COV&R-Bulletin No. 4 (March 1993)
Letter from the Editor
Let me raise four administrative matters:
(1) We ask you to send us your contributions to the Bulletin on a diskette or by e-mail. It greatly simplifies the publication of the Bulletin.
(2) If you would like to write a book review for the Bulletin please contact the editorial office or James G. Williams, the executive secretary. The length of a review should be between 600 and 1000 words. Longer reviews (at most 2000 words) will only be published in special circumstances.
(3) Membership renewals for 1993 are due. Please note that membership includes subscription to the Bulletin. The regular membership fee is $30.00. Matriculated students may enroll for $15. It is also possible to subscribe to the Bulletin without membership for $15. The Bulletin appears biannually. Concerning the Bulletin, I would encourage you, if you have a faculty appointment, to ask your library to take out a standing subscription. The rate for libraries is $30 per year. Please send dues to our address in Sonoma, Ca. or to our European address. Europeans should send a eurocheque in Austrian Schillings (not in Dollars).
(4) In this issue of the Bulletin we published the addresses of all COV&R members. Some of you gave us also your fax-number and your e-mail-address. If you want to share your fax-number or your e-mail-address too please contact the editorial office or the executive secretary. We want to republish the addresses in one of the next issues. Please give us also a note if you find mistakes in the list of addresses.
We are always interested to improve our Bulletin. If you have any comments please tell us.
Wolfgang Palaver
Bibliography of Literature on the Mimetic Theory
1) Books concerning the entire work of René Girard
Bucher, Gérard. La vision et l'énigme: Éléments pour une analytique du logos. Paris: Cerf, 1989.
Carrara, Alberto. Violenza, sacro, rivelazione biblica: Il pensiero di René Girard. Mailand: Vita e Pensiero, 1985.
Dumouchel, Paul, ed. Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988.
Dumouchel, Paul, ed. Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
2) Articles concerning the entire work of René Girard
Atlan, Henri. "Violence fondatrice et référent divin." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 434-449. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Banawiratma, J.B. "Religion and Peace." Prisma 42 (1986): 62-73.
Bandera, Cesáreo. "From Mythical Bees to Medieval Antisemitism." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 29-49. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Baudler, Georg. "Opfern und bestatten: Zur Frage nach der religiösen Urszene." Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 115 (1993): 1-12.
Boyer, Alain. "Effets pervers et effets Oedipe." In Travaux d'épistémologie général. Cahiers du CREA 5, 129-147. Paris: Centre de recherche épistémologie et autonomie, 1985.
Brès, Yvon. "L'itineraire de René Girard." In L'Acte de violence. Les Cahiers de l'Institut des Psychologues Cliniciens 2, 1985, 85-88.
Cazelles, Brigitte. "Le cercle maudit." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 259-280. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Cazes, Bernard. "Fragile désacralisation." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 113-119. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. "John Rawls et la question du sacrifice." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 135-152. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. "Totalisation et méconnaissance." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 110-135. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Flamand, Alain. "Autor de René Girard." Le Royaliste 428 (1985): 8.
Frémont, Christiane. "De la croyance et du savoir." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 197-201. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Gardeil, Pierre. "Écriture, Tradition, Corps Livré." Nouvelle Revue Théologique 114/2 (1992): 251-260.
Gebauer, Gunther. "Gewalt und Ordnung: Bemerkungen über die Feste des Sports. In Das Heilige. Seine Spur in der Moderne, ed. D. Kamper and Ch. Wulf, 275-291. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987.
Goodhart, Sandor. "'Je suis Joseph': René Girard et la loi prophétique." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 69-83. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Granstedt, Ingmar. "L'Epilogue violent de la mimésis techno-économique." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 275-280. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Grassi, Piergiorgio. "René Girard: La violenza, il sacro, il kerygma." Hermeneutica No.5 (1985): 65-78.
Grodent, Michel. "'René Girard: vive les droit de l'homme!' and 'Le "girardisme" à Cerisy'" Le Soir, 5 February 1985, 34.
Herzog, Markwart. "Hingerichtete Verbrecher als Gegenstand der Heiligenverehrung: Zum Kontext von René Girard." Geist und Leben 65 (1992): 367-386.
Herzog, Markwart. "Religionstheorie und Theologie René Girards." Kerygma und Dogma 38/2 (1992): 105-137.
Jaccard, Roland. "Job, victime et antihéros." 24 heures, 28 May 1985, 51.
Kaptein, Roel. "Over de begeerte: De enige vrijheid is te kiezen wie navolgen." HN Magazine, 13 July 1985, 28-29.
Lambert, Jean. "Hypocrisie du sacrifice." Foi et Vie 84/3 (1985): 17-28.
Lascaris, André. "The Likely Price of Peace: René Girard's Hypothesis." New Blackfriars 66/786 (December 1985): 517-524.
Levoratti, Armando J. "La Lectura no sacrificial del evangelio en la obra de René Girard." Revista biblica 47/3 (1985): 159-176.
