COV&R-Bulletin No. 3 (Sept. 1992)

Letter from the Editor

We are always interested to improve our Bulletin. Thanks to suggestions from Judith Arias, we decided to do the bibliography in an American style. We hope that it is now clearer and more helpful.

In this issue of the Bulletin, you will find abstracts of the papers given at our annual meeting at Stanford University. We invite you to contact the authors for a copy of their papers or for further discussion. The executive secretary of COV&R or the editorial office of the Bulletin will provide you with addresses.

Let me raise three administrative matters:

(1) We ask you to send us your contributions to the Bulletin on a diskette or by E-mail. It greatly simplifies the publication of the Bulletin.

(2) Membership renewal is due in early 1993. Subscriptions to the Bulletin should also be renewed at this time. Please send dues to our address in Sonoma, Ca. or to our European address.

(3) Please take notice that our COV&R-address in Innsbruck and my own address have changed. I am going back to Austria at the end of September. Therefore I want to say thanks to my friends and colleagues in the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University, especially to Byron Bland and Bob Hamerton-Kelly for their help in publishing the last two issues of the Bulletin.

Wolfgang Palaver

President's Report

The report from Jim Williams shows that the activities of our Colloquium are proceeding well. The number of members is, to be sure, increasing slowly, perhaps more slowly than some of us had hoped. I myself, however, consider a gradual development to be advantageous, since we can then deal more easily with the crises that inevitably arise during the growth of any organization. I was positively impressed by the 1992 Symposium in Stanford. That Symposium showed that our Colloquium possesses the ability to handle pronouncedly different points of view in a constructive manner. I am also especially pleased with the high degree of collaboration for which I would like to extend my thanks to all. I would like to mention first and foremost the untiring commitment of our secretary Jim Williams. The following also deserve our thanks: Kaeti and Gil Bailie for their work as treasurer and for their significant administrative assistance; Rosemary and Bob Hamerton-Kelly for organizing the spirituality workshop as well as for their fundraising initiatives; and Roel Kaptein for his compelling leadership of the workshop. Wolfgang Palaver serves as the "living link" between Innsbruck and Stanford. Thanks to him, our Bulletin is able to come out at regular intervals. The mimetic theory shows how easily rivalries can arise between human beings. For this reason I am especially pleased that we have been spared thus far such rivalries, and I hope that our situation will remain so for the future. The strong personal presence of René doubtless will be of great benefit in this regard. For this reason I am also pleased with the fact that the next Symposium will be planned and organized by two other members of our Colloquium, Cesáreo Bandera and Judith Arias.

The books and articles already published by members of our Colloquium are signs of their intensive intellectual engagement. Perhaps these research efforts can in the future be still better coordinated. For this reason I would like to remind everyone of the agreement made at the last session of the Advisory Board that our Center for Documentation in Innsbruck be informed of more involved research projects. It is my dream that a major internationally coordinated research project could one day become a reality.

Once again my heartfelt thanks to one and all.

Raymund Schwager (University of Innsbruck)

Executive Secretary's Report: Conference at Stanford University 1992

There were 37 registered participants who came to discuss "Ethnocentrism and the Study of Violence." Tobin Siebers did a fine job of keynoting on the theme. His paper was in the form of comment on the debate between Geertz and Rorty concerning the tension between "truth" (seeking to understand the other) and "solidarity" (the importance of affirming concrete social and community bonds) in the work of anthropology, the discipline engendered by ethical reflection (Rousseau). All the papers were good, and we had an intense debate over Robert Hamerton-Kelly's book, Sacred Violence, a discussion that seemed to be cathartic and finally (I hope) conciliatory. We owe special thanks to Vern Redekop, who intervened at a crucial moment when the discussion had seemed to reach an impasse and got us back into a dialogical mode.

There was also a preconference workshop at the First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto that was led by Roel Kaptein. The topic of the workshop was "Human Desire, Healing, and the Holy Spirit." About 20 COV&R members plus 30-40 others from the host church and the Stanford community came to become engaged with Roel and his inimitable style. The Advisory Board agreed that some such praxis oriented event would be desirable to continue offering in conjunction with the annual meetings.

