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 […]
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 […]
Sacrifice: Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory – by René Girard
In Sacrifice, René Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with the mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. Even that which appears to be dissimilar fails to contradict the mimetic theory but instead corresponds to the minimum of illusion without which sacrifice becomes impossible. The Bible reveals collective […]
Job: The Victim of His People – by René Girard
What do we know about the Book of Job? Not very much. The hero complains endlessly. He has just lost his children all his livestock. He scratches his ulcers. The misfortunes of which he complains are all duly enumerated in the prologue. They are misfortunes brought on him by Satan with God’s permission. We think […]
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning – by Rene Girard
One of Girard’s most important books, and one highly recommended for beginners –especially those interested in the religious implications of his work. It starts exploring the tenth commandment, which Girard believes is really an injunction against mimetic rivalry, and goes on to explain the apparent similarities between mythology and the Gospels. In Girard’s view, the […]
Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture – by René Girard
Evolution and Conversion explore the main tenets of René Girard’s thought in a series of dialogues. Here, Girard reflects on the evolution of his thought and offers striking new insights on topics such as violence, religion, desire and literature. His long argument is a historical one in which the origin of culture and religion is reunited […]