Livingston, Paisley. "La démystification et l'histoire chez Girard et Durkheim." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 191-200. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
McMahon, Edward. "René Girard and the Project of a General Semiotic Theory." In Semiotics 1984, ed. J. Deely, 401-407. Lanham: University Press of America, 1985.
Orléan, André. "La théorie mimétique face aux phénomènes économiques." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 121-133. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Saint-Amand, Pierre. "Valéry: Pirouettes." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 317-328. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Schwager, Raymund. "La mort de Jésus: René Girard et la théologie." Recherches de Science Religieuse 73/4 (1985): 481-502.
Schwager, Raymund. "Pour une théologie de la colère de Dieu." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 59-68. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Scubla, Lucien. "Jamais deux sans trois? Réflexions sur les structures élémentaires de la réciprocité." In Logiques de la réciprocité. Cahiers du CREA 6, 7-101. Paris: Centre de recherche en épistémologie appliquée, 1985.
Scubla, Lucien. "Le christianisme de René Girard et la nature de la religion." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 243-257. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Scubla, Lucien. "Menon, la logique sacrificielle et le problème de l'interprétation." In Travaux d'épistémologie générale. Cahiers du CREA 5, 279-290. Paris: Centre de recherche épistémologie et autonomie, 1985.
Scubla, Lucien. "Réciprocité rituelle et subordination politique." In Logiques de la réciprocité. Cahiers du CREA 6, 119-273. Paris: Centre de recherche en épistémologie appliquée, 1985.
Tricaud, Francois. "Essai pour interroger la pensée de René Girard à partir de la distinction de la dike et la thémis." In Structures et temporalités. Cahiers du CREA 12, 123-143. Paris: Centre de recherche en épistémologie appliquée, 1988.
Wohlman, Avital. "René Girard et Saint Augustin: Anthropologie et théologie." In Recherches Augustiniennes 20, ed. F. Dolbeau, J. Desmulliez, and others, 257-303. Paris 1985.
3) Interviews and discussions with René Girard
Girard, René. "D'ou vient la violence? Roundtable with René Girard, Christian Mellon, Jean-Marie Muller, Hervé Ott et Jacques Sémelin." Alternatives non violentes 36 (1980): 49-67.
Girard, René. "Débat, séance du 21 juin 1982." In Modèles formels de la philosophie sociale et politique: Recherches pour un séminaire, ed. M. Aglietta, J.-P. Dupuy, and others, 166-181. Cahiers du CREA 1. Paris: Centre de recherche épistémologie et autonomie, 1982.
Girard, René. "Table ronde autour de René Girard." In Répétitions: Le même et ses avatars dans la culture angloaméricaine, ed. J. P. Régis, 5-14. Publications des Groupes de Recherches anglo-américaines 8. Tours: Université François Rabelais de Tours, 1991.
Renouvin, Bertrand. "Table ronde avec René Girard et Jean-Pierre Dupuy (transcription)." Cité 4 (Mai-Juli 1983): 11-34.
4) Reviews about single works of René Girard
Arenilla, Louis. "Le Destin de Job." La Quinzaine Littéraire 441 (June 1985): 22-23.
Beigbeder, Marc. Review of La route antique des hommes pervers, by René Girard. In La Bouteille à la mer (May 1985): 1-4.
Dollé, Jean-Paul. Review of La route antique des hommes pervers, by René Girard. In Lu (June 1985): 43-44.
Gabriel, Jean-Pierre. "Le crépuscule des idéologies: Une pensée chrétienne qui se cherche." Causa 11 (December 1986): 10-13.
Kaptein, Roel. "Voorbij het eind van de cultuur." Vrede 23/10 (1986): 4-6.
Knapp, Markus. Review of Das Ende der Gewalt, by René Girard. In Theologische Literaturzeitung 110 (1985): 214-216.
Knauer, Peter. Review of Das Heilige und die Gewalt, by René Girard. In Theologie und Philosophie 67 (1992): 474f.
Poirot-Delpech, Bertrand. "Un Francais à San Francisco." L'Expansion 259 (April 1985): 5.
5) Books with references to René Girard
Baudler, Georg. Gott und Frau: Die Geschichte von Gewalt, Sexualität und Religion. München: Kösel, 1991.
Chilton, Bruce. The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program Within a Cultural History of Sacrifice. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1992.
Colpe, Carsten. Õber das Heilige: Versuch, seiner Verkennung kritisch vorzubeugen. Frankfurt am Main: Anton Hain, 1990.
Gebauer, Gunter, and Christoph Wulf. Mimesis: Kultur - Kunst - Gesellschaft. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, 1992.
Häring, Bernhard. Die Heilkraft der Gewaltfreiheit. Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1986.
Spiegel, Egon. Gewaltverzicht: Grundlagen einer biblischen Friedenstheologie. Kassel: Weber - Zucht, 1987.
