The Barren Sacrifice: An Essay on Political Violence
According to political theory, the primary function of the modern state is to protect its citizens—both from each other and from external enemies. Yet it is the states that essentially commit major forms of violence, such as genocides, ethnic cleansings, and large-scale massacres, against their own citizens. In this book, Paul Dumouchel argues that this […]
The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays – by Paul Dumouchel
First published in French in 1979, “The Ambivalence of Scarcity” was a groundbreaking work on mimetic theory. Now expanded upon with new, specially written, and never-before-published conference texts and essays, this revised edition explores René Girard’s philosophy in three sections: economy and economics, mimetic theory, and violence and politics in modern societies. The first section […]
When These Things Begin: Conversations with Michel Treguer – by René Girard
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 […]
Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation
by Walter Burkert, René Girard, Jonathan Z. Smith Burkert, Girard, and Smith hold important and contradictory theories about the nature and origin of ritual sacrifice, and the role violence plays in religion and culture. These papers and conversations derive from a conference that pursued the possibility and utility of a general theory of religion and culture, especially […]
Violence and the Sacred – by René Girard
His fascinating and ambitious book provides a fully developed theory of violence as the ‘heart and secret soul’ of the sacred. Girard’s fertile, combative mind links myth to prophetic writing, primitive religions to classical tragedy. Check out Violence and the Sacred on Amazon.
To Double Business Bound: Essays on Literature, Mimesis and Anthropology – by René Girard
An individual desires an object, not for itself, but because another individual also desires it. This mimetic desire, Rene Girard contends, lies at the source of all human disorder and order. In brilliant readings of Dante, Camus, Nietzsche, Dostoevski, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and others, Girard draws out the thesis of mimetic desire — and ponders its […]
The Scapegoat – by René Girard
Girard, professor of the French language, literature, and civilization at Stanford, builds on his notable previous anthropological and literary examinations of myth and ritual in human society. Here he applies his appraisals of Freud and Levi-Strauss to demonstrate how religion functions to keep violence outside society by deflecting it onto a scapegoat whose sacrifice restores […]
The Girard Reader (Edited by James G. Williams)
In one volume, an anthology of seminal work of one of the twentieth century’s most original thinkers, René Girard. This is a great place to start for newbie’s to Girard’s mimetic theory. The only drawback is that this book is out of print and thus is ridiculously expensive; however, it does contain essential nuggets of […]
Resurrection from the Underground: Feodor Dostoevsky – by René Girard
In a fascinating analysis of critical themes in Feodor Dostoevsky’s work, René Girard explores the implications of the Russian author’s “underground,” a site of isolation, alienation, and resentment. Brilliantly translated, this book is a testament to Girard’s remarkable engagement with Dostoevsky’s work, through which he discusses numerous aspects of the human condition, including desire, which […]
Oedipus Unbound: Selected Writings on Rivalry and Desire
Did Oedipus really kill his father and marry his mother? Or is he nothing but a scapegoat, set up to take the blame for a crisis afflicting Thebes? For René Girard, the mythic accusations of patricide and incest are symptomatic of a plague-stricken community’s hunt for a culprit to punish, and Girard succeeds in making us see […]