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.”.

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.

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)

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.

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. 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)

Since the late 1970s, theologians have been attempting to integrate mimetic theory into different fields of theology, yet a distrust of mimetic theory persists in some theological camps. In" Rene Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology," Grant Kaplan brings mimetic theory into conversation with theology both to elucidate the relevance of mimetic theory for the discipline of fundamental theology and to understand the work of Rene Girard within a theological framework. Rather than focus on Christology or atonement theory (...) as the locus of interaction between Girard and theology, Kaplan centers his discussion on the apologetic quality of mimetic theory and the impact of mimetic theory on fundamental theology, the subdiscipline that grew to replace apologetics. His book explores the relation between Girard and fundamental theology in several keys. In one, it understands mimetic theory as a heuristic device that allows theological narratives and positions to become more intelligible and, by so doing, makes theology more persuasive. In another key, Kaplan shows how mimetic theory, when placed in dialogue with particular theologians, can advance theological discussion in areas where mimetic theory has seldom been invoked. On this level the book performs a dialogue with theology that both revisits earlier theological efforts and also demonstrates how mimetic theory brings valuable dimensions to questions of fundamental theology. "Grant Kaplan's" Rene Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology" is an accessible and original work advancing the discussion of Girard and theology. Kaplan claims mimetic theory for Catholic theology and shows how it can strengthen Catholic theology by providing a powerful apologetic. Immensely helpful, too, is his situating of Girard's work alongside formative theologians and other thinkers." Scott Cowdell, author of "Rene Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis" ". (shrink)

The reception of the thought of René Girard in theological discourse has been anything but uniform. Some have praised his theory for its simplicity and the scope of its explanatory power, while others have critiqued its apparent negative anthropology and claim to universality. Girard is known for articulating what he has termed “mimetic theory” and, more controversially, for arguing that the mimetic desire particular to human beings leads to violence, which can only be attenuated by a sacrificial system that (...) has arisen alongside human culture. Girard has faced numerous critiques against his theory in general, and has received backlash for his suspicion of and subsequent distancing from, the language of sacrifice.... (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.

¿Por qué un libro sobre René Girard? ¿En qué consiste su relevancia intelectual? ¿Cuáles son sus aportaciones al pensamiento contemporáneo? ¿Qué áreas del conocimiento abarcan sus tesis? ¿Ha dicho algo nuevo sobre el hombre y la cultura que sea digno de ser resaltado? ¿Por qué sus ideas suscitan polémica en las ciencias humanas? ¿Cuál es su relación con el cristianismo? ¿Aporta algo a la teología que no haya sido dicho todavía? ¿Por qué la teología se siente interpelada e incómoda (...) por su teoría? ¿Por qué algunos le llaman el Darwin de la cultura, otros el Hegel del cristianismo? Este libro quiere tratar de responder a algunas de estas preguntas y ofrecer vías para el debate antropológico y teológico contemporáneo. (shrink)

There is nothing better than René Girard’s mimetic desire and scapegoat’s theory to interpret and understand the enigmatic episode of the death of John the Baptist at the climax of Herod’s birthday celebration. Before Girard, many literary pieces have dealt with this same subject. Among them, Oscar Wilde’s Salome and Gustave Flaubert’s Hérodias, which offer a fascinating approach to the story told both by the Gospels and by historian Flavius Josephus. In this paper, several aspects are taken into consideration, (...) namely, the historical and political context, the secondary “characters”, the events before, during and after the banquet, the apparently inexplicable bloody ending and its terrible aftermath. (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)

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)

Girard discusses "homosexuality" on three occasions in his oeuvre. Late in the first chapter of Deceit, Desire, & the Novel he discusses the relationship between Veltchaninov and Troussotsky, characters in Dostoyevsky's The Eternal Husband. Then in Part III of Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World the sections entitled "Homosexuality" and "Mimetic Latency and Rivalry" are dedicated to the subject. Indeed, in the latter of these Girard reproduces his discussion of Veltchaninov and Troussotsky from the earlier book. Finally, he (...) touches on the matter in Chapter 4 of A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare, dedicated to... (shrink)

This article attempts to respond to the fractional presence of feminist discourse around René Girard’s theory of mimetic desire. I will first briefly examine the relevant critical stands on mimesis and then proceed to rehabilitate it for feminism via an analysis of Judith Butler’s theory of performative gender. By bringing together selected aspects of Girard and Butler’s work, it will be possible to build a constructive dialogue between the two thinkers. Due to the scope of the paper I will (...) not be able to give an exhaustive account of the respective theories, and hence I will discuss only the most relevant aspects. Girard is concerned with giving an account of conflictual mimetic desire in social and cultural.. (shrink)

