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This article argues for an interpretation of David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer as embodying the key components of the Nietzschean practice of conflict with a 'worthier' enemy. These are carefully considered under the headings of 'agonism', 'imitation', and a propulsion towards 'escalation', that is, beckoning a response from other, would-be, 'worthier' enemies. Adding to the standard 'cultural' explanation for the origins of the Strauss essay, this article explores the polemical 'assassination' of Strauss as ultimately ordered towards assuming Strauss' status as the pre-eminent Post-Christian freethinker of the era. In this way, the Meditation also acts as an intentionally provocative means for Nietzsche to beckon his audience to both 'escalate' the struggle further, and to recognise his presence on the intellectual landscape. Nietzsche conceives greatness as facilitated through conflict; his conflict with Strauss, a worthier foe, anticipates the strategy and approach that Nietzsche will utilise in his later and more significant disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the death of God narrative through the lens of kenosis, drawing insights from thinkers such as Marcel, Heidegger, Vattimo, and Girard. It investigates the implications of kenotic thought for contemporary religious and philosophical discourse, exploring various interpretations of kenosis, ranging from Altizer and Žižek's apocalyptic views to Vattimo's more hopeful perspective. Through critical engagement with these viewpoints, this paper advocates for a nuanced understanding of kenosis inspired by Hegel, one that bypasses both radical theology and excessive optimism. Methodologically, this study adopts a hermeneutic approach, analyzing key texts and engaging in philosophical dialogue. This paper concludes that rethinking kenotic thought could provide a robust framework for grappling with the death of God in the contemporary context, offering avenues for ethical reflection, social critique, and speculative renewal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to highlight Joseph de Maistre's pioneering work in anthropology, which 150 years before Girard came to the same conclusions as Girard: the importance of sacrifice in human societies, the logic of violence and its resolution, and the particular character of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which comes as a fulfillment and definitive end to the logic of bloody sacrifice. This little-known aspect of the counter-revolutionary thinker gives us a better understanding of the issues of matriarchy, patriarchy and Christian patriarchy, right up to contemporary developments with gender. He also gives us an example of the application of Catholic realism, based on theology and nourished by sound Thomistic metaphysics, and how a return to this Catholic realism in the human sciences is a key to understanding contemporary phenomena.

En el Canto V del Infierno, uno de los pasajes más universalmente conocidos de la Divina Comedia, Dante sugiere la fuerza corruptora de la literatura, desencadenante del adulterio de Paolo y Francesca. Este esquema en que lo literario se convierte en motivo de perdición, reaparece en casos tan conocidos como el de Don Quijote y otros menos conocidos como el dickensiano Nicodemus Boffin de Nuestro común amigo. Estos escritores dejan traslucir en sus obras sus inquietudes respecto a una influencia que simultáneamente buscan y temen sobre los lectores. Sus «libros dentro de los libros» pueden ser interpretados como una vacuna con la que el escritor quiere proveer al lector de las herramientas para protegerse de los efectos perversos de una literatura recibida en clave romántica. Proponemos, siguiendo especialmente a Renato Poggioli, John Freccero o René Girard, una interpretación antirromántica que subraya la actualidad de la arquitectura moral de la Divina Comedia y su ascendencia sobre varios clásicos de la literatura moderna posterior.

