The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion

The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion
Author: James Alison
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 526
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1137538252

The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Authors assess the contributions of René Girard’s mimetic theory to our understanding of sacrifice, ancient tragedy, and post-modernity, and apply its insights to religious cinema and the global economy. This handbook serves as introduction and guide to a theory of religion and human behavior that has established itself as fertile terrain for scholarly research and intellectual reflection.

James Alison and a Girardian Theology

James Alison and a Girardian Theology
Author: John P. Edwards
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2020-05-14
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567689069

Opening with a Foreword by James Alison, this volume is the first in-depth treatment of Alison's theological method. John P. Edwards shows that Alison's theological project outstrips René Girard's application of mimetic theory to theology. He concludes that an explicitly Christian theological perspective is necessary for providing a fully coherent account of Girard's notions of "conversion" and "mimetic desire". This volume grounds Alison's theological method in his understanding of the ongoing interaction between conversion and theological reflection, which is informed by his use of mimetic theory. While Alison describes this method as “theology in the order of the discovery”, the author refers to it as an “inductive theology”. The volume closes by demonstrating that such a theology bears fruit in a renewed understanding of the value of Christian doctrines and, particularly, the doctrine of revelation.

Mimesis and Sacrifice

Mimesis and Sacrifice
Author: Marcia Pally
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2019-10-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350057428

Central to identity, personal responsibility, economic systems, theology, and the political and military imaginaries, the practice of sacrifice has inspired, disturbed, and abused. Mimesis and Sacrifice brings together scholars from the humanities, military, business, and social sciences to examine the role that sacrifice plays in different present-day settings, from economics to gender relations. Inspired by Rene Girard's work, chapters explore (i) the extent to which the social character of human living makes us mimetic, (ii) whether mimesis necessarily leads to competitive aggression, (iii) whether aggression must be defused by aggressive sacrificial rituals-and whether all sacrifice has this aim, and (iv) the role of the “second lesson of the cross” (as Girard called it), the lesson of self-giving for others, in addressing present societal problems. By investigating sacrifice across this span of arenas and questions yet within one volume, Mimesis and Sacrifice presents a new appreciation of its influence and consequences in the world today, contributing not only to mimetic theory but to greater understanding of which societal arrangement enable us to live well together and what hobbles that goal.

Mimetic Theory and Film

Mimetic Theory and Film
Author: Paolo Diego Bubbio
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2019-02-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501334859

The interdisciplinary French-American thinker René Girard (1923-2015) has been one of the towering figures of the humanities in the last half-century. The title of René Girard's first book offered his own thesis in summary form: romantic lie and novelistic truth [mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque]. And yet, for a thinker whose career began by an engagement with literature, it came as a shock to some that, in La Conversion de l'art, Girard asserted that the novel may be an “outmoded” form for revealing humans to themselves. However, Girard never specified what, if anything, might take the place of the novel. This collection of essays is one attempt at answering this question, by offering a series of analyses of films that aims to test mimetic theory in an area in which relatively little has so far been offered. Does it make any sense to talk of vérité filmique? In addition, Mimetic Theory and Film is a response to the widespread objection that there is no viable “Girardian aesthetics.” One of the main questions that this collection considers is: can we develop a genre-specific mimetic analysis (of film), and are we able to develop anything approaching a “Girardian aesthetic”? Each of the contributors addresses these questions through the analysis of a film.

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence

Toward an Islamic Theology of Nonviolence
Author: Adnane Mokrani
Publisher: MSU Press
Total Pages: 171
Release: 2022-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1628954671

This groundbreaking book offers the first systematic study of the Qur’ān and Islamic history in the light of René Girard’s mimetic theory. Girard did not deal deeply with Islam, offering only scattered hints in some interviews after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Addressing this gap in Girardian studies, Adnane Mokrani aims to develop an Islamic theology that goes beyond just war theory to adopt a radical nonviolent approach. He analyzes the Qur’ānic text and classical and modern exegetical literature, focusing on the Qur’ānic narratives, then extends his research to the history of Islam, removing the sacred character attributed to some events and human choices in order to disarm theology and dismantle the ideologies of power. This same critique is also applied to the unprecedented levels of violence in modern and contemporary history. A radical and politically committed theology of peace is needed to recover the spiritual dimension of religion that frees people from the temptations of the individual and collective ego. It is a mystical and narrative theology in dialogue with other world theologies on the future of humanity—an urgent appeal needed now more than ever.

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture
Author: Ryan G. Duns
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1978710097

In René Girard, Theology, and Popular Culture, fifteen contributors consider how Girard’s mimetic theory can be used to uncover and probe the theological depths of popular culture. Creative and critical engagement with Girard’s theory enables the contributors to offer fresh and exciting interpretations of movies (The Devil Wears Prada, Mean Girls, Star Wars), television (Hoarders, Cobra Kai), classical literature and graphic novels, and issues ranging from anorexia to social media. The result is a volume that establishes Girard as an innovative interpreter of culture and shows him as an invaluable guide for theologically reflecting on desire, violence, redemption, and forgiveness. Written in fresh and lively prose, the contributors demonstrate not only that Girard provides a powerful lens through which to view culture but also—and more provocatively—challenge readers to consider what popular culture reveals about them. Readers looking for an accessible introduction to mimetic theory and exploring its theological application will find this a welcome resource.

