguments authors show how mimetic theory can be used to address child and adult development, including the growth of consciousness and a capacity to handle complexity. Mimetic theory is brought to bear on big questions about creativity in nature, evolutionary development, originality, and religious intrusion into politics. (shrink)

This paper will analyze the evolution and the key aspects of René Girard’s critique of the Hegelian “struggle for recognition” and the master-slave dialectic. Through a discussion of Girard’s views on Identity, Difference, Violence, Desire and Negativity, the study will aim to highlight the philosophical uniqueness of the mimetic theory in respect to French Hegelianism and postHegelianism.

Bien que reconnue et traduite dans de nombreux pays, l'œuvre de René Girard est peu reconnue en France et conserve une réputation sulfureuse dans les milieux académiques. Pourtant ses idées ont imprégné le discours de bien des enseignants et chercheurs. Point essentiel : la familiarité de l'auteur avec le christianisme. Celui que l'on a pu appeler " le Hegel du christianisme " voudrait démontrer la supériorité spirituelle et philosophique de cette religion. Etonnante pensée que celle de R. (...) class='Hi'>Girard, caractérisée par un mixte de simplicité et de complexité. Ses concepts, peu nombreux, souvent puisés dans le langage commun (bouc émissaire, lynchage, contagion, scandale, Satan et Jésus, etc.) n'en n'acquièrent pas moins une puissance opératoire et explicative peu commune, imprégnant l'ensemble de sa production. L'ouvrage présente l'œuvre de René Girard en articulant trois de ses apports fondamentaux. 1) La théorie du désir mimétique, 2) La théorie de la " victime émissaire ", ou de la violence fondatrice, 3) L'importance du processus de la " méconnaissance ", qui est au fondement du processus de la violence fondatrice. (shrink)