Conversations regarding moral values are increasingly becoming a pivotal dimension of public discourse. This paper presents a new approach to unacceptable discourse. Drawing on René Girard's cultural anthropology and Luciano Elizalde's dissent management theory, this work develops a scale of situations of dissent, such as controversy, polemic and public discourse scandal. It offers a detailed study of the polemic raised by the book Marry Him and Be Submissive, a process of dissent which was generated in Spain in November 2013 on the occasion of the publication of this Italian bestseller and lasted until January 2014. The book was written by the Italian journalist Costanza Miriano and translated and edited by the Archdiocese of Granada. The case study uses a triangular approach to discourse analysis, which aims to comprehend the enunciator's legitimacy and social positioning, the communication context in which the debate takes place, and the characteristics of the public discourse. A central element regards how reactions are organized around the signifier 'submissive' and the different frames of interpretation assigned to this word, in what will be called 'feminist' and 'post-feminist' paradigms. Mechanisms of dissent and consensus are explained, and takeaways and actors' strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negli anni Settanta, con la pubblicazione di La violenza e il sacro (1972), René Girard coglie le implicazioni sociali dell’ipotesi mimetica nata dallo studio del romanzo moderno e contenuta in Menzogna romantica e verità romanzesca (1961) e Dostoevskij. Dal doppio all’unità (1963). Uno studio incrociato degli strumenti ermeneutici che Girard adotta per ciascuna di queste fasi ci permette di tracciare una precisa strada ermeneutica che colleghi la figura di Edipo e il suo crimine, il parricidio, ai grandi epilettici del romanzo dostoevskiano. Dopo aver introdotto i termini con cui Girard coglie la derivazione paterna dell’orgoglio in Dostoevskij e dopo aver illustrato i caratteri del capro espiatorio girardiano presenti nella tragedia sofoclea Edipo re, il saggio analizza il ruolo dell’epilessia nella biografia e nell’opera di Dostoevskij, sino a giungere ad una rilettura girardiana degli schemi narrativi del romanzo I fratelli Karamazov, simbolo per eccellenza del delitto parricida.

AbstractConversations regarding moral values are increasingly becoming a pivotal dimension of public discourse. This paper presents a new approach to unacceptable discourse. Drawing on René Girard’s cultural anthropology and Luciano Elizalde’s dissent management theory, this work develops a scale of situations of dissent, such as controversy, polemic and public discourse scandal. It offers a detailed study of the polemic raised by the book Marry Him and Be Submissive, a process of dissent which was generated in Spain in November 2013 on the occasion of the publication of this Italian bestseller and lasted until January 2014. The book was written by the Italian journalist Costanza Miriano and translated and edited by the Archdiocese of Granada. The case study uses a triangular approach to discourse analysis, which aims to comprehend the enunciator’s legitimacy and social positioning, the communication context in which the debate takes place, and the characteristics of the public discourse. A central element regards how reactions are organized around the signifier 'submissive’ and the different frames of interpretation assigned to this word, in what will be called 'feminist’ and 'post-feminist’ paradigms. Mechanisms of dissent and consensus are explained, and takeaways and actors’ strategies are discussed.

Copyright of Enthymema is the property of Enthymema, International Journal of Literary Criticism, Literary Theory & Philosophy of Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article investigates the "musico-philosophical" perspectives of the nineteenth-century Russian novelist Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) and the twentieth-century British writer and musician Anthony Burgess (1917-1993). In this study, I revisit and expand upon issues raised in my past three presentations at Generative Anthropology Summer Conferences in 2021, 2022, and 2023. I consider the ways in which music operates metaphysically and allows for the exploration of ontological dichotomy-- the tensions caused by ultimate existential questions--through the "musico-philosophical" convergence of musical features and philosophical reflection in selected works of imaginative literature by Dostoevsky and Burgess. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mythical and historical memory are two sides of the same reality. Folk legends remind us that there are great tragedies behind great epic heroes and mythic deeds/images. Hidden behind the monumental cultural, literary and artistic legacy lies shocking ritual violence with its deep logos. Sacred and profane violence have many variants and should thus be interpreted with great attention (semantic, semiotic, historical, cultural). The question of the economy of violence is of prime interest because of the wide array of personifications of violence: necessary, moderate, excessive, limitless, absolute, intentional and unintentional. The figure of the scapegoat changes, but not its role in the ritual of violence. The mythical memory of the Macedonians is sensitive and has the capacity to mystify and demystify historical stories. The Macedonian oral literature has preserved numerous legends, stories and poems which evoke the motif of sacrifice, both in its archaic ritualistic form (walling up a live woman in the foundations of bridges) and in its feudal historic forms of social and cultural politics. The focus of this paper will be the legend of King Marko (1335–1395) written down by Marko Cepenkov (1829–1920), and some other literary examples. It will also make a basic classification of violence (ritualistic, necessary, unnecessary and absolute).

