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Author: René Girard
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
ISBN: 9781611860870
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
ISBN: 9781611860870
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628950374
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 84
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Book Description
René Girard shows that all desires are contagious—and the desire to be thin is no exception. In this compelling new book, Girard ties the anorexia epidemic to what he calls mimetic desire: a desire imitated from a model. Girard has long argued that, far from being spontaneous, our most intimate desires are copied from what we see around us. In a culture obsessed with thinness, the rise of eating disorders should be no surprise. When everyone is trying to slim down, Girard asks, how can we convince anorexic patients to have a healthy outlook on eating? Mixing theoretical sophistication with irreverent common sense, Girard denounces a “culture of anorexia” and takes apart the competitive impulse that fuels the game of conspicuous non-consumption. He shows that showing off a slim physique is not enough—the real aim is to be skinnier than one’s rivals. In the race to lose the most weight, the winners are bound to be thinner and thinner. Taken to extremes, this tendency to escalation can only lead to tragic results. Featuring a foreword by neuropsychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian and an introductory essay by anthropologist Mark R. Anspach, the volume concludes with an illuminating conversation between René Girard, Mark R. Anspach, and Laurence Tacou.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 124
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Book Description
In Sacrifice, René Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. Even that which appears to be dissimilar fails to contradict mimetic theory, but instead corresponds to the minimum of illusion without which sacrifice becomes impossible. The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense. Once exposed, the single victim mechanism can no longer function as the model for would-be sacrificers. Recognizing that the Vedic tradition also converges on a revelation that discredits sacrifice, mimetic theory locates within sacrifice itself a paradoxical power of quiet reflection that leads, in the long run, to the eclipse of this institution which is violent but nevertheless fundamental to the development of human culture. Far from unduly privileging the Western tradition and awarding it a monopoly on the knowledge and repudiation of blood sacrifice, mimetic analysis recognizes comparable, but never truly identical, traits in the Vedic tradition.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: Gracewing Publishing
ISBN: 9780852445105
Category : Desire in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 386
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Book Description
In this groundbreaking work a foremost literary and cultural critic turns to the major figure in English literature William Shakespeare and proposes a dramatic new way of reading and performing his works. The key to A Theatre of Envy is René Girards's original expression and application of what he calls Mimetic Theory. For Girard, people desire according to the desires of others. He sees this as fundamental to the human condition and works out its implications in a most convincing and ultimately, easily comprehensible way. Bringing his insights to bear on Shakespeare, Girard reveals the previously overlooked coherence of problem plays like Troilus and Cressida and makes a convincing argument for elevating A Midsummer Night's Dream from the status of entertaining chaotic comedy to a profound and original commentary on the human condition. Shakespeare transforms the crude literary form of revenge tragedy into a profound and prophetic unmasking of violence - even more relevant today than in his time. Throughout this impressively sustained reading of Shakespeare, Girard's prose is sophisticated enough for the academic as well as being accessible to the general reader. Anyone interested in literature, anthropology, psychology and particularly, theology as relevant to the overriding contemporary problems of violence in all its forms will want to read this challenging book. All those involved in theatrical productions and performance will find A Theatre of Envy full of exciting and practical ideas. 'In its enormous breathtaking scope, (René Girard's work) suggests...the projects of those 19th century intellectual giants (Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud) who still cast such long shadows today. By contrast, contemporary criticism seems paltry and fainthearted.' Comparative Literature René Girard was born in Avignon, read cultural history in Paris and in 1947 went to the USA where he has for the last 50 years held a number of prestigious academic posts. He has written more than half a dozen books, best known of which are, Violence and the Sacred, The Scapegoat, and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, he has also been featured in many interviews and magazine articles. His Martin D'Arcy Lecture - "Victims, Violence and Christianity" - delivered in Oxford in November 1997, aroused the enthusiastic interest of a wide variety of British experts in many fields as well as those involved in the wider and increasingly significant world of contemporary spirituality in all its popular and peremptory expressions. While not giving a naive answer René Girard does provide a profound and practical way to unmask violence not only in Shakespeare's world, but in our own.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 162895017X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book 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.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628950161
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
“Why is there so much violence in our midst?” René Girard asks. “No question is more debated today. And none produces more disappointing answers.” In Girard’s mimetic theory it is the imitation of someone else’s desire that gives rise to conflict whenever the desired object cannot be shared. This mimetic rivalry, Girard argues, is responsible for the frequency and escalating intensity of human conflict. For Girard, human conflict comes not from the loss of reciprocity between humans but from the transition, imperceptible at first but then ever more rapid, from good to bad reciprocity. In this landmark text, Girard continues his study of violence in light of geopolitical competition, focusing on the roots and outcomes of violence across societies latent in the process of globalization. The volume concludes in a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, where Girard’s twenty-first century emphases on the continuity of all religions, global conflict, and the necessity of apocalyptic thinking emerge.
