Download or read book Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2018-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes is an account of Paolo Diego Bubbio’s twenty-year intellectual journey through the twists and turns of Girard’s mimetic theory. The author analyzes philosophy and religion as “enemy sisters” engaged in an endless competitive struggle and identifies the intellectual space where this rivalry can either be perpetuated or come to a paradoxical resolution. He goes on to explore topics ranging from arguments for the existence of God to mimetic theory’s post-Kantian legacy, political implications, and capacity for identifying epochal phenomena, such as the crisis of the self, in popular culture. Bubbio concludes by advocating for an encounter between mimetic theory and contemporary philosophical hermeneutics—an encounter in which each approach benefits and is enriched by the resources of the other. The volume features a previously unpublished letter by René Girard on the relationship between philosophy and religion.
Download or read book Ren Girard Theology and Pop Culture written by Ryan G. Duns and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Mimetic Theory and Film written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interdisciplinary French-American thinker René Girard (1923-2015) has been one of the towering figures of the humanities in the last half-century. The title of René Girard's first book offered his own thesis in summary form: romantic lie and novelistic truth [mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque]. And yet, for a thinker whose career began by an engagement with literature, it came as a shock to some that, in La Conversion de l'art, Girard asserted that the novel may be an “outmoded” form for revealing humans to themselves. However, Girard never specified what, if anything, might take the place of the novel. This collection of essays is one attempt at answering this question, by offering a series of analyses of films that aims to test mimetic theory in an area in which relatively little has so far been offered. Does it make any sense to talk of vérité filmique? In addition, Mimetic Theory and Film is a response to the widespread objection that there is no viable “Girardian aesthetics.” One of the main questions that this collection considers is: can we develop a genre-specific mimetic analysis (of film), and are we able to develop anything approaching a “Girardian aesthetic”? Each of the contributors addresses these questions through the analysis of a film.
Download or read book Mimetic Theory and Its Shadow written by Scott Cowdell and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading Girardian theologian Scott Cowdell seeks to resolve a long-standing challenge to mimetic theory: that it entails a fundamental brutishness—an ontological violence. Girard’s account of scapegoating violence, seen as providing the initial stability for our species to emerge and consolidate, hardly seems compatible with Christian belief in God’s good creation, with violence only appearing after a subsequent Fall. The brilliant but controversial theologian John Milbank has long raised this concern about Girard, grounded in a remarkably sophisticated (though seldom fathomed) philosophical theology. Unpacking Milbank’s program, along with Girard’s recasting of Continental philosophy in light of mimetic theory, Cowdell finds a way between two apparently irreconcilable positions. With irenic spirit but analytic tenacity, he probes for ways through Milbank’s arguments while pressing on growth points in Girard’s. Cowdell’s proposals involve reframing divine creation in light of salvation history, reimagining divine participation by thinking Christ and evolution together, and developing a semiotic approach to mimetic theory that delivers ontological peace hermeneutically. Cowdell shows how Girard’s vision of human transformation through faith in Christ reveals a different world beyond ontological violence while preserving the divine participation that Milbank champions.
Download or read book Ren Girard and the Western Philosophical Tradition volume 1 written by Andreas Wilmes and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2024-07-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume situates René Girard in relation to the Western philosophical tradition. Each chapter engages the French anthropologist in dialogue with a key figure from the history of Western philosophy, from Plato to Kierkegaard. The pivotal question of René Girard and the Western Philosophical Tradition revolves around Girard’s assertion, “Since the attempt to understand religion on the basis of philosophy has failed, we ought to try the reverse method and read philosophy in the light of religion.” Major philosophers influenced Girard and contributed valuable insights into questions of desire, religion, violence, and the sacred. At the same time, he felt that Western philosophy often, if not always, neglected the founding violence that lies at the origin of culture. This is the first collective scholarly effort at situating René Girard in relation to the Western philosophical tradition. Volume 1 features chapters on Plato, Augustine of Hippo, Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Blaise Pascal, Baruch Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Alexis de Tocqueville, Søren Kierkegaard, and René Girard.
Download or read book Why Philosophy written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we really need philosophy? The present collection of jargon-free essays aims at answering the question of why philosophy matters. Each essay considers the central question (Why Philosophy?) from different angles: the unavoidability of doing philosophy, the practical consequences of philosophy, philosophy as a therapy for the whole person, the benefits of philosophy for improving public policy, etc.
Download or read book Myths of Origins written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-05-09 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles in Myths of Origins provide insights into the universality of myths of origins as patterns of literary creation from Antiquity to the present. The essays range from an investigation of the six models of beginnings in Western literature to the workings of modern myths of origins in postcolonial literature and relocate the discussion on myths of origin in a wider context that besides the humanities considers linguistics and the impact of new technologies. The contributing authors to the volume shed light on issues relating to myths of origins by linking this subject to literary creation and adopting a multidisciplinary approach.