The common good is realized in the encounter of those moments that reveal the passage from the historical identification of truth to redemption as an archetypal recognition by man of God the Creator, letting that special explosion give life to the discreet in the order of nature and the world: revolution and utopia are in fact the upheaval that indicates a social destructive disorder. In this condition man succeeds in arriving at a dimension of atonement of the past and its events, being able to evaluate his existence as often uncertain in the unfolding of his events, deducing, from his signs and his plausible correspondences, a bond that emerges linear for having been many times interrupted and resumed, and not confined to an Anderswo, distant, unattainable and indeterminable. Violence strikes in these cases the sovereign political event leading to a sacrificial crisis.

The article describes the connections between theoretical assumptions concerning teaching freedom and the role of authority in education. It also presents Rene Girard's idea of sacrificial crisis and uses it as an interpretative technique to understand conceptual, bureaucratic, and neoliberal forms of hiding violence. Finally, the author formulates remarks concerning the importance of making violence visible and distinguishing between its manifold forms and cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I argue that Nietzsche and Girard provide, for the first time, a phenomenology and genealogical account of the victim as both an ontological and moral category. First, I lay out Girard's mimetic theory and show how it culminates in a phenomenology of victims and victimization. I then turn to Nietzsche, in particular Girard's consideration of Nietzsche as the most important theologian of recent past, to show that Girard's phenomenology - of victims, violence, and scapegoating - already exists within Nietzsche's philosophical framework, albeit with a significantly different interpretation. It is my hope to problematize the seemingly self-evident and axiomatic character of the category of the "victim" by highlighting its specific genealogy within the Judeo-Christian tradition in order to further a much broader discussion on the hermeneutics of violence in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of scholars have praised the work of René Girard as opening a way forward for biblical interpretation. This essay seeks to test the utility of Girard's theories by applying them to a close reading of 2 Samuel 21:1–14. It concludes that Girard's work draws attention to certain neglected themes but is unable to account for the narrative of 2 Samuel 21 in its final form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The capacity to autonomously exercise freedom and direct desire is often understood as the expression of the modern idea of the human being as a spontaneous free agent, on the basis of which one determines her fate and accordingly her future. Against such an account of a subject as the agent and owner of her own desires, I will argue based on Girard's mimetic theory of desire and Fanon's »epidermalization of inferiority« in postcolonial subjectivities that the baseline of a desiring existence is alienation. The seemingly untouchable interior realm of the subject represented by desires appears in both thinkers as a porous dimension that reveals the intricate web of relations involved in defining one's object of desire. I argue that Girard's and Fanon's account of desire are better suited to account for the situational complexity and specificity of desiring subjects and provide the hermeneutic tools to identify the power relations involved in the representations of desire. By critically approaching desire and its constitution in relation to others I argue that oppressive structures in the narratives of possible futures can be fleshed out, thus enabling alternative views of how the future may unfold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Sagrada Escritura é peculiar no tratamento do tema violência, afirma René Girard (1923-2015). Segundo ele os textos bíblicos defendem as vítimas e denunciam a violência sobre elas; diferente das mitologias que justificam a perseguição e condenação das vítimas. Na Bíblia, para Girard, Deus não é aliado da violência como mostram, de início, três textos do livro de Gênesis: Caim e Abel (4, 1-24), Sacrifício de Isaac (22, 1-19), e José do Egito (37-50). O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a leitura girardiana destes textos bíblicos, que mostram o registro do assassinato fundador (Caim e Abel); o vestígio dos sacrifícios humanos (Sacrifício de Isaac) e as etapas do ciclo mimético da violência: perseguição e morte-expulsão da vítima (José do Egito). A metodologia adotada é a pesquisa bibliográfica a partir das obras de Girard que tratam sobre o tema da violência e sua interpretação bíblico-teológica, concernente aos textos citados do livro de Gênesis, com o auxílio de um comentador das obras de René Girard, dos verbetes de um dicionário bíblico e diretamente dos textos bíblicos. Concluímos que é fundamental aprofundar o conhecimento de como a Sagrada Escritura trata o tema da violência, determinante para a práxis cristã na atualidade.