Perdue, Leo G. and C. Gilpin. The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992.
6) Articles with references to René Girard
Assad, Maria L. "Une Reponse classique a la crise de la culture: Phèdre." Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 13/25 (1986): 39-51.
Baldridge, Wilson. "The Time-Crisis in Mallarme and Proust." The French Review 59/4 (1986): 564-570.
Bandera, Cesareo. "Où nous entraine l'intertextualité?" In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 468-482. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Burkert, Walter. "The Problem of Ritual Killing." In: Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, ed. R. G. Hamerton-Kelly, 149- 176. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Christensen, Jerome. "Marino Faliero and the Fault of Byron's Satire." Studies in Romanticism 24/3 (1985): 313-333.
De Keyser, Eugénie. "Le signe de la croix." In Qu'est-ce que Dieu?. Festschrift Daniel Coppieters de Gibson, ed. Facultés univ. Saint-Louis Bruxelles, 91-102. Brussels 1985.
Domenach, Jean-Marie. "Voyage au bout des sciences de l'homme." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 235-242. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Feenberg, Andrew. "Le Desordre economique et erotique." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 201-210. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Fuchs, Eric. "Sexualität." Trans. by H.H. Schmidt. In Neue Summe Theologie. Band 2: Die neue Schöpfung, ed. P. Eicher, 306-339. Freiburg: Herder, 1989.
Kohn-Waechter, Gudrun. "Einleitung." In Schrift der Flammen: Opfermythen und Weiblichkeits entwürfe im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. G. Kohn-Waechter, 9-19. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1991.
Lallement, Michel. "Copernic chez les economistes: Notes sur la violence de la monnaie de M. Aglietta et A. Orléan." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 20-23.
Lambert, Jean. "L'Echappée belle: Rubriques en marge du discours d'Etienne, Actes 7." Foi et Vie 84/6 (1985): 25-32.
Levin, Richard. "The New Refutation of Shakespeare." Modern Philology 83/2 (1985): 123-141.
Lewis, Philip. "Sacrifice and Suicide: Some Afterthoughts on the Career of Jean Racine." In Actes de Baton Rouge (Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature), ed. S. A. Zebouni, 53-74. Paris 1986.
Lipietz, Alain. "Oppression, rivalité et libération." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 33-37.
Lohfink, Norbert. "Opfer und Säkularisierung im Deuteronomium." In Studien zu Opfer und Kult im Alten Testament mit einer Bibliographie 1969-1991 zum Opfer in der Bibel, ed. A. Schenker, 15-43. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992.
Marie, Beatrice. "Emma and the Democracy of Desire." Studies in the Novel 17/1 (1985): 1-13.
Muller, Jacques. "Vers une économie non-violente." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 51-54.
Potter, Robert. "Abraham and Human Sacrifice: The Exfoliation of Medieval Drama in Aztec Mexico." New Theatre Quarterly 2/8 (1986): 306-312.
Prod'hom, Jean. "La Part des hommes." Etudes de Lettres 2 (1985) 115-126.
Radkowski, Georges-Hubert de. "Le règne du signe: Richesse et rivalité mimétique." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987) 9-19.
Sanchez, Marcel. "Du ressac égualitaire à l'attraction vernaculaire: Météques et saltimbanques: La non-violence comme paradoxe." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 43-50.
Schwager, Raymund. "Der vom Himmel gefallene Satan: Wer oder was ist der Teufel?" Theologie der Gegenwart 35 (1992): 255-264.
Schwager, Raymund. "Rückblick auf das Symposium." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 338-384. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.
Schwager, Raymund. "Theologie - Geschichte - Wissenschaft." Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 109 (1987): 257-275.
Scubla, Lucien. "Sciences cognitives: Fil d'Ariane ou lit de Procuste pour l'anthropologie?" In Structures et temporalités. Cahiers du CREA 12, 179-290. Paris: Centre de recherche en épistémologie appliquée, 1988.
Smith, Jonathan Z. "The Domestication of Sacrifice." In Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, ed. R. G. Hamerton-Kelly, 191- 205. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Taylor, Francoise M.. "Mythes des origines et societe dans Une Tenebreuse Afaire de Balzac." Nineteenth-Century French Studies 14/1-2 (1985-1986): 1-18.
Thomas, Konrad. "Soziologische Zugänge zum Heiligen." In Das Heilige: Seine Spur in der Moderne, ed. D. Kamper and Ch. Wulf, 91-98. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987.
Veronese, Alain. "Les avatars de la mimésis: Les trois mondes de J.Attali." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 8-13.
Veronese, Alain. "Les sacrifiés de l'économie: Le 'Charity business' comme signe de la crise sacrificielle." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 24-27.
Veronese, Alain. "Réponse à Alain Lipiez." Alternatives non violentes 65 (1987): 38-42.