Author: René Girard
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1609171330
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
In Battling to the End René Girard engages Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), the Prussian military theoretician who wrote On War. Clausewitz, who has been critiqued by military strategists, political scientists, and philosophers, famously postulated that "War is the continuation of politics by other means." He also seemed to believe that governments could constrain war. Clausewitz, a firsthand witness to the Napoleonic Wars, understood the nature of modern warfare. Far from controlling violence, politics follows in war's wake: the means of war have become its ends. René Girard shows us a Clausewitz who is a fascinated witness of history's acceleration. Haunted by the French-German conflict, Clausewitz clarifies more than anyone else the development that would ravage Europe. Battling to the End pushes aside the taboo that prevents us from seeing that the apocalypse has begun. Human violence is escaping our control; today it threatens the entire planet.
Author: Jean-Michel Oughourlian
Publisher: MSU Press
ISBN: 1628952474
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
The discovery of mirror neurons in the 1990s led to an explosion of research and debate about the imitative capacities of the human brain. Some herald a paradigm shift on the order of DNA in biology, while others remain skeptical. In this revolutionary volume Jean- Michel Oughourlian shows how the hypotheses of René Girard can be combined with the insights of neuroscientists to shed new light on the “mimetic brain.” Offering up clinical studies and a complete reevaluation of classical psychiatry, Oughourlian explores the interaction among reason, emotions, and imitation and reveals that rivalry—the blind spot in contemporary neuroscientific understandings of imitation—is a misunderstood driving force behind mental illness. Oughourlian’s analyses shake the very foundations of psychiatry as we know it and open up new avenues for both theoretical research and clinical practice.
Author: Ryan G. Duns
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1978710097
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
In René Girard, Theology, and Popular Culture, fifteen contributors consider how Girard’s mimetic theory can be used to uncover and probe the theological depths of popular culture. Creative and critical engagement with Girard’s theory enables the contributors to offer fresh and exciting interpretations of movies (The Devil Wears Prada, Mean Girls, Star Wars), television (Hoarders, Cobra Kai), classical literature and graphic novels, and issues ranging from anorexia to social media. The result is a volume that establishes Girard as an innovative interpreter of culture and shows him as an invaluable guide for theologically reflecting on desire, violence, redemption, and forgiveness. Written in fresh and lively prose, the contributors demonstrate not only that Girard provides a powerful lens through which to view culture but also—and more provocatively—challenge readers to consider what popular culture reveals about them. Readers looking for an accessible introduction to mimetic theory and exploring its theological application will find this a welcome resource.
Author: James Alison
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137538252
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 526
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Book Description
The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Authors assess the contributions of René Girard’s mimetic theory to our understanding of sacrifice, ancient tragedy, and post-modernity, and apply its insights to religious cinema and the global economy. This handbook serves as introduction and guide to a theory of religion and human behavior that has established itself as fertile terrain for scholarly research and intellectual reflection.