René Girard's "Mimetic Theory" of violence categorizes the victim depending on the level of consciousness that the community has of the conflict and the innocence of the victim(s). Academic research applying scapegoating theories to conflict resolution in sport has not categorized the victim. However, classifying each scapegoat is important to understand both the conflict and the social circumstances that may have ignited the violence towards the innocent minority or individual. This paper identifies four historical instances of Girard's scapegoat categories in sport, including athletes in ancient Greece, the Black Sox game-fixing scandal, Lance Armstrong's exclusion from cycling, and Cubs' fan Steve Bartman. The paper uses Girard's theory to determine the possible causes of each instance of victimization and describes both how the scapegoat mechanism operated and its violent conclusion. Thoughtful analysis of the causes of each conflict and the social environment that ignited the victimization process and of the similarities between them is an important step towards finding a solution to sport violence. This analysis also provides a tool to potentially foresee conflict and prevent instability and violence in sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this text, we propose that the basis of René Girard's mimetic theory, which allowed him to construct a "fundamental anthropology", can be found in Aesthetic Realism. We will expose some characteristic notes of the mimetic relation, to then be able to postulate that Girard opposes not only the romantic lie, which avoids accepting mimesis as a structuring element of desire but also the impressionistic falsification that hides the founding violence of societies. For this, we will analyze his theory of mimetic violence in two of his most important books, Romantic lie & romanesque truth [Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Selfand Other in Literary Structure] and Violence and the Sacred, and we will expose it facing the concepts of Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism, taken from the history of art and literature. Finally, we will briefly mention the absence of empirical evidence, as a criticism of Girardian fundamental anthropology, to conclude that this does not prevent us from speaking of realism in this theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As threats to human security, epidemics cause fear and anxiety, thus generating conspiracy theories, fake news, and discrimination. In 2020, the most widespread xenophobic reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic was Sinophobia. In comparison, India's response to the pandemic was both conventional and exceptional. Like other countries, India recorded a surge in Sinophobia; but –remarkably– in Islamophobia too. Turning to both history and theory, this paper investigates how Coronavirus got transformed into a 'Muslim disease' and connected to narratives of holy war and Islamization ('Corona Jihad'). We contextualize the 2020 Covid-related Islamophobic wave within a longer process of demonization of the Muslim that is catalysed by the beliefs and policies of Hindu nationalism. In light of Muslims' continuing relegation to the fringe of the Indian body-politic, we propose an interpretation of the 2020 disease-induced Islamophobia as scapegoating, based on René Girard's mimetic theory. In conclusion, the case of Covid-19 in India confirms that in divided societies collective threats like epidemics are likely to exacerbate already existing forms of discrimination rooted in the society's mainstream memory and norms, and highlights the role of beliefs in mediating between threat and violence. This case study also highlights the deep penetration of communal discourse in India's everydayness and its far-reaching implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cauriensia: Revista Anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas is the property of Instituto Teologico San Pedro de Alcantara de Caceres and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cauriensia: Revista Anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas is the property of Instituto Teologico San Pedro de Alcantara de Caceres and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Sacrifice is central to the flourishing of human culture and is integral to everyday life through practices of gifting, abstinence, donation and substitution. Consumer studies have predominantly taken a theological view of consumption-based sacrifice as medium of self-transformation, purification and transcendence to the realms of the sacred. Yet, there is a darker side to marketplace sacrifice. An alternative reading of sacrifice acknowledges the violence that is also often present in sacrifice – a violence that is directed and ritualised through the sacrifice of the scapegoat. Violent sacrifice can unite and reconcile conflicting individuals into a cohesive community, the taking of a life – at least symbolically – to restore social order and the status quo. This violent turn is missing from accounts of sacrifice and sacrificial gift giving in marketing and consumer studies that do not account for the deep, visceral, human desire for violent sacrifice – in both non-blood and bloodletting forms. To address this gap, I first introduce René Girard's perspectives on violence, sacrifice and scapegoating to conceive an ideology of violent sacrifice in markets and consumption. I then re-examine extant market and consumer studies that investigate acts of sacrifice to reveal dimensions of violence and expand conceptions of sacrifice as being both light and dark. Thus, acknowledging the dual nature of sacrifice: purifying sacrifice to transform through abstinence and giving; and, violent sacrifice through mechanisms of scapegoating. Understanding these two faces of sacrifice has significant implication for marketing scholarship and marketing practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

