Wolfgang Palaver

A systematic introduction into the mimetic theory of the French-American literary theorist and philosophical anthropologist René Girard, this essential text explains its three main pillars (mimetic desire, the scapegoat mechanism, and the Biblical “difference”) with the help of examples from literature and philosophy. This book also offers an overview of René Girard’s life and work, showing how much mimetic theory results from existential and spiritual insights into one’s own mimetic entanglements. Furthermore it examines the broader implications of Girard’s theories, from the mimetic aspect of sovereignty and wars to the relationship between the scapegoat mechanism and the question of capital punishment. Mimetic theory is placed within the context of current cultural and political debates like the relationship between religion and modernity, terrorism, the death penalty, and gender issues. Drawing textual examples from European literature (Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kleist, Stendhal, Storm, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Proust) and philosophy (Plato, Camus, Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, Vattimo), Palaver uses mimetic theory to explore the themes they present. A highly accessible book, this text is complemented by bibliographical references to Girard’s widespread work and secondary literature on mimetic theory and its applications, comprising a valuable bibliographical archive that provides the reader with an overview of the development and discussion of mimetic theory until the present day.

René Girard's Mimetic Theory

James Alison

The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion draws on the expertise of leading scholars and thinkers to explore the violent origins of culture, the meaning of ritual, and the conjunction of theology and anthropology, as well as secularization, science, and terrorism. Authors assess the contributions of René Girard’s mimetic theory to our understanding of sacrifice, ancient tragedy, and post-modernity, and apply its insights to religious cinema and the global economy. This handbook serves as introduction and guide to a theory of religion and human behavior that has established itself as fertile terrain for scholarly research and intellectual reflection.

The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion

Wie geht Friede? Terroranschläge, Kriege, Aufrüstung – ob Ukraine, Israel/Palästina oder Äthiopien: In vielen Teilen der Welt scheint Frieden in weite Ferne gerückt zu sein. Wolfgang Palaver, Professor für Christliche Gesellschaftslehre, nimmt die Gedanken und spirituellen Quellen von Mahatma Gandhi und Nelson Mandela zur Gewaltfreiheit als Ausgangspunkt seiner friedensethischen Überlegungen. Seine Erkenntnisse verbindet der Sozialethiker mit den Aussagen bekannter Friedensdenker wie Václav Havel, Dietrich Bonhoeffer oder Papst Franziskus. Nicht blinder Pazifismus ist demnach gefragt, sondern verantwortetes und spirituell verwurzeltes Handeln im Sinne der Gerechtigkeit. Das Buch lädt Leser und Leserinnen ein, sich eine fundierte Meinung zu friedensethischen Themen zu bilden und sie in das eigene Umfeld zu tragen.

In Zeiten des Krieges von Gandhi und Mandela lernen. Eine christliche Friedensethik

Für den Frieden kämpfen

Petra Steinmair-Pösel

Passions play an important role in economy, politics and the media. Recent discussions of the economy, for instance, do no longer hesitate to stress the importance of a passion like envy functioning as a driving force in this field. Also the world of advertising illustrates the impor- tance of passions in the economy. Modern forms of politics, on the contrary, claimed to be detached from passions and to rely solely on rationality. Recent developments since the end of the cold war, however, have clearly challenged this self-understanding of modern politics. Not even politics can escape the world of passions. In our days, both the economy and politics depend on the media, another example of a highly passionate realm. Passions also have an important religious dimension. One of the central questions of any great religion is how to deal with passions. This book offers an interdisciplinary approach to the phenomenon of passions in the fields of economy, politics, and the media, drawing on Re

In Discussion with Christian Theology

Passions in Economy, Politics, and the Media

im Kontext kulturtheoretischer und gesellschaftspolitischer Fragen

René Girards mimetische Theorie

Andreas Exenberger

Kristina Stöckl

Band 1 versammelt Analysen und Kontroversen zum Thema Religion und Gewalt in Hinblick auf die Herausforderungen, die durch technologische Entwicklungen, wirtschaftliche Globalisierung und zivilisatorischen Wandel entstehen. Mit Beiträgen von Aleida Assmann, Jörg Becker, Mariano Delgado, Wolfgang Dietrich, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Andreas Exenberger, Wilhelm Guggenberger, Simon Hartmann, Hartmann Hinterhuber, Rüdiger Lohlker, Wolfgang Palaver, Robert Rebitsch, Willibald Sandler, Raymund Schwager, Roman Siebenrock, Petra Steinmair-Pösel, Kristina Stöckl und Claudia von Werlhof.

Wolfgang Palaver

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