Sacred Violence: The Legacy of René Girard

A panel discussion with William Cavanaugh (DePaul University), Jean-Luc Marion (University of Chicago), and James B. Murphy (Dartmouth College) at the University of Chicago on April 7, 2016.
René Girard (1923-2015) has been described as the Darwin of the human sciences for his theories of the origin of violence and religion and the imitative character of human behavior (mimesis). His books, among them Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, span the fields of Literary Criticism, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Biblical Hermeneutics and Theology. While his theories have attracted many devoted disciples, Girard has also sparked controversy for his sweeping general claims, tendentious readings of canonical works, and his explicitly Christian perspective. This panel discussion will consider the significance of Girard’s thought for the human sciences.
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