René Girard's mimetic theory opens up a possibility of unifying the ethical and objective dimensions of Christ's redemptive work, harmonizing a problematic tension that arises from the redemptive act. To demonstrate this, I draw on Girard's writings on the Gospels to show how a Girardian reading of the cross leads to an understanding of the redemptive work of Christ as simultaneously exemplary, didactic, and sacrificial, with no real distance between any of these terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of René Girard’s concept of mimetic desire, scapegoat mechanism and biblical demystification. It also attempts to explain the basic notions of his anthropology and to contextualize them in relation to the conceptions of philosophers like Freud, Durkheim and Nietzsche. The paper starts with an introduction to the widely discussed problem of mimetic desire. It sees Girard’s mimetic theory as a theory of conflict. Then, it analyzes how violence emerges through mimetic rivalry. From that point, the essay moves to discuss the scapegoat mechanism and the relation between violence and the sacred in archaic societies. Finally, it examines the conception of Judeo-Christian demystification of mimesis and surrogate victim.

El robo que san Agustín declara haber cometido a sus dieciséis años en sus Confesiones ha sido objeto de interpretaciones de diversa índole. Aquí, mediante el tratamiento de algunas de ellas y de los textos fuente en los que se apoyan, se propone una nueva lectura que toma como fundamento una óptica aún no delineada en los estudios agustinianos. A través de la aplicación de la perspectiva hermenéutica propuesta hace algunas décadas por el historiador francés René Girard, se advierte que el relato del robo de las peras constituye un episodio afín al mensaje revelado por las Escrituras en torno a la naturaleza del deseo humano. Se elabora una exégesis que, tomando en consideración interpretaciones precedentes, se distancia a su vez de algunos de sus fundamentos, con el fin de profundizar su alcance y demostrar que el episodio en cuestión, en conformidad con el mensaje cristiano, revela el carácter conflictivo de la naturaleza mimética del deseo.

The notion of virtuous organizations has an established place in the business ethics/organization studies literature. But this conceptualization drew principally on Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue. His more recent work Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity, with its focus on desire, consumption and human flourishing, demands a revisiting of the original concept. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide an extended theory of the notion of the virtuous organization. An obvious application of this extended theory is to the issue of climate change. In exploring this, the paper has a further aim which is to respond to Banerjee et al.'s call for more theory building that articulates post-growth possibilities at the organization level in relation to the multiple challenges which society faces in response to the changing climate. The paper begins by summarizing the current conceptual framework of the virtuous organization while recognizing critiques of MacIntyre's work and its organizational application. It then turns to the issues of desire and consumption highlighted in MacIntyre's latest book, drawing also on an extended literature in these areas including insights from Girard's work, and concluding with MacIntyre's contentions in relation to human flourishing. This leads to the extended conceptual framework which is then applied to the issue of climate change. The particular theoretical contribution of the paper is to understand virtuous organizations as playing an important role in the redirection and re-education of desires, leading to the pursuit of goods that we have good reason to desire, and so to the good for individuals and communities, and ultimately to human flourishing within ecological limits. The similarities with and differences from the degrowth/post-growth movement are explored to demonstrate the distinctive contribution a MacIntyrean approach makes. The practical implications of this theoretical contribution are then spelled out, including a consideration of the potential ubiquity or otherwise of this approach, before conclusions are drawn.