As noted in the letter to members last summer, a number of decisions and recommendations were made at the 1992 meeting:

(1) Regarding the relation of the Bulletin to membership, the Advisory Board has decided to permit subscription to the Bulletin without membership for $15 per year.

(2) Another Advisory Board decision: for future annual meetings the registration fee for members will be lower than for nonmembers.

(3) The Advisory Board decided to recommend five changes in the constitution, which will be presented for approval at the next annual meeting. They are:

a. In Article I, add at the end of the first sentence"at Stanford." This is purely for fund raising purposes. In most of our communications we would still refer to the society as the Colloquium on Violence and Religion or COV&R, but for fund raising efforts it was thought that the institutional identification would be attractive to potential supporters. Apropos of the use of the Stanford name in this way, it does not require the university's legal permission.

b. In Article III, the addition of the office of treasurer. Gil Bailie, already on the Board, has agreed to accept this position, which will be on a pro tem basis until the amendments are approved.

c. In Article IV, eleven elected members in addition to the officers rather than eight as present. (The present Board, which began as a pro tem advisory group, will continue two more years in order to synchronize the election of Board members, which is to occur in 1994.)

d. In Article V, it is recommended that we drop the Nominating Committee as too cumbersome for a small society. We can always add this committee later if it appears appropriate for democratic processes. This article would thus read "Standing Committees may be formed and distinguished from the Advisory Board as deemed necessary by the Board."

e. In Article VIII, deletion of last clause requiring three months prior notification for amendment. Again, this was thought to be too cumbersome for a small society at our present stage.

Finally, a word of gratitude to all of you who have contributed to COV&R in various ways. In his president's report in this issue Raymund Schwager singles out some of us for special thanks, but I think we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge his contribution to our work and collegiality. He has been very important to us not only as an esteemed theologian but also in his judicious leadership, personal warmth, and spiritual presence.

James G. Williams (Syracuse University)

COV&R: A Historical Note

Those not familiar with how COV&R began may be interested in a bit of information on its genesis. COV&R has its historical roots in the Bible, Narrative, and American Culture Seminar (BINAC), which was one of the seminars of the Westar Institute. Robert Funk founded Westar and has directed it since its inception in 1985. The most well known of the Westar seminars was the Jesus Seminar, which became notorious for its work on a color-coded edition of the Gospels that distinguishes what Jesus said, or what is purportedly characteristic of what he actually taught, from additions made in the subsequent tradition.

BINAC was started in the Fall of 1986 when Westar met at the University of Notre Dame. Like all Westar seminars, it met twice yearly. Beginning in 1988 the Spring meeting of all seminars took place in Sonoma, California, the new main office of Westar and its adjunct enterprise, Polebridge Press. The goal of BINAC was to regard American culture from the standpoint of biblical narratives and simultaneously to develop a better hermeneutic out of and for the American context. I proposed to the chairperson that we study the work of René Girard; this proposal was heartily supported by Robert Hamerton-Kelly. The chair, Charles Mabee, accepted this recommendation and most of the other participants agreed to it. Thus began a process that lasted four years. We were fortunate that in 1988, 1989, and 1990 Girard himself spent a day with BINAC at its Spring meetings in Sonoma. Hamerton-Kelly, long a friend and disciple of Girard at Stanford University, initially did more than anyone to bring Girard and BINAC together.

Meanwhile, Funk became very dissatisfied with BINAC. One of the problems was that BINAC did not take up and complete the publication projects demanded by Funk quickly enough to suit him. (It should be noted, however, that at this writing Curing Violence, edited by Theophus Smith and Mark Wallace, with contributions from many BINAC members, is definitely scheduled for publication by Polebridge.) More deeply, however, Funk was displeased with our emphasis on Girard's mimetic model. He has directed Westar in an attack on traditional Christianity and especially on fundamentalism and BINAC did not fit his designs.