Vigée, Claude. "Le Parfum d'Isaac." In To Honor René Girard: Presented on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday by colleagues, students, and friends, ed. A. Juilland, 65-84. Stanford French and Italian Studies 34. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1986.
Weimann, Robert. "Mimesis und die Bürde der Repräsentation: Der Poststrukturalismus und das Produktions-problem in fiktiven Texten." In: Weimarer Beiträge: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft, Ästhetik und Kulturtheorie 31/7 (1985): 1061-1099.
Wenk, Silke. "Nike in Flammen: Gründungsopfer in der Skulptur der Nachkriegszeit?" In Schrift der Flammen: Opfermythen und Weiblichkeitsentwürfe im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. G. Kohn-Waechter, 193-218. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1991.
7) Books applying the mimetic theory
Juergensmeyer, Mark, ed. Violence and the Sacred in the Modern World. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1992.
Schwager, Raymund. Jesus im Heilsdrama: Entwurf einer biblischen Erlösungslehre. Innsbrucker theologische Studien 29. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1990.
Schwager, Raymund. Must There Be Scapegoats? Violence and Redemption in the Bible, trans. by M. L. Assad. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
8) Articles applying the mimetic theory
Bureau, René. "Un mythe gabonais." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 19-34. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Girard, René. "Job As Failed Scapegoat." Trans. by J. G. Williams. In The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job, ed. by L. G. Perdue and C. Gilpin, 185-207. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992.
Girard, René and Mark R. Anspach. "A Response: Reflection from the Perspective of Mimetic Theory." In Violence and the Sacred in the Modern World, ed. M. Juergensmeyer, 141-148. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1992.
Jensen, Hans J.L. "Desire, Rivalry and Collective Violence in the 'Succession Narrative'." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 55 (1992): 39-59.
Knott, Garland. "The God of Victims: René Girard and the Future of Religious Education." Religious Education 86/3 (1991): 399-412.
Niewiadomski, Józef. "Der Mensch - Untier oder Partner Gottes." Theologisch-praktische Quartalschrift 141 (1993): 47-53.
Niewiadomski, Józef. "Inkarnation als Inkulturation: Ein theologisches Triptychon." In Evangelium und Inkulturation (1492-1992), ed. P. Gordan, 27-49. Graz: Styria, 1993.
Orléan, André. "Monnaie archaique, monnaie moderne." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 147-157. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Palaver, Wolfgang. "Thomas Hobbes' Umgang mit der Bibel: Eine Interpretation aus der Sicht der Theorie von René Girard." Zeitschrift für Katholische Theologie 114 (1992): 257-273.
Pelckmans, Paul. "Tirso girardien? Pour une nouvelle lecture du Condenado por desconfiado." Revue Romane 20/1 (1985): 56-67.
Sauzet, Patric. "Delai de la diglossia: Per un modèl mimetic del contacte de lengas." Lengas 21 (1987): 103-120.
Schwager, Raymund. "Sündenböcke oder Weltautorität?" KSÖ - Nachrichten und Stellungnahmen der Katholischen Sozialakademie Nr. 18 (21 November 1992) 6f.
Williams, James G. "Job and the God of Victims." In The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job, ed. by L. G. Perdue and C. Gilpin, 208-231. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992.
Wulf, Christoph. "Religion und Gewalt." In Das Heilige: Seine Spur in der Moderne, ed. D. Kamper and Ch. Wulf, 245-254. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1987.
Yamaguchi, Masao. "Violence fondatrice et référent divin." In Violence et vérité: Colloque de Cérisy autour de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 421-433. Paris: Grasset, 1985.
Addresses of COV&R Members
North American members:
Rebecca ADAMS
Notre Dame Univ.
Dept. English
Notre Dame, IN 46556
USA
M. Barbara AGNEW
Box 184, Tolentine Hall
Villanova, PA 19085
USA
Larry ALDERINK
Dept. Religion/Concord College
Moorhead, MN 58560
USA
Laura AMMON
Box 352
Claremont, CA 91711
USA
Judith H. ARIAS
E. Carolina U
Foreign Language
Greenville, NC 27858
USA
Fax: 919 757-6233
Gil & Kaetie BAILIE
P.O. Box 925
Sonoma, CA 95476
USA
Cesareo BÁNDERA
University of North Carolina
Departm. of Romance Languages
CB 3170, 238 Dey Hall
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27599-3170
USA
B.R. BATER
1419 Tamarac St.
Kingston, ON, K7M 7J2
CANADA
Thomas F. BERTONNEAU
202 Heidi Court
Mt. Pleasant, MI 48858
USA
Byron BLAND
CISAC
Stanford U.
320 Galvez St.
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
USA
Fax: 415 723-0089
E-mail: Byron.Bland@Stanford.Bitnet
Bruce BOECKEL
Humanities
University of Michigan
1512 Rackham Bldg.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070
USA
Louis BURKHARDT
English Dept. Box 228
Univ. of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309
USA
Bruce CHILTON
Bard College
Annadale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
USA
Mark CHMIEL
2918 Regent "I"
Berkeley, CA 94705
USA
Diana CULBERTSON
7921 Twin Hills Rd.
Kent, OH 44241
USA
Paul B. DUFF
George Washington U.
