When These Things Begin : Conversations with Michel Treguer (Studies in Violence, Mimesis & Culture)

Girard, René/ Merrill, Trevor Cribben (TRN)

Michigan State University Press（2014/01発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 152 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781611861105
• DDC分類 944.084092

Full Description

In this lively series of conversations with writer Michel Treguer, René Girard revisits the major concepts of mimetic theory and explores science, democracy, and the nature of God and freedom. Girard affirms that "our unprecedented present is incomprehensible without Christianity." Globalization has unified the world, yet civil war and terrorism persist despite free trade and economic growth. Because of mimetic desire and the rivalry it generates, asserts Girard, "whether we're talking about marriage, friendship, professional relationships, issues with neighbors or matters of national unity, human relations are always under threat." Literary masters including Marivaux, Dostoevsky, and Joyce understood this, as did archaic religion, which warded off violence with blood sacrifice. Christianity brought a new understanding of sacrifice, giving rise not only to modern rationality and science but also to a fragile system that is, in Girard's words, "always teetering between a new golden age and a destructive apocalypse." Treguer, a skeptic of mimetic theory, wonders: "Is what he's telling me true...or is it just a nice story, a way of looking at things?" In response, Girard makes a compelling case for his theory.

Contents

Contents Introduction Chapter 1. A First Overview: Here and Now Chapter 2. Mimetic Desire: Shakespeare rather than Plato Chapter 3. The Mimetic Crisis: Sacrificial Worlds Chapter 4. The Bible Chapter 5. Christ (Orders and Disorders) Chapter 6. A Return to Imitation Chapter 7. Science Chapter 8. The One and the Many Chapter 9. Democracy Chapter 10. God, Freedom Chapter 11. Freud, and a Few Others Chapter 12. A Method, a Life, a Man Notes Index