The Colloquium on Violence and Religion is an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars that takes its inspiration from the work of Ren Girard. The Colloquium will be concerned with questions of both research and application. Deconstruction and the Mimetic Theory. Perhaps the central religion of the Twentieth Century, superseding the dominant religions of the past, has been Nationalism. Political scientists and historians speak of war in terms of conquest, territorial expansion, victory, strategy, etc.
Evolutionary psychologists write about male aggression and survival of the fittest.
War discourse in the popular mind revolves around terms such as violence, masculinity and heroism. I wish to draw attention to a neglected dimension, namely the mutilation and destruction of the male body. I compare the Aztec conception of war with the Western idea. The fundamental difference between the two is that the Aztecs explicitly linked battle to the sacrificial death of the warrior. Such august homage was never before offered as this, the homage of millions of lives given gladly for love of country.