The Routledge Handbook of Economic Theology

The Routledge Handbook of Economic Theology
Author: Stefan Schwarzkopf
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 820
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351973614

This Handbook introduces and systematically explores the thesis that the economy, economic practices and economic thought are of a profoundly theological nature. Containing more than 40 chapters, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art reference work that offers students, researchers and policymakers an introduction to current scholarship, significant debates and emerging research themes in the study of the theological significance of economic concepts and the religious underpinnings of economic practices in a world that is increasingly dominated by financiers, managers, forecasters, market-makers and entrepreneurs. This Handbook brings together scholars from different parts of the world, representing various disciplines and intellectual traditions. It covers the development of economic thought and practices from antiquity to neoliberalism, and it provides insight into the economic–theological teachings of major religious movements. The list of contributors combines well-established scholars and younger academic talents. The chapters in this Handbook cover a wide array of conceptual, historical, theoretical and methodological issues and perspectives, such as the economic meaning of theological concepts (e.g. providence and faith); the theological underpinnings of economic concepts (e.g. credit and property); the religious significance of socio-economic practices in various organizational fields (e.g. accounting and work); and finally the genealogy of the theological–economic interface in Judaism, Christianity, Islam and in the discipline of economics itself (e.g. Marx, Keynes and Hayek). The Routledge Handbook of Economic Theology is organized in four parts: • Theological concepts and their economic meaning • Economic concepts and their theological anchoring • Society, management and organization • Genealogy of economic theology

Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness

Transforming the Sacred into Saintliness
Author: Wolfgang Palaver
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 147
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1108595146

Studies into religion and violence often put religion first. René Girard started with violence in his book Violence and the Sacred and used the Durkheimian term 'sacred' as its correlate in his study of early religions. During the unfolding of his theory, he more and more distinguished the sacred from saintliness to address the break that the biblical revelation represented in comparison to early religions. This distinction between the sacred and saintliness resembles Henri Bergson's complementing Emile Durkheim's identification of the sacred and society with a dynamic religion that relies on individual mystics. Girard's distinction also relates to the insights of thinkers like Jacques Maritain, Simone Weil, and Emmanuel Levinas. This element explores some of Girard's main features of saintliness. Girard pleaded for the transformation of the sacred into holy, not their separation.

East Timor, René Girard and Neocolonial Violence

East Timor, René Girard and Neocolonial Violence
Author: Susan Connelly
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2022-01-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350161497

In a new historical interpretation of the relationship between Australia and East Timor, Susan Connelly draws on the mimetic theory of René Girard to show how the East Timorese people were scapegoated by Australian foreign policy during the 20th century. Charting key developments in East Timor's history and applying three aspects of Girard's framework – the scapegoat, texts of persecution and conversion – Connelly reveals Australia's mimetic dependence on Indonesia and other nations for security. She argues that Australia's complicity in the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor perpetuated the sacrifice of the Timorese people as victims, thus calling into question the traditional Australian values of egalitarianism and fairness. Connelly also examines the embryonic conversion process apparent in levels of recognition of the innocent victim and of the Australian role in East Timor's suffering, as well as the consequent effects on Australian self-perception. Emphasising Girardian considerations of fear, suffering, forgiveness and conversion, this book offers a fresh perspective on Australian and Timorese relations that in turn sheds light on the origins and operations of human violence.

The Truth of Mankind

The Truth of Mankind
Author: Cesáreo Bandera
Publisher: Angelico Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2024-07-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

The Truth of Mankind draws on Cesáreo Bandera’s long lifetime of critical experience and literary scholarship. Bandera is not only a celebrated and distinguished interpreter of Latin and Greek literature, of Cervantes and Calderón, and many other seminal figures, but was also a friend and colleague of the late René Girard, the celebrated Catholic theorist of the “scapegoat mechanism” as the fundamental logic underlying all human communities and polities; and in the field of literary studies, he is considered a decisive interlocutor of Girard. Through striking readings of Biblical texts, of Cervantes, of Virgil, and, above all, of Girard’s own works, Bandera raises a fundamental question about Girard’s theory. Can it really, as Girard himself thought, be articulated in a way that does not rely on any particular theological standpoint? Or is it instead, as Bandera argues, intimately dependent on the revealed truth of Christ on the cross—a revealed truth which Girard, as a believing Catholic, himself confessed? The Truth of Mankind will be of interest not only to all who wish to understand Girard’s thinking and its relationship to Christianity, but also to anyone seeking to understand how Christianity can address the most urgent social and ethical questions faced by human life on this planet.