So it was clear by the end of 1989 that Funk would eventually (perhaps soon) dissolve BINAC. (In the event, BINAC was eliminated after the meeting in March, 1990.) It was then, toward the end of 1989, that Charles Mabee and I had a couple of long telephone conversations. As it happened, I would be on academic leave to study with Girard at Stanford from January to April 1990. We decided to make a proposal to Girard: to hold a meeting at Stanford of some colleagues who were interested in his work. Since there would be at least one more meeting of BINAC the following March in Sonoma, we could plan a one day session for the day prior to the Sonoma meeting of BINAC. In this fashion BINAC colleagues could easily attend the meeting at Stanford and then travel the sixty miles to Sonoma. The object of the session would be not only to discuss Girard's work with Girard himself present but to propose the launching of a new collaborative group. Girard said yes, the session took place on March 1, 1990, and the Colloquium on Violence and Religion had its beginning.

That session featured a discussion of some of the chapters of Bruce Chilton's manuscript, The Temple of Jesus (Penn State Press forthcoming in September 1992), a passionate response by Girard, and fiery polemics from Hamerton-Kelly. In addition, we took part of the afternoon to get COV&R started. Among those present were the following who are currently members of COV&R: Ed McMahon, Mark Wallace, Diana Culbertson, Bob Hamerton-Kelly, Stefano Cocchetti, Hans Jensen, Byron Bland, Mark Anspach, Richard Keady, René Girard (honorary), Charles Ozeck, Jim Williams, Gil Bailie, Charles Mabee, and Bruce Chilton. If you are wondering about this order of names, I've taken them from the back of the photograph shot before the meeting began.

That first meeting in March of 1990 was of course only a beginning. Of the 25 persons who attended it, 13 came to the meeting last May at Stanford. For the 1991 meeting there were 39 registered participants, plus another 20 or so who were present for Girard's opening address.

It has taken a while to determine what we are able to handle. We definitely "bit off too much" in the beginning, notably a rather precipitous announcement of a journal. The journal project has been postponed until our membership grows to 200-300. But the main thing is that we've made a start, a good start. As of July 1, 1992 we had about 70 members listed in North America and Europe. We are a truly interdisciplinary academic society, with important contributions from those involved interdisciplinarily in literature, psychology, and anthropology as well as in religious studies. We have a bulletin (The Bulletin of COV&R) to be published twice yearly by our Austrian colleagues. We have now a regular practice of two meetings a year: a shorter one in conjunction with the American Academy of Religion/Society of Biblical Literature and our main conference in the Spring. We are particularly fortunate to have the support of the Theological Faculty of the University of Innsbruck due to the leadership of Raymund Schwager and Wolfgang Palaver. As mentioned, the Bulletin is published there, and the Innsbruck colleagues worked out an arrangement with Kulturverlag that reduces the costs.

For other events since the beginnings in 1990, the first three issues of the Bulletin should give the reader an idea of what has transpired. I should mention one of these events, though it was not a conference of COV&R: the conference on "Dramatische Erlösungslehre" (im Lichte der Theorie Girards) at the University of Innsbruck September 25-28, 1991. There were a number of COV&R people there. It was exciting to be together for four days of discussion, fellowship, and informative contact with colleagues in Europe.

To conclude, BINAC was interred by Westar but the victim was raised from the dead in the form of COV&R. So from BINAC to COV&R--a cutting-edge, poststructuralist society, deconstructing even the deconstructors (see my review of McKenna's book in The Bulletin of COV&R, no. 2 [March 1992], p. 10). Surely a group for the 21st century!

James G. Williams

Bibliography of Literature on the Mimetic Theory

1) Books concerning the entire work of René Girard

Janssen, P.E.L. Geweld als Oorsprong van de Samenleving: Over de cultuurtheorie von René Girard. Amsterdam: P.E.L. Janssen/Vrije Universiteit, 1991.

Lascaris, André and Hans Weigand, eds. Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Livingston, Paisley. Models of Desire: René Girard and the Psychology of Mimesis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

McKenna, Andrew J. Violence and Difference: Girard, Derrida, and Deconstruction. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

2) Articles concerning the entire work of René Girard

Altena, Patrick. "Het gelaat van de rivaal: Girards hypothese bezien door een Levinasiaanse bril." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 33-42. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Arnold, David S. "Hidden Since the Foundation of the World: Girard, Turner, and Two Mythic Readings." In The Daemonic Imagination, ed. R. Detweiler, 137-148. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990.