This paper aims to clarify the role the double plays in the constitution of identity, focusing on the movement between the individual and the collective level. Notably, the latter today is often considered through the lens of identity politics. The double, I argue, poses an alternative to this type of politics, by showing the interdependence of groups. As a case study, this paper focuses on the complex relationship between the anti-Semite and the Jew as depicted by Sartre. I begin with a psychoanalytical examination of the figure of the double,follow on with an analysis of Sartre's work in the light of the double, and conclude with Girard's theory of mimetic desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Comprendre: Revista Catalana de Filosofía is the property of Herder Editorial S.L. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study seeks to investigate the influence of plague on Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, The Harafish (1977), which traces the changes that take place in an unnamed Egyptian alley after it has been struck by the plague. Crucially, the plague, along with its biomedical effect, plays a central role in the de/formation of the community’s sociopolitical structure. To approach Mahfouz’s novel as a plague narrative, the study utilizes Rene Girard’s theory of plague and literature that combines concepts such as reversal, undifferentiating, violence, and scapegoating. Following a Girardian perspective, the concepts of reversal and undifferentiation are used to explore the collapse of the prepandemic sociopolitical order, and the formation of a new structure in which the harafish, led by Ashur al-Naji, take control of the alley’s sources of power and wealth. Although undifferentiation becomes the ruling principle, violence, like the plague, infects the alley. Violence, through mimesis, becomes contagious and ends a sacrificial crisis. The study ultimately concludes that there is a close relationship between the plague’s biomedical and sociopolitical influence. Approaching The Harafish as a plague narrative adds value to the current scholarly and academic discourse over Mahfouz’s work itself and the post-COVID19 world crisis as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Cultural Studies / Roczniki Kulturoznawcze is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Institute of Cultural Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In his last book René Girard depicts apocalypse as disclosure of mimetic violence that is world-ending. He claims that in times of violent pandemic we are not called to fight for this world, but follow Christ in his withdrawal from the world. However, such an assertion creates serious theoretical and practical issues for the effort to heal interhuman relations from the virus of mimetic hostility. I argue for the importance of restoring a foundational distinction between passionate love and acquisitive mimetic desire from the forgotten regions of Girard's oeuvre. With Max Scheler's interpretation of Stendhal's concept of l'amour passion, I explore in each thinker a fundamental insight about possibilities of transforming violent contagion through empathy and loving commitment to the world. I conclude that respective "passive" and "active" approaches to the contagion of mimetic rivalry and violence are necessary and equally valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to anthropological philosopher René Girard (1923–2015), an important human adaptation is our propensity to victimize or scapegoat. He argued that other traits upon which human sociality depends would have destabilized primate dominance-based social hierarchies, making conspecific conflict a limiting factor in hominin evolution. He surmised that a novel mechanism for inhibiting intragroup conflict must have emerged contemporaneously with our social traits, and speculated that this was the tendency to spontaneously unite around the victimization of single individuals. He described an unconscious tendency to both ascribe blame and to imbue the accused with a sacred mystique. This emotionally cathartic scapegoat mechanism, he claimed, enhanced social cohesion, and was the origin of religion, mythology, sacrifice, ritual, cultural institutions, and social norms. It would have functioned by modifying the beliefs and behaviors of the group, rather than of the accused, making the act of accusation more important than the substance. This article aims to examine the empirical evidence for Girard's claims, and argues that the scapegoat hypothesis has commonalities with several other evolutionary hypotheses, including Wrangham's execution hypothesis on self-domestication, Dunbar's hypothesis on the role of storytelling in maintaining group stability, and DeScioli and Kurzban's hypothesis on the role of non-consequentialist morality in curtailing conflict. Potential implications of the scapegoat hypothesis for evolutionary psychology and psychiatry are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This analysis of selected novels and short stories by Józef Bogdan Dziekoński - Pająk [The Spider], Siła woli [Willpower], Piosnka [A Simple Song], and Wyzwolenie zapaleńca [The Liberation of Enthusiast] - shows that they share similar narrative structure based on the interception of messages sent by the narrator to an absent ideal recipient by an eaves-dropping intruder who gradually displaces the original addressee. Working within the framework of a romance story Dziekoński develops a philosophy of desire which accepts incompleteness, contingency and disillusionment. They combine in an affirmation of life and an opposition to morbid phantasies or the idea of irreplaceability of love in the myth of l'amour tristanien. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Después de que Friedrich Nietzsche expusiera el fenómeno del resentimiento mediante un supuesto desenmascaramiento de un complejo emotivo oculto, autores posteriores, como Max Scheler y René Girard, matizaron el análisis nietzscheano aplicándolo a diversos ámbitos antropológicos y sociales. Muchas de las principales aportaciones de estos análisis contemporáneos encuentran sus precedentes en autores anteriores, modernos y medievales. Seis siglos y medio antes de Scheler, Tomás de Aquino ofrece en dos cuestiones de su Summa Theologiae dedicadas a la acedia y la envidia una serie de precisiones conceptuales y observaciones psicológicas que coinciden en gran parte de su fondo y, en ocasiones, en la forma, con ciertas caracterizaciones del resentimiento. Demostramos, apoyándonos en numerosas referencias textuales, los paralelismos entre la fenomenología scheleriana del resentimiento y la exposición tomasiana de los vicios capitales.