Religion
Washington, DC 20052
USA
Paul DUMOUCHEL
Phil.-Univ. de Quebec
a Montreal
C.P. 8888, Succursale-A
Montreal, Canada H3C 3P8
CANADA
Mary Ann EILER
405 Roberts Rd.
Pacifica, CA 94044
USA
Harold ELLENS
26705 Farmington Rd.
Farmington Hills, MI 48334
USA
Neil ELLIOTT
St. Catharine-Dept.Religion
2004 Dandelph Av.
St. Paul, MN 55105
USA
René GIRARD
Dept. of French & Italian
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2010
USA
Jim GROTE
1874 Rutherford Ave.
Louisville, KY 40205
USA
Joseph M. HALLMAN
Univ. of St. Thomas 4124
St. Paul, MN 55105
USA
Edwin A. HALLSTEN
5305 Port Dr.
Roscoe, IL 61073
USA
Robert HAMERTON-KELLY
CISAC
320 Galvez St.
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
USA
Fax: 415 723-0089
E-mail: Rc.Rob@Forsythe.Stanford.edu
Michael HARDIN
120 Floral Parkway
Floral Parkway, NY 11001
USA
Scott HOLLAND
1423 Carnegie Ave.
McKeesport, PA 151322
USA
Robert JEWETT
2121 Sheridan Rd. (Garret-Ev.)
Evanston, IL 60201
USA
Mark JUERGENSMEYER
SHAPS - University of Hawai
Honolulu, HI 96822
USA
Fax: (808) 956-6345
Richard E. KEADY
733 Northampton
Palo Alto, CA 94303
USA
Marti KHEEL
5377 Boyd Ave.
Oakland, CA 94618
USA
Cheryl KIRK-DUGGAN
8885 Research 354
Austin, TX 78758
USA
Garland KNOTT
Methodist College
5400 Ramsey St.
Fayetteville, NC 28311
USA
Nick KOKOSHIS
246 Heritige Dr.
Aurora, IL 60508
USA
Edward KOPFF
3800 Carlock Dr.
Boulder, CO 80303
USA
Lena KSARJIAN
5542 So. Dorchester
Chicago, IL 60637
USA
Stuart LASINE
Box 76 - Wichita State U.
Wichita, KS 67208
USA
Jaque-Jude LÉPINE
Dept. French
Haverford Col.
Haverford, PA 19041
USA
Charles MABEE
560 Lake Forest Rd.
Rochester Hills, MI 48309
USA
Fax: 313 373-5479
David MCCRACKEN
Dept. of English, GN-30
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
USA
Andrew MCKENNA
Mod. Language Dept.
Loyola Univ.
Chicago, IL 60626
USA
Edward MCMAHON
3248 Green Ave.
Ft. Worth, TX 76109
USA
Barbara MIKALAJEWSKA
36 Everit St.
New Haven, CT 06511-2208
USA
William E. MISHLER
2719 W. 28th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55416
USA
Susan E. NOWAK
215-A Hawley Ave.
Syracuse, NY 13203
USA
Edward ONDRAKO
Catholic Centr.
Syracuse Univ.
110 Walnut Place
Syracuse, NY 13210
USA
Charles D. ORZECH
Univ. No. Carolina, 200 Foust
Dept. Religion
Greensboro, NC 27412-5001
USA
Ted PETERS
2770 Marin Ave. PLTS-GTU
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Randall REED
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U. No. Iowa
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Wayne REINHARDT
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Rick SCHAEFER
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Thee SMITH
Emory University
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UC Davies
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Hans J.L. JENSEN
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George PATTERY SJ
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Matthew SCHOFFELEERS
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Raymund SCHWAGER SJ
Institut für Dogmatik
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Simon SIMONSE
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Ernst STERN
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Abstracts of the COV&R- Conference in San Francisco November 20, 1992
Charles Mabee (UMHE Oakland University/Ecumenical Theological Center, Detroit), René Girard and Rudolf Bult mann: The Problem of Myth
This paper is a comparison of the thought of Girard and Bultmann inspired by the latter's program of demythologization. Girard does not employ such a method because he does not perceive the same thorough-going mythological structure of the NT as does Bultmann. Girard understands the language of the NT to be grounded in the Passion of Jesus, and only incidentally mythological. Furthermore, Girard's approach is not as thoroughly hermeneutical in orientation as is Bultmann's in the sense that the latter really allows the worldview of the modern reader to "set the conceptual table" for NT interpretation. Girard understands the NT as un masking and demystifying the oppressive groundwork of modern thought through its fundamental solidarity with the victim.
