Flesh Becomes Word: A Lexicography of the Scapegoat or, the History of an Idea
by David Dawson Though its coinage can be traced back to a sixteenth-century translation of Leviticus, the term “scapegoat” has enjoyed a long and varied history of both scholarly and everyday uses. While William Tyndale employed it to describe one of two goats chosen by lot to escape the Day of Atonement sacrifices with its […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]