Hans Urs von Balthasar speaks of a diversity of contemporary philosophies moving ‘concentrically’ toward a ‘dramatic theology’. This article affirms the coherence of this claim, by establishing some of these convergences, beginning with Gaudium et Spes, and a number of theologians, pre-eminently Balthasar. Attention is then turned to the ‘Dramatic Theology’ project of the Innsbruck School, inspired by Raymund Schwager; a conception of theodrama which builds on Balthasar’s insight, while also utilising the mimetic theory of René Girard. The third section considers ways in which the insights of the Dramatic Theology project can be enhanced, by attention to three specific insights from within dramatic theory: the possibility of expanding the Aristotelian notion of ‘tragedy’; the borrowing of ‘overacceptance’ from theatrical improvision (Wells); a wider deployment of the unsettling category of ‘tragicomedy’, as applied to Shakespeare. The convergence of these insights on ‘theodrama’ is demonstrated by a comment on the Girardian/mimetic significance of each. A distinction between Balthasar and Girard is suggested, with reference to Walter Brüggemann’s dual perspectives of ‘above the fray’ and within the fray’.

In seinem Beitrag zeichnet Lukas Pallitsch die Formen von Gewalt in Michael Hanekes Film Das weiße Band. Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte nach. Dabei werden zunächst eingehend die Funktion des Erzählers und das Verstörungspotenzial von Hanekes Wirkungsästhetik diskutiert. Da im Film Gewalt und Religion in ein enges Spannungsverhältnis rücken und Kinder scheinbar ritualisierte Opferhandlungen vollziehen, bieten René Girards anthropologische Beobachtungen tieferen Aufschluss über die Emphatisierung der Opferfunktion im Film. Dabei gilt es zu betonen, dass gewaltvolle Opferhandlungen im Film ein anhaltendes Faszinosum darstellen und daher Medienpädagogik einen wichtigen Beitrag im Umgang mit der medialen Inszenierung und als kritisches Hinterfragen leisten kann.

Irony and sarcasm are common linguistic tropes. They are both based on falsehoods that the speaker pretends to be true. I briefly characterize their differences. A third trope exists that works when the relevant propositions are true – yet its rhetorical effect resembles irony and sarcasm, I call it mocking. It is mimetic evil: an agent copies another so that the result ridicules him. The image is, in a limited way, true of him and it hurts; we all are vulnerable. I provide a systematic framework for understanding this phenomenon, mocking, in terms of emulation and simulation. Finally, I introduce an idea of universal mimesis and discuss René Girard’s theory of desire. He argues that desires are copies of a model. This may not be possible, and I suggest a modification to his theory. I pay attention to his idea of mimetic desire as a source of hatred, which is obviously related to what I call here mimetic mocking.

Answering to the claim that our contemporary era has lost a connection to the domain of the sacred René Girard held that, contra Sigmund Freud, the myth of Oedipus was not primarily a story of patricide, but a hidden narrative of victimisation and expulsion. As an arch-example of mob logic the myth and Sophocles' play serve to gloss over a brutal and ritualistic sacrifice by claiming that it was the victim who acted in violation of the law; according to Girard the charges against king Oedipus were retroactively invented to justify the initial act of expulsion. In the street-art of AFK we encounter images that activate feelings of persecution and exile, uncovering a possible path to regain our connection to the holy.

In this paper we will analyze the thinking of the French philosopher René Girard about the mimetic desire that is produced in society and its derivation towards the mechanism of scapegoat. This thinker starts from the fact that we all move through this mimicry and that it can be mobilized until it reaches violence, removing and annihilating the person or group considered as guilty. As an example, two cases of social violence occurred in Korea: first, the woman who refused to clean her dog’s excrement in the subway, known as “the dog poop girl”, and second, another young woman who commented on a television show that short men were losers, and was named “loser girl”.

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