The paper concludes with reference to additional points of comparison between Bultmann and Girard: Issues raised include Girard's apparent disregard for the historical-critical methodologies which informed Bultmann, divergent understandings of the meaning of the NT as the Word of God, and the differing roles of the concept of history in the thought of each. The final point is made that Bultmann remains in many ways still a central challenge if the world of NT scholarship is to be embraced in a meaningful way from the Girardian perspective.
Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly (Stanford University), Comment on C. Mabee's paper
Charles Mabee takes up the important task of establishing Girardian interpretation as one of the recognized options in New Testament studies and makes a fine contribution by comparing it with the interpretive theory of the most influential 20th century Protestant interpreter of the New Testament, Rudolf Bultmann. Mabee correctly focuses attention on the difference in the understanding of philosophy and mythology which is a difference in the appreciation of the role of the GMSM (generative mimetic scapegoating mecha nism). Bultmann is simply unaware of the GMSM and so perpetuates a mythic interpretation in terms of the mythology of the modern world in its scientistic and solipsistic (existentialist) philosophic mode.
Bultmann mixes a scientistic critique of the New Testament with an existentialist epistemology in which there are no "timeless truths" but only the "encounters in history." History is predomi nantly verbal; one encounters God in the preaching of the Church. To this Girard opposes the text of the Bible, which is robustly referential, as the place where God is encountered in the disclosive power that unmasks the GMSM. It is ironic that the Catholic should emphasize the Biblical text while the Protestant magnifies the Church!
Mabee gives a fine account of the two positions but he does not touch the real problems, which are the, for want of a better term, epistemological ones. What is the relation between scientism and existentialism in Bultmann? Do they not cancel each other in the sense that if there are no "timeless truths" why should the positivist world view be taken as authoritative and, contrariwise, if the positivist world view is true then we have "timeless truths" and the existentialist position is untenable? What is the implication of the mimetic nature of the subject for the subject-object relations hip? Mabee has given us a useful exposition; now the critical analysis should begin. It will show that Girard accounts more cogently for more things than Bultmann does.
René Girard (Stanford University), Comment on C. Mabee's paper
In his response to Charles Mabee's excellent paper on Bultmann and himself, Girard pointed out that for him, far from being primarily the object of demythologization, the Gospels are the source of it. His definition of myth, and Bultmann's, is really a surrender to modern immanentism.
Leo G. Perdue (Brite Divinity School), on The Bible, Violence & the Sacred, by James G. Williams
In this important book, James Williams accepts Professor Girard's general hypothesis about scapegoating and argues that his work provides the basis for a new Christian humanism. In examining biblical texts, from Genesis through the Gospels, Professor Williams' Girardian thesis follows two interweaving paths. The first path leads to the realization that the essence of Judaism and Christianity is the common defense of all victims. The second path leads to the recognition that, in the Bible, there is a steady evolving of "liberation from the myth of sanctioned violence," culminating in the God Man of the Gospels who, in becoming a victim, offers a visionary and radical maneuver that steps outside the destructive, spiraling web of violence to posit an imaginative world of new creation whose reality is secured apart from the horrors of victimage and scapegoating.
The major questions with this approach follow: how realistic is it for liberation movements that are seeking to escape from the oppression of dominant groups to be content with passive non-resistance to violence and victimage? What does it mean for God to be a God of victims? If God is to defend victims, how is this done? Even more basic, what of justice and the moral imperative for humans to defend victims from their oppressors? How do humans defend victims, apart from acts of violence?
In spite of these questions, this is a splendid application of Girardian theory to the Bible. This is a book to which one will return many times, for each reading will yield new insights into the most troubling problem of human existence.
René Girard (Stanford University), Comment on L. Perdue's paper
Girard also commented on the mimetic interpretation of rhetorical figures in James Williams's THE BIBLE, VIOLENCE, AND THE SACRED. He sees the book as a most important contribution to mimetic theory and Biblical studies.
James G. Williams (Syracuse University), Response to Leo Perdue
I would like to thank Leo Perdue for a carefully composed evaluation of my book. He laid out the argument and some of the issues with keen insight.
There are three levels of mimesis, which I presuppose and state but do not systematically develop in the book: (1) Level 1--the good mimesis of God or the rule of God. (2) Level 2--the effective mimesis that enables culture to work on the basis of a sacrificial mechanism. (3) Level 3--the bad mimesis in which the acquisitive aspect of imitating others breaks out of the bounds of differentiation, the modes of mediation that culture establishes. The Nietzschean tradition has sought to uncover level 3 (though not recognizing it as mimesis) and tends to oscillate between levels 2 and 3, while considering level 1 no longer actual (the "death of God"). We exist and relate to others primarily at level 2. One valid response to being deprived of the benefits of level 2 is to fight against perceived injustice or to serve as advocate for victims. However, there are those who are called to a witness without which we would not survive and remain open to the transcendence of the God of love: these are the ones who are strong and able to fight but who do not reciprocate by imitating the violence of the other.
