René Girard is one of those rare French theorists whose influence outside France is much greater than it has been in France. That might be due in part to the fact that he has spent his entire career since 1949 in the USA from where he has generated a series of controversial theories in the fields of literary studies, anthropology and biblical exegesis. While Girard has broken all the taboos of intellectual specialism by ranging widely across several academic disciplines, all his theoretical work has been related to his study of the nature of desire and violence and their origin in the human capacity for imitation (mimesis). Girard argues that while the unity of most cultures is founded or renewed through the legitimized social persecution of a scapegoat, Christianity’s founding…
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Citation: Sudlow, Brian John. "René Girard". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12706, accessed 21 November 2024.]
