The Ideas of Rene Girard: An Anthropology of Religion and Violence

Featuring Sandor Goodhart James Alison Gil Bailie Robert Hamerton-Kelly Paul Dumouchel René Girard was a thinker who fits no category. His ideas fit no academic niche, but they attracted many followers during his long career as a teacher and writer. A large annual conference, “The Colloquium on Violence and Religion,” is devoted entirely to his ideas, as is a journal, Contagion. Those who participate in these conventions believe that Girard’s insights are an intellectual breakthrough. Within the growing circle of his readers and intellectual colleagues, René Girard is regarded as one of those fundamental thinkers who changed the way people look at the world. In this Ideas volume, David Cayley and René Girard explore the whole body of Girard’s work. En route, they touch on literature, anthropology, the Bible, and the way Biblical revelation has shaped the modern world.