Reviews
Frank Graziano, Divine Violence: Spec tacle, Psychosexuality, and Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War." Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1992. 328 pp. Hdb. $49.95. Pb. $18.95.
In Argentina's "dirty war" (1976-1983), thousands of innocent victims--men, women, and children--were noisily abducted, elaborately tortured and then unceremoniously dispatched by agents of its military Junta, all in the name of "'Western and Christian civilization.'" Frank Graziano undertakes to ask why in a manner that far surpasses the usual critique of right-wing ideology. His answer ranges over virtually the entire corpus of contemporary French theory. Foucault, Lyotard, Lacan, de Certeau, Derrida, and Girard all have a role in producing a kind of deep archeology of state terror. That is a mixed bag and the results are commensura tely discomfiting, perturbing. But the endeavor is commendable if the theoretical imperative which engrosses us today has any practical merit.
Graziano is scrupulous in reporting repulsive details, not for their sensational effects, but in a conscientious effort to bring out the deepest significance one can hope to extract from this grisly material for understanding the nexus binding power, fear, and desire.
The Junta's real impotence to govern issued in a "mythologics, or "mythologized reality," requiring the invention of a demonized Enemy whose imaginary menace was sustained, rather than brutally suppressed, by stylized, ritually theatricalized torture. While availing itself of Christian eschatological and apocalyptic tradition, the Junta constructed its own salvific identity on those whom it demonized and destroyed.
A perverse strategy of clandestine and subtly broadcast violence, publicly denied and spectacularly deployed, held public protest in check via an amalgam of fear and suspicion which rendered the citizenry accomplice by its passivity. The result was a veritable deconstruction of the difference between doers of dirty deeds and those who at all times feared being done in: "In a closed system without exits, public knowledge terrorizes as much as public ignorance. The boundaries between knowing and supposing, between knowing and denying, fade" (82).
Graziano's argumentation is lucid and perceptive throughout, especially where he makes use of Foucault. Where this reader demurs is on the final sense the author makes of this hideous episode. Chapter IV, "In the Name of the Father," uncovers "an Oedipal structure of 'dirty war' violence," where Oedipal is unders tood as "Lacanian in essence" (164), though on the other hand Graziano's point is to articulate this psychosexual drama with the Girardian thematics of mimetic rivalry and sacrificial substitution.
It appears that these hoodlums were engaged in a self-defeating struggle for phallocentric domination, of which the picana, a torture instrument, functioned as the preferred signifier: "The picanauk-phallus metonymically represented the Junta's desire for the power it lacked, a desire that was ritually satisfied through the repetitive enactment of a psychosexual drama during torture" (161). My summary and quotes do not do justice to the author's careful articulation of Lacan with Girard, but they do, I hope, capture its implausibility. Despite the Girardian provenance of its final chapter, entitled "Sacrifice and the Surrogate Victim," the book tilts fully towards a psychoanalysis of the "dirty war": "Consolidating the sacrificial model with the Oedipal drama as these pertain to torture/execution in the Argentine detention centers, one may posit the following: The son/Sacrificer (Junta), victimized by a lack (ultimately of power-phallus), mimed the behavior of the Fat her/Deity (Enemy) who caused and represented the threatening deficiency " (200). Refinements of this consolidation only enhance its incongruity, not to say its grotesquerie: "The sacrificial victim, the overdetermined desaparecido, was a surrogate repre senting first the Oedipal Father but then also the murdered Father's menacing absence, his symbolic presence, the function that the Father fulfilled as the Law insofar as he was dead" (200).
One does not get to the bottom of things by substituting one mythic explanation, that of Freud or Lacan, for another, that of neo-Christian eschatology. It inevitably yields this kind of inter pretive enormity (the brackets are the author's interpolations): "In the beginning was the Word [phallus-power/Law], and the Word was with God [Name-of-the-Father], and the word was God [Law = Name of the Father]" (204). Such contortions are only conceivable if we leave Girard (and his interpretation of Scripture) far behind, having decided at the outset on the authority of post-Freudian schemata. Thus Freud's (and Guy Rosolato's) reading of the crucifixion, as displacing father-religion by son-religion, is accepted at face value (206); Christian Communion, "the regularly performed sacrificial ritual of Christianity, the mass," (208) is assimilated, via some Aztec lore, to cannibalism; and "the body and blood of Christ" are conflated, via an assist from Northrop Frye, with the destiny of Osiris, Orpheus, and Pentheus (210).
This kind of confusion is perhaps inevitable, once psychoanalysis, with its genius for signifier substitutions, displacements and contortions where concrete evidence is lacking, is elected as the word on the Word, as the oracle of interpretation. The "dirty war" lamentably invites this choice by so much evidence of its horrific mix of sex and pain, but its interpretation does not come to rest in the map charted by Freud and Lacan. Back to the drawing board then, but with Graziano's grimly important book in hand, a deft and well researched argument in service to a futile, even at times trivial, line of reasoning.