Download or read book Solus Jesus written by Emily Swan and published by Front Edge Publishing. This book was released on 2018-07-10 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you read one book this year about the future of Christianity, then choose this book. Five hundred years ago the Protestant Reformation claimed the Bible as the authoritative guide for Christian living (“Sola Scriptura!” Only Scripture!). In this groundbreaking work, Emily Swan and Ken Wilson claim the authority of the church is shifting back to where it should be: in Jesus (Solus Jesus!). As co-founders of Blue Ocean Faith, Swan and Wilson are pioneering what it means to be post-evangelical—post-Protestant, even—in a time when such re-imagining is desperately needed. Solus Jesus not only grapples with the authority question in Christianity, but also provides a massive re-think of traditional atonement theories. Leaning on the work of René Girard, they conclude that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus together reveal a completely good, non-violent God who is on the side of the oppressed and scapegoated of this world. As a work of queer theology, the book is intersectional in its understanding of justice, and invites readers to reconsider our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus. This book is timely, to say the least. For Christians looking for guidance on how to address distressing issues of injustice; for help understanding how they can faithfully follow Jesus and love their neighbors as themselves; and for practices for how to experience the living Jesus and his Spirit of love—Solus Jesus is the book for you. “Born in a cauldron of faith and pain, Solus Jesus: A Theology of Resistance is a highly original, deeply provocative first stab at a post-evangelical, post-‘gay debate’ pastoral theology,” writes David P. Gushee, author of Changing Our Mind and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University. “Drawing from personal experience and those who have long carved out theologies far from power, Swan and Wilson show how Solus Jesus can open a portal to the divine communion that is possible between all people,” writes Deborah Jian Lee, author of Rescuing Jesus: How People of Color, Women and Queer Christians are Reclaiming Evangelicalism. “Ken and Emily’s book is loving and courageous, compelling and convicting, scholarly and personal all at once. … This book held up a mirror to my heart, asking me to forsake my anxious need for certainty, to repent of all the rivalries that cripple me, and to rest again like a child, at the breast of a God in whose fierce and fearless love there is home for us all,” writes the Rev. Susan K. Bock of Grace Episcopal Church in Mount Clemens, Michigan. “Solus Jesus challenges us to see the authoritative Jesus in a fresh light, so that his life, message, death, and rising summon us to live in a new way as individuals and congregations,” writes Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration. “Around the world, tension and conflict are signaling a shift in our socio-political conditions. To remain relevant, Christianity must have a response to this moment. Grounding themselves in their lived experience, Ken and Emily are leaning into the conversation and offering a powerful response to the travails of our time. A must-read for Christians looking to discern where the Spirit is leading us in the 21st Century,” writes Rev. Mariama White-Hammond, AME Church Planter, Boston.
Download or read book Hegel Heidegger and the Quest for the I written by Paolo Diego Bubbio and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-14 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking study explores the philosophical resources provided by Hegel and Heidegger to grasp the nature of the “I” and combines those resources in a theoretical analysis of “I-hood” in its connection with nature and history, experience and myth. The “I” has a fleeting, almost elusive character in the philosophies of Hegel and Heidegger. Yet, both philosophers strive to make sense of what it means to be an “I”. Their respective theories, though seemingly divergent, offer remarkable insights into the nature of the “I” and its relationship to the world. Through meticulous examination, this book explores the parallel journeys of Hegel and Heidegger, tracing their respective paths towards a comprehensive conception of identity beyond the subject/object dichotomy. Moreover, this study goes beyond being an exploration of Hegel’s and Heidegger’s conceptions of the self by actively employing their insights to chart a path towards a novel understanding of “I-hood”. Hegel, Heidegger, and the Quest for the “I” will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Hegel, Heidegger, history of European philosophy, and contemporary theories of subjectivity and personal identity. Offering a fresh perspective on the work of these two seminal thinkers, the book contributes to the ongoing dialogue on the nature of the self and its place in the world.
Download or read book Cinematic TV written by Rashna Wadia Richards and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades after its invention, television was considered by many to be culturally deficient when compared to cinema, as analyses rooted in communication studies and the social sciences tended to focus primarily on television's negative impact on consumers. More recently, however, denigration has largely been replaced by serious critical consideration of what television represents in the post-network era. Once derided as a media wasteland, TV is now praised for its visual density and complexity. In the last two decades, media scholars have often suggested that television has become cinematic. Serial dramas, in particular, are acclaimed for their imitations of cinema's formally innovative and narratively challenging conventions. But what exactly does "cinematic TV" mean? In Cinematic TV, author Rashna Wadia Richards takes up this question comprehensively, arguing that TV dramas quote, copy, and appropriate (primarily) American cinema in multiple ways and toward multiple ends. Constructing an innovative theoretical framework by combining intertextuality and memory studies, Cinematic TV focuses on four modalities of intermedial borrowings: homage, evocation, genre, and parody. Through close readings of such exemplary shows as Stranger Things, Mad Men, Damages, and Dear White People, the book demonstrates how serial dramas reproduce and rework, undermine and idolize, and, in some cases, compete with and outdo cinema.
