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Critiques of Girard’s Mimetic Theory

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The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion

Abstract

Girard was both a thinker whose work impinged on disciplines in the social sciences and an apologist for Christianity. Instead of keeping these two aspects separate, as academic decorum would have prescribed, he brought them together, arguing that his Christian anthropology explained the origin of cultural and religious systems and offered a purely rational and intellectual justification—one requiring no confessional investments—for taking Biblical texts seriously. This double commitment to the social sciences and to Christianity earned him criticisms from all quarters.

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Further Reading

  • Domenach, Jean-Marie. “René Girard et le bouc émissaire.” Professions et Entreprises 739, special issue entitled “Le Bouc émissaire” (January 1986), 5–6.

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  • Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. La jalousie: une géométrie du désir. Paris: Le Seuil, 2016.

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  • Golsan, Richard J. René Girard and Myth. New York: Routledge, 1993.

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  • Landy, Joshua “Deceit, Desire, and the Literature Professor: Why Girardians Exist.” Republics of Letters 3.1 (2012).

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  • Moi, Toril. “The Missing Mother: The Oedipal Rivalries of René Girard.” Diacritics, 12:1 (Summer 1982), 21–31.

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  • Reineke, Martha J. Intimate Domain: Desire, Trauma, and Mimetic Theory. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014.

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  • Scubla, Lucien. “René Girard ou la renaissance de l’anthropologie religieuse.” In Cahier de l’Herne, “Girard,” no. 89 (2008), 105–10.

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  • Traube, Elizabeth. “Incest and Mythology: Anthropological and Girardian Perspectives.” Berkshire Review, 14 (1979), 37–54.

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  • White, Hayden. “Ethnological ‘Lie’ and Mythical ‘Truth.’” Diacritics, Vol. 8, No. 1, Special Issue on the Work of Rene Girard (Spring, 1978), 2–9.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Trevor Cribben Merrill

Authors
  1. Trevor Cribben Merrill
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Independent Scholar, Madrid, Spain

    James Alison

  2. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Wolfgang Palaver

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© 2017 The Author(s)

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Merrill, T.C. (2017). Critiques of Girard’s Mimetic Theory. In: Alison, J., Palaver, W. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53825-3_60

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