Andrew J. McKenna
Bruce Chilton, The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program Within a Cul tural History of Sacrifice. University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 1992. 209 pp. Hardbound, n.p.
Some members of COV&R were present at Stanford March 1, 1990 when COV&R had its beginning. At that initial meeting Bruce Chilton summarized the first four chapters of his book in progress, with René Girard responding. This book is the completion of that work in progress. It is significant for its attempt to put sacrifice in the context of an anthropological perspective and to evaluate the contribution of Girard to understanding sacrifice as a religious and cultural phenomenon. The treatment is divided into three major parts: theory, setting in ancient Israel and the work of Josephus, and argument concerning Jesus's understanding of sacrifice and the Jerusalem temple. There are three appendixes, in one of which he extends his chapter on Girard's analysis of sacrifice with a critique of Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World.
Chilton's thesis is that Jesus's "occupation" of the Jerusalem Temple has nothing to do with "destroying the fabric of the edifice itself" (100). What he intended was not an attack on the sacrificial system as such; it was rather that God's forgiveness is "the condition in which sacrifice is rightly offered..." (133), rather than the condition sacrifice brings about as a remedy.
What Jesus prophetically demanded was pure sacrifice, which required the condition of forgiveness and the offering of animals owned and provided by a forgiven, purified Israel. When the dispute of Jesus and the authorities over purity and sacrifice "resulted in the defeat of Jesus within the precincts of the Temple, his social eating took on a new and scandalous element: the claim that God preferred a pure meal to impure sacrifice in the Temple" (154). This point concerning the communion meal connects the treatise to the argument developed in the first five chapters, where the author calls into question Girard's model of sacrifice as the controlling outlet of mimetic desire and rivalry, presenting instead the meal as the best model for understanding sacrifice.
Chilton's argument and his appreciative critique of Girard should be of great interest to COV&R members and all those who take the mimetic theory seriously. His argument concerning Jesus and sacrifice is obviously very debatable from the standpoint of the mimetic theory. The discussion begun at Stanford in 1990 and continued in this book will be further extended in two articles, one by Chilton and one by me, to be published in the 1993 issue of Bulletin of Biblical Research. Chilton's article is a review-essay on my book, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred, that includes a sketch of Girard's mimetic theory. In my response to his review I raise three issues about Chilton's critique of Girard's research and my book that are also relevant to this book review. These are Chilton's understanding of Girard's concept of mimesis, differentiation and sacrifice in Girard's work and my own, and Chilton's model for understanding sacrifice. Summarized very briefly and roughly, I argue the following: (1) Mimetic desire is not inherently or inevitably covetous rivalry, although Girard has not always been consistent in his use of terms. He conceives also of "effective" mimesis, that is, the operation of an underlying scapegoat mechanism that enables culture to work; and the "good" or "ideal" mimesis of Christ or the kingdom of God. In other words, "mimesis" and "mimetic desire" have three related yet distinct meanings. (2) Sacrifice can be "effective" as the expression of effective mimesis, in that it is better than the alternative of a mimetic crisis and wholesale conflict or violence. However, sacrifice is generated by violence and entails the justifica tion of victimization, even if in a muted or camouflaged form. In a vision of the new divine-human community proclaimed by the gospel, it will come to an end. (3) The meal or festal consumption model of sacrifice has little or no explanatory power by comparison to the mimetic model. The meal simply presupposes the differentia tions and ritual acts that must be explained.
James G. Williams
New Books
Chilton, Bruce. The Temple of Jesus: His Sacrificial Program Within a Cultural History of Sacrifice. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1992.
Gebauer, Gunter, and Christoph Wulf. Mimesis: Kultur - Kunst - Gesellschaft. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlts Enzyklopädie, 1992.
Juergensmeyer, Mark, ed. Violence and the Sacred in the Modern World. London: Frank Cass and Co., 1992.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 (forthcoming).
Wink, Walter. Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
Perdue, Leo G. and C. Gilpin. The Voice from the Whirlwind: Interpreting the Book of Job. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992.
Future Meetings
"Literature and the Sacred", University of North Caro lina at Chapel Hill
April 22-24, 1993
The next annual meeting of COV&R will take place April 22-24, 1993 at the University of North Carolina. Theme: "Literature and the Sacred." There will be major papers by Rebecca Adams, Cesáreo Bandera, René Girard, Sandor Goodhart, Raymund Schwager, Tobin Siebers, and James Williams. Shorter papers will be given by Judith Arias, Gerard Bucher, Dino Cervigni, Diana Culbertson, Christopher G. Flood, Richard, Golson, Jørgen Jørgensen, Jacque-Jude Lepine, William Mishler, Susan Nowak, Charles D. Orzech, D. A. Ponech, Richard J. Prystowsky. If you wish further information about it, please contact Professor Judith Arias, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27858-4353 (Tel: 919/757-6017; Fax: 919/757-6233).