Download or read book Wanting written by Luke Burgis and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Financial Times Business Book of the Month * Next Big Idea Club Nominee * One of Bloomberg's "52 New Books That Top Business Leaders Are Recommending" * Aleo Review of Books 2022 Book of the Year * A groundbreaking exploration of why we want what we want, and a toolkit for freeing ourselves from chasing unfulfilling desires. Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful—yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies. According to Girard, humans don’t desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic—we imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare’s plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected. Wanting also shows that conflict does not arise because of our differences—it comes from our sameness. Because we learn to want what other people want, we often end up competing for the same things. Ignoring our large similarities, we cling to our perceived differences. Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur, teacher, and student of classical philosophy and theology, Burgis shares tactics that help turn blind wanting into intentional wanting--not by trying to rid ourselves of desire, but by desiring differently. It’s possible to be more in control of the things we want, to achieve more independence from trends and bubbles, and to find more meaning in our work and lives. The future will be shaped by our desires. Wanting shows us how to desire a better one.
Download or read book Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World written by René Girard and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting an original global theory of culture, Girard explores the social function of violence and the mechanism of the social scapegoat. His vision is a challenge to conventional views of literature, anthropology, religion and psychoanalysis. Rene Gerard is the Andrew B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of French Language, Literature and Civilization at Stanford University, USA.
Download or read book Intimate Domain written by Martha J. Reineke and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For René Girard, human life revolves around mimetic desire, which regularly manifests itself in acquisitive rivalry when we find ourselves wanting an object because another wants it also. Noting that mimetic desire is driven by our sense of inadequacy or insufficiency, Girard arrives at a profound insight: our desire is not fundamentally directed toward the other’s object but toward the other’s being. We perceive the other to possess a fullness of being we lack. Mimetic desire devolves into violence when our quest after the being of the other remains unfulfilled. So pervasive is mimetic desire that Girard describes it as an ontological illness. In Intimate Domain, Reineke argues that it is necessary to augment Girard’s mimetic theory if we are to give a full account of the sickness he describes. Attending to familial dynamics Girard has overlooked and reclaiming aspects of his early theorizing on sensory experience, Reineke utilizes psychoanalytic theory to place Girard’s mimetic theory on firmer ground. Drawing on three exemplary narratives—Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, Sophocles’s Antigone, and Julia Kristeva’s The Old Man and the Wolves—the author explores familial relationships. Together, these narratives demonstrate that a corporeal hermeneutics founded in psychoanalytic theory can usefully augment Girard’s insights, thereby ensuring that mimetic theory remains a definitive resource for all who seek to understand humanity’s ontological illness and identify a potential cure.
Download or read book Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology written by R. Jon McGee and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2013-08-28 with total page 1053 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Social and cultural anthropology and archaeology are rich subjects with deep connections in the social and physical sciences. Over the past 150 years, the subject matter and different theoretical perspectives have expanded so greatly that no single individual can command all of it. Consequently, both advanced students and professionals may be confronted with theoretical positions and names of theorists with whom they are only partially familiar, if they have heard of them at all. Students, in particular, are likely to turn to the web to find quick background information on theorists and theories. However, most web-based information is inaccurate and/or lacks depth. Students and professionals need a source to provide a quick overview of a particular theory and theorist with just the basics—the "who, what, where, how, and why," if you will. In response, SAGE Reference plans to publish the two-volume Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology: An Encyclopedia. Features & Benefits: Two volumes containing approximately 335 signed entries provide users with the most authoritative and thorough reference resource available on anthropology theory, both in terms of breadth and depth of coverage. To ease navigation between and among related entries, a Reader's Guide groups entries thematically and each entry is followed by Cross-References. In the electronic version, the Reader's Guide combines with the Cross-References and a detailed Index to provide robust search-and-browse capabilities. An appendix with a Chronology of Anthropology Theory allows students to easily chart directions and trends in thought and theory from early times to the present. Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of each entry and a Master Bibliography at the end guide readers to sources for more detailed research and discussion.
Download or read book The Paradox of Hope written by Justin D. Klassen and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary public discourse, the supposedly comprehensive explanatory power of reason is used to justify a thoroughgoing suspicion of religion. In recent decades, the critiques of postmodernism have generated a different kind of suspicion by construing history as a process that is too arbitrary to be narrated--either by modern reason or by religion. In light of these developments, a question arises regarding the appropriate theological response to such forms of suspicion, both of which threaten not just religion but our sense of human agency as such. Does the retrieval of a meaningful religious subjectivity in a climate of suspicion demand a renewed emphasis upon theology's rhetorical persuasiveness, as Radical Orthodoxy has recently proposed? Or does identifying the believing subject with theology's "grammar" fail to attend to some of the challenges posed by such suspicion? The Paradox of Hope answers these questions in an original and provocative way by clarifying the complex relationship between post-secular theology and the work of Soren Kierkegaard. Ultimately, Klassen argues that Kierkegaard's influence is crucial, albeit obscured, in current post-secular theological imperatives, and that the Dane's eschewal of persuasion in favor of hope's inexplicable resolve provides a more adequate response to the nihilism of contemporary suspicion than do the rhetorical proposals currently on offer. In light of this argument, The Paradox of Hope also rehabilitates some of the voices typically excluded by contemporary theology's rhetoric, including those of Heidegger, Derrida, and Levinas.
Download or read book Battling to the End written by René Girard and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2009-12-15 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
