Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Rene Girard

I'm new to blogging, so here goes an initial try. I've just recently become acquainted with Rene Girard. I'm wondering if others have found him interesting--particularly in the area of "applied religion." I note our library already has a dozen of his works, plus there is a web site devoted to his theory of religion and violence. Any thoughts?

1 comment:

Colin McCaffrey said...

Hi Chip,
I am pretty new to commenting on blogs as well. I cannot say that I am all that familiar with Girad's work, but I have noticed that his work has been influential in anthropology, literary theory, and classics, as well as in religious studies and theology. This alone makes his work very interesting, but it also seems hard to place, I think probably to his credit, in any of the large scale intellectual trends of the Twentieth Century. A book I think might be an good place to start is the volume Violent Origins (Stanford, 1987) which contains in addition to an essay by Girard, contributions from Burton Mack, Jonathan Z. Smith, Walter Burkert, and Renato Rosaldo. At least that's the book I've been meaning to start with, though I haven't yet had the opportunity. It deals primarily with the theory of sacrifice.