The following conversation took place at the 2017 Colloquium on Violence and Religion in Madrid, Spain. Cesáreo Bandera and Adam Ericksen discuss Bandera's friendship with Girard, their disagreements about mimetic theory, and hope in these apocalyptic times. This is an edited version of the transcript of a recoded interview. You can watch the video recording at The Raven Review at ravenfoundation.org.We are in your home country.Yes. In my home country. I am from the south, from Malaga. Malaga is straight south (...) from Madrid on the coast, right across the Mediterranean from Africa. I was born there but grew up in other parts of southern Spain. Like Cordoba and Sevilla where I went to the law school, to get a law... (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.

One of the primary figures of the so-called religious turn of continental philosophy of religion at the turn of the twenty-first century, René Girard was one of the most important and influential Christian writers at the time of his death. His legacy is at this time questionable, as his writing is often employed as a philosophical justification for Christian supersessionism and the prioritization of Christian hermeneutics of the Hebrew Bible, all while providing helpful interpretive insight into scripture, human anthropology, (...) and psychology. This chapter proposes Girard as a radical thinker whose ideas have been domesticated, and introduces his work in an accessible way. (shrink)

La obra de René Girard está salpicada de críticas al humanismo y a los humanistas. En este estudio nos preguntamos en primer lugar qué es el humanismo, haciéndonos cargo de la problemática historiográfica. Presentamos el contraste existente entre los tópicos e ideales humanistas y las ideas que se derivan de la teoría mimética. Estudiamos las críticas explícitas de Girard a los humanistas y, por último, adoptamos una perspectiva que permite calificarlo a él mismo como un humanista.

La 4e de couverture rapporte : "L'esprit de Girard, esprit de pionnier, d'aventurier, est celui d'un "cow-boy", mais d'un cow-boy qui ne se déplace jamais sans sa Bible sous le bras. A la Bible sont empruntés les plus beaux titres de ses livres, en des phrases dont il montre toute la profondeur : Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde, La route antique des hommes pervers, Quand ces choses commenceront..., Je vois Satan tomber comme l'éclair, Celui par qui le (...) scandale arrive. Autant de jalons d'un itinéraire qui, de Mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque jusqu'à Achever Clausewitz, reflète, du passé le plus lointain à l'actualité la plus récente, l'épopée tragique de l'espèce humaine, sans jamais oublier la possibilité et l'espérance de son salut.". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:René Girard and the Rhetoric of ConsumptionKathleen M. Vandenberg (bio)The work of René Girard, so productively applied in so many different fields—in theology, in anthropology, in literature, to name a few—has yet to be recognized or applied in the field of rhetorical studies. Yet there exists, I argue, a need precisely for Girard's theories as the over 2000 year-old discipline enters the twenty-first century.Girard's theory of mimetic (...) or triangular desire can be used as a model for understanding persuasion, because it is, among other things, an "expression of a basic set of ideas on... the dynamics of the self and human relations" (1996, vii). Girard's concern is with human relationships and, in a sense, with how individuals in these relationships act rhetorically upon themselves and others. Girard's mimetic theory hinges on the dynamics of imitation and explains how individuals relate through both the conscious and the unconscious sharing of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs in certain situations. These situations are clearly rhetorical, as can be seen by examining the definition of the "rhetorical situation" set forth by Lloyd Bitzer, in his seminal 1968 article, "The Rhetorical Situation." Bitzer proposes three conditions that must be met for a rhetorical situation to exist: an exigency or imperfection marked by urgency; a rhetorical audience or an audience that can act; and constraints, or elements that have the power to constrain the decision and action needed to modify the exigency (7). In mass-mediated modern rhetoric, I argue that the exigencies exist externally (in the culture) and internally, the audience is both others and self, and the constraints are the alienation, mystification, and desire generated by hierarchies. Twentieth-century rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke advises that "we must often think of rhetoric not in terms of some one particular address, but as a general body of identifications that owe their convincingness much more to trivial repetition and dull daily reënforcement than to exceptional rhetorical skill" (1950, 26). Such is the case with this particular form of rhetoric, which is generated and propagated by mimetic contagion and thus is best more narrowly defined as sociological propaganda, a type of propaganda [End Page 259] theorized by Jacques Ellul in Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (1975).Ellul, the first to distinguish between political propaganda and sociological propaganda, proposes that the latter encompasses social behaviors "much more vast and less certain" than those of political propaganda (1975, 62). These social behaviors permit the penetration of an ideology in a society, a penetration that is achieved through the active participation of the masses. Sociological propaganda, as Ellul describes it, works from within; it is dependent on the individual's willingness and ability to persuade him- or herself and others. Sociological propaganda, Ellul posits, is created when members of a group behave in such a way as to influence the attitudes, actions, and lifestyles of others; often this behavior is unconscious, unintentional, and spontaneous.In these ways, the rhetoric of sociological propaganda operates in a markedly different fashion than more "traditional" rhetoric, which is largely understood to operate as a unilateral transaction in which an individual orator actively, openly, and orally works to move a relatively passive but physically present audience to act in accordance with the orator's own beliefs through a formally delivered speech. In its reliance on the interaction and cooperation of the many rather than the centrality and dominance of one speaker, in its acceptance of unintentional, spontaneous, and unconscious persuasion, in its dependence on the modern mass media, and in the limitless and nebulous nature of its boundaries in time and space, sociological propaganda constitutes a type of rhetoric heretofore insufficiently addressed by rhetorical studies. Although existing perspectives in rhetorical criticism have certainly addressed some aspects of this rhetoric, sociological propaganda is not easily explained with the terminology of traditional rhetorical criticism or easily approached from traditional rhetorical perspectives.This article asserts that the best way to approach and understand such propaganda is through the perspective of René Girard. Approaching this propaganda from a Girardian perspective permits us to look beyond the symbols of sociological propaganda and analyze our own responsibility in rhetorical... (shrink)

