“We must face our neighbors and declare unconditional peace. Even if we are provoked, challenged, we must give up violence once and for all.”
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The “Immortel” founder of mimetic theory, René Girard, has died today, less than two months before his 92nd birthday. He has had probably the biggest influence on my life of anyone, from the time I first read The Girard Reader (1996, ed. James G. Williams) and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978), in 2003 or 2004, after learning about him through Paul Nuechterlein’s Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary.
I’ve often wondered how much of his influence on me is due to his presenting a new idea that changed ever after how I thought, and how much due to his ideas resonating with what I already felt. I think it’s both: Girard’s ideas resonated because I already felt the truth of them in my life, but until I read his work, and that of other Girardians, I didn’t have a hermeneutic, a method for reading and interpreting both printed texts and situations in life, that was consistent and clear to me; I was trying to fit my observations and insights into other theologies, philosophies, anthropologies, sociologies and psychologies, and finding a mismatch.
If you too feel this way — that the way you read the motivations and consequences of situations in your own life, characters in a novel, history, politics, etc., seems uncorroborated by the media, philosophers, theologians, historians, those around you — then you might read some of his work and see what you find.
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“The true threat to the world today comes from the mad ambitions of states and capitalists bent on destroying non-modern cultures. It is the so-called developed countries that plunder the planet’s resources without showing the least concern for consequences they are incapable of foreseeing.”
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Online References
Eminent French theorist René Girard, member of the Académie Française, dies at 91 by Cynthia Haven, Stanford News, 5 Nov. 2015
In Memory of René Girard: The Truth about Life and Death by Adam Ericksen at The Raven Foundation, today.
History is a test. Mankind is failing it: René Girard scrutinizes the human condition from creation to apocalypse , by Cynthia Haven in Stanford Magazine (2012?). Good introduction to the man and his work.
Contemplation in a world of violence: Girard, Merton, Tolle, by James Alison, Nov. 2001. Reflections on 9/11. Excellent.
What Is Mimetic Theory? by Sherwood Belangia on his blog, Shared Ignorance: Toward A Defective Reading of Plato. Quite a good introduction to the key ideas.
In theory: Mimetic desire: Nearly 50 years on, René Girard’s theory remains a powerfully illuminating insight into both literature and the world, in The Guardian, 8 Feb. 2010. Focus on mimesis in literature.
We didn’t invent sacrifice, sacrifice invented us: unpacking Girard’s insight by James Alison (2013/2014), a sort of introduction to this aspect of Girard’s thought
Blindsided by God: Reconciliation from the underside by James Alison, Jan. 2006.
The Apocalypse of Modernity by Thomas F. Bertonneau, in The Brussels Journal, 18 June 2012, on two of Girard’s books, Evolution and Conversion and Battling to the End.
Intersubjectivity: René Girard’s Vision of Mimetic Desire and Economic Dynamics, Centre for International Governance Innovation, 18 April 2013. A fascinating video that starts with mention of Bill Buckner, the scapegoat supreme in New England.
Rene Girard and the Death Penalty by Charles Bellinger, 23 Feb. 2008.
Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory & The Scapegoat, at 180 Rule: Examining Psychopathy Through the Lens of Girardian Theory, 31 March 2012.
Mimetic Theory and American Exceptionalism (17 Sept 2013) by Suzanne Ross and Adam Ericksen, Raven Foundation.
My own notes on Girardian thought.
Books
By Girard
The Scapegoat. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. (1982 in French as Le Bouc émissaire)
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1987. (1978 in French as Des choses cachées depuis la fondation du monde)
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2001. (1999 in French as Je vois Satan tomber comme l’éclair)
Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origin of Culture, with Pierpaolo Antonello and João Cezar de Castro Rocha. Bloomsbury Books, London, 2007.
Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2010. Published originally as Achever Clausewitz, Editions Carnets Nord, 2007. Review at SF Gate.
When These Things Begin:Conversations with Michel Treguer. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2014.
By James Alison
The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1998. Excerpt.
Raising Abel, The Recovery of the Eschatological Imagination. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1996.
Faith Beyond Resentment, Fragments Catholic and Gay, New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2001
On Being Liked, New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2004.
Undergoing God: Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-In. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2006.
By Mark Heim
Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2006.
By Wolfgang Palaver
René Girard’s Mimetic Theory. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2013.
By James G. Williams
The Girard Reader. New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1996.
BEYOND RIVALRY 