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Products>Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 1: Girard's Mimetic Theory Across the Disciplines

Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 1: Girard's Mimetic Theory Across the Disciplines

Publisher:
, 2012
ISBN: 9781441165053
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Violence, Desire and the Sacred presents the most up-to-date inter-disciplinary work being developed with the ground-breaking insights of René Girard's mimetic theory. The collection showcases the work of outstanding scholars in mimetic theory and how they are applying and developing Girard's insights in a variety of fields. Girard's mimetic insight has provided a fruitful way for different disciplines, such as literature, anthropology, theology, religion studies, cultural studies, and philosophy, to engage on common anthropological ground, with a shared understanding of the human person. The aim of this edited collection is to present this interdisciplinary work and to illustrate how Girard's insights provide fertile ground for bringing together disparate disciplines in a shared purpose. As academic work on Girard's insights is growing, this collection would meet the need to show the critical, interdisciplinary applications of these insights.

Showcases the application of René Girard's mimetic theory across a range of disciplines, including philosophy, religious studies, literature and cultural studies.

Showcases the critical appropriation and applications of Girard's insights in a variety of fields.
Contributions from leading scholars including Anthony Kelly, James Alison, Jeremiah Alberg and Scott Cowdell

Foreword
Ann Astell

Contributors

Introduction
Scott Cowdell, Joel Hodge and Chris Fleming

Part I: Finding Our Bearings
1. René Girard, Modernity, and Apocalypse
Scott Cowdell

Part II: Biblical Studies
2. "Like Being Dragged Through a Bush Backwards": Hints of the Shape of Conversion's Adventure
James Alison
3. Finding the Way: How to Study Scripture with the Help of Scripture and the Desert Fathers
Draško Dizdar
4. Sacred Men and Sacred Goats: Mimetic Theory in Levitical and Passion Intertext
Debra Anstis

Part III: Theology
5. Beyond Locked Doors: The Breath of the Risen One
Anthony J. Kelly, CSsR
6. Torture and Faith: The Violent Sacred and Christian Resistance in East Timor
Joel Hodge
7. Girard and the Tasks of Theology
Kevin Lenehan

Part IV: Literary Studies
8. René Girard, Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death, and Salman Rushdie
Vijay Mishra
9. Grace Can Be Violent: Flannery's O'Connor's Novelistic Truth
Jeremiah Alberg

Part V: History and Political Thought
10. Europe and Enmity: How Christianity Can Contribute to a Positive Identity
Wolfgang Palaver
11. Herodian Aspects of the English Reformation Monarchy: Girardian Insights into Unacknowledged Brutality
Ivan Head
12. Human Rights: Controlling the Uncontrollable?
Peter Stork

Part VI: Developments and Critiques
13. Hard Evidence for Girardian Mimetic Theory? Intersubjectivity and Mirror Neurons
Scott Cowdell
14. Nietzsche, the Last Atheist
Chris Fleming and John O'Carroll
15. Is All Desire Mimetic? Lonergan and Girard on the Nature of Desire and Authenticity
Neil Ormerod

Glossary of Key Girardian Terms
Some Further Reading
Index

This very impressive volume shows how mimetic theory has broken free of its transatlantic origins, inspiring first-rate scholarship from around the world, most notably Australia. The interdisplinary richness of the theory remains intact: established scholars and new voices provide the customary insightful readings of theological and literary texts, alongside new trajectories, in history and in neuroscience. Violence, Desire and the Sacred is an indispensible survey of the state of play with regard to the latest wave of Girardian studies.

A fascinating contribution to the growing intellectual excitement about a major insight into the causes and possible cures for the violence that threatens us from within and without. René Girard's mimetic theory brings together not just philosophers, theologians, and literary people, but also theoreticians and practitioners from practically all the social and natural sciences to talk about and work toward lessening the internal and external violence that threatens our human existence. Remarkable that such a rich conversation could come from just one country!

This superbly-edited collection addresses the key issues in mimetic theory for this century, all of which require the interdisciplinary approach followed here. Readers who have been following the resurgent interest in René Girard's work will recognize the names of James Alison, Wolfgang Palaver, Jeremiah Alberg and Chris Fleming. To the centers already known at Stanford, Paris and Innsbruck, which generate scholarship and attract fellow researchers as students and colleagues, we must now add The Australian Girard Seminar.

Scott Cowdell is Associate Professor and Research Fellow in Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia, Canon Theologian of the Canberra-Goulburn Anglican Diocese, and Founding President of the Australian Girard Seminar

Chris Fleming is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Anthropology, School of Humanities and Languages, the University of Western Sydney, Australia. His is the author of Violence and Mimesis (2004) and is current Vice-President of the Australian Girard Seminar.

Joel Hodge is Lecturer in Systematic Theology, School of Theology, Australian Catholic University, Australia. He is the author of Resisting Violence and Victimisation: Christian Faith and Solidarity in East Timor and is current Treasurer and Secretary of the Australian Girard Seminar.

Wolfgang Palaver is Professor and Chair of the Institute for Systematic Theology at the University of Innsbruck, Austrian, and President of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R).

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