This book explores the nature and implications of positive, creative, and loving mimesis and brings together the interdisciplinary fields of Girardian studies and creativity studies in new and original ways. Scientists, philosophers, psychologists, theologians and ancient thinkers are brought into thought provoking and insightful dialogue with Girardian conceptions of mimetic desire, scapegoating, and hominization.

René Girard’s anthropology goes beyond Durkheim and Freud in seeking knowledge in literary, mythical, and religious texts. Girard’s primary intuition is that human culture originated in response to the danger of violent mimetic crises among increasingly intelligent hominins, whose imitation of each other’s desires led to conflict. These crises were resolved by the mechanism of emissary murder: the proto-human community came to focus its aggression on a single scapegoat whose unanimous lynching, by “miraculously” bringing peace, led to its ritual (...) repetition in sacrifice. Because this theory fails to found the signs of human language and worship on the deferral of spontaneous action, Girard can only attribute the internal peace necessary to the human community to the exhaustion of violent aggression. Instead, generative anthropology proposes that, beginning from the premise that the need to control internecine violence was the source of the human, an appropriative gesture toward an object of common desire, deferred out of fear of violence, becomes understood as a sign of the object’s sacred/interdicted status, after which it can be peacefully divided among the group. Following this originary event, the sacred/signifying universe of language and religion gradually comes to include the totality of human activity. (shrink)

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence.

En los estudios sobre el pensamiento de René Girard, suele darse por supuesto que el deseo mimético es la concepción girardiana original sobre el deseo humano, de tal modo que el deseo mimético sería, cronológicamente, el primer descubrimiento de Girard. Asimismo, se asume que de tal hallazgo primigenio se derivarían posteriormente su antropología y su teoría sobre la religión. Sin embargo, mediante el presente estudio se ofrece una interpretación alternativa, que es la siguiente: en realidad, lo que finalmente Girard (...) perfiló como ‘deseo mimético’ fue hallado en un segundo momento, desde la antropología y los estudios sobre las religiones arcaicas. Así pues, se sostiene que el deseo mimético no es la concepción girardiana original sobre la órexis humana, sino el resultado de una desapercibida metamorfosis de las intuiciones primitivas de Girard al respecto (abandonadas finalmente por él) y que fueron expresadas en su primer libro, Mentira romántica y verdad novelesca. (shrink)

Pour démontrer la pertinence de la thèse de Girard sur la consubstantialité du sacré et de l'humanité, la violence de la communauté trouvant son exutoire dans un meurtre collectif et fondateur, tout en limitant la rupture posée entre religieux archaïque et christianisme, l'auteur la confronte à celles de Régis Debray, Walter Burkert, Jan Assmann et Eugen Drewermann sur le même thème.