Prophet of Envy: Conversations with René Girard is a bold new book that contains a carefully curated and well-edited collection of interviews that René Girard had given over the course of his life. Some of them are scholarly, others are fiery. All are tantalizing. Some of these interviews were formerly behind paywalls on obscure websites and in other hard-to-find places. Cynthia Haven has brought together some of the best work of Girard in the format that he liked best: a dialogical encounter where his ideas can be wrestled with and worked out in the company of others. The book contains:
Introduction: Socrates in the Digital Age Cynthia
1 “There Are Real Victims Behind the Text” Discussion
2 Opera & Myth Philippe Godefroid
3 Technological Power in the Post-Sacrificial World Scott Walter
4 The Logic of the Undecidable Thomas F. Bertonneau
5 Violence, Difference, Sacrifice Rebecca Adams
6 “Revelation Is Dangerous. It’s the Spiritual Equivalent of
Nuclear Power.” Michel Treguer
7 “What Is Happening Today Is Mimetic Rivalry on a Global
Scale.” Henri Tincq
8 “How Should Mimetic Theory Be Applied?” Maria Stella Barberi
9 Shakespeare: Mimesis and Desire Robert Pogue Harrison
10 Why Do We Fight? How Do We Stop? Robert Pogue Harrison
11 “War Is Everywhere” Elisabeth Lévy
12 “I have always tried to think inside an evolutionary
framework.” Pierpaolo Antonello and João Cezar de Castro Rocha
13 The J’Accuse of René Girard: The Audacious Ideas
of a Great Thinker Giulio Meotti
14 A Passion Born of Rivalry Mark R. Anspach and Laurence Tacou
Conversations with René Girard.i
15 Apocalyptic Thinking after 9/11 Robert Doran
16 “I am first and foremost a social scientist.”
Pedro Sette-Câmara, Alvaro Velloso de Carvalho,
and Olavo de Carvalho
17 “Christianity Will Be Victorious, But Only in
Defeat” Cynthia L. Haven
18 Postscript: “René Girard Never Played the Great Man,”
Says Girard Biographer Artur Sebastian Rosman