The one by whom scandal comes / René Girard ; translated by M.B. DeBevoise.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Girard, René, 1923-2015, author.

Contributor:

DeBevoise, M. B., translator.

Series:

Studies in violence, mimesis, and culture

Standardized Title:

Celui par qui le scandale arrive. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Violence--Religious aspects.

Violence.

Physical Description:

xii, 139 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

East Lansing, Michigan : Michigan State University Press, [2014]

Summary:

"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 work, Girard extends his study of violence by placing it in the context of geopolitical competition, focusing on the conflicts, that in all societies, are latent in the process of globalization. The volume includes a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, in which Girard's recent emphases on the continuity of religion in its various forms emerges, along with his insistence on the necessity of apocalyptic thinking. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Against Relativism

Chapter 1 Violence and Reciprocity 3

Chapter 2 Noble Savages and Others 21

Chapter 3 Mimetic Theory and Theology 33

Part 2 The Other Side of Myth

Chapter 4 I See Satan Fall Like Lightning 49

Chapter 5 Scandal and Conversion 57

Chapter 6 I Do Not Pray for the World 67

Chapter 7 The Catholic Church and the Modern World 75

Chapter 8 Hominization and Natural Selection 85

Chapter 9 A Stumbling Block to Jews, Foolishness to Gentiles 93

Chapter 10 Lévi-Strauss on Collective Murder 103

Chapter 11 Positivists and Deconstructionists 113

Chapter 12 How Should Mimetic Theory Be Applied? 127.

Notes:

Translated from the French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781611861099

1611861098

OCLC:

843010034