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| The One by Whom Scandal Comes
ISBN: 9781609173999
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Michigan State University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Violence -- Religious aspects;
"Why is there so much violence in our midst?" René Girard asks. "No question is more debated today. And none produces more disappointing answers." In Girard's mimetic theory it is the imitation of someone else's desire that gives rise to conflict whenever the desired object cannot be shared. This mimetic rivalry, Girard argues, is responsible for the frequency and escalating intensity of human conflict. For Girard, human conflict comes not from the loss of reciprocity between humans but from the transition, imperceptible at first but then ever more rapid, from good to bad reciprocity. In this landmark text, Girard continues his study of violence in light of geopolitical competition, focusing on the roots and outcomes of violence across societies latent in the process of globalization. The volume concludes in a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, where Girard's twenty-first century emphases on the continuity of all religions, global conflict, and the necessity of apocalyptic thinking emerge.
René Girard was born on December 25, 1923 in Avignon, France. He received an advanced degree in medieval studies at the École Nationale des Chartes in 1947 and a Ph.D. in history from Indiana University in 1950. He taught French language and literature at Indiana University, Duke University, Bryn Mawr College, Johns Hopkins University, and the State University at Buffalo. He taught at Stanford University from 1981 until his retirement in 1995. His explorations of literature and myth helped establish influential theories about how people are motivated to want things. His first book, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, was published in French in 1961 and in English in 1965. His other works included Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World. He received a lifetime achievement award from the Modern Language Association in 2009 and the Order of Isabella the Catholic from the king of Spain for his work in philosophy and anthropology in 2013. He died on November 4, 2015 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) |