Bann, Stephen. "René Girard and the Revisionist View of Narcissism." Comparative Criticism: A Yearbook 12 (1990): 89-104.

Baudler, Georg. "Christliche Gotteserfahrung und das Sakrale: Der Aufweis positiver Gotteserfahrung in der Religions- und Menschheits geschichte als (religionspädagogisch und pastoral) notwendige Ergänzung zu einer Neuinterpretation christlichen Glaubens im Lichte der Theorie René Girards." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 275-281. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Benzoni, Giovanni. "René Girard, La violenza legittima e il paradosso della riconciliazione." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 13-15.

Bernard-Weil, Elie. "Théologie et systémique." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 93-109. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Boyer, Alain. "Sacrifice et réfutation." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 569-589. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Bremondy, Francois. "René Girard: examen dialectique." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 527-548. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Burrell, David B. "René Girard: Violence and Sacrifice." Cross Currents 38/4 (1988/89): 443-447.

Butler, Terrel M. "Girard et la modernité: le bouc émissaire dans l'esthétique de Mondrian." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 513-526. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Cassano, Franco. "Del Fascino della coerenza." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 20f.

Cerf, Eve. "Mythe et devenir social." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 485-498. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

D'Iribarne, Philippe. "René Girard et l'amour évangélique." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 227-234. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Delarge, Frédéric. "Statut de l'Evangile dans l'oeuvre de René Girard." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 221-226. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Descombes, Vincent. "La Jungle ou le champ clos." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 549-557. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Douwes, Arnold. "Girard en de Diakonia." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 75-88. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Egmond, Aad van. "Het einde van de religie: René Girard vergeken met Dietrich Bonhoeffer en Karl Barth." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 43-55. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Elias, Michael. "De metafoor van de zondebok." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 21-32. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Gans, Eric. "Désir, représentation, culture." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 395-404. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Garritano, Francesco. "Toward a Critique of Girard's Model of Reading." Differentia no. 5 (Spring 1991): 39-49.

Grabowski, M. "René Girard - antropolog czy profeta?" W drodze 12/208 (1990): 97-104.

Granstedt, Ingmar. "L'Epilogue violent de la mimésis techno-économique." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 275-280. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Heidendal, Guido. "René Girard en de natuurwetenschappen. In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 13-20. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Johnsen, William A. "Myth, Ritual, and Literature after Girard." In Literary Theory's Future(s), ed. Joseph Natoli, 116-148. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.

Kaptein, Roel. "De doorwerking van de inzichten van Girard: Lijst van de voornaamste werken van René Girard." Schrift 97 (1985): 21-30.

Kearney, Richard. "Le Mythe chez Girard. Un nouveau bouc émissaire?" In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 35-49. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Klarer, Mario. "Leavitt, David 'Territory', Girard, René Homoerotic Trigonometry and Kristeva, Julia Semiotic-Chora." Studies in Short Fiction 28/1 (1991): 63-76.

Kloczowski, J.A. "Przemoc, sacrum. Ewangelia. O teorii religii Rene Girarda. W drodze 4/140 (1985): 9-17.

Lantz, Pierre. "Monnaie archaique, monnaie moderne." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 159-181. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Lascaris, André. "De medemens als model en obstakel: De hypothese van René Girard en haar betekenis voor de theologie. Tijdschrift voor Theologie 24 (1984): 115-137.

Lascaris, André. "Die visie van René Girard op de bijbel en geweld." Schrift 97 (1985): 3-9.

Lascaris, André. "Een dienstknecht van de Heer moet niet twisten (2 Tim. 2,24)." Schrift 97 (1985): 31-38.

Lascaris, André and Hans Weigand. "Nawoord: In discussie over René Girard." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 179-183. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Leopold, Martin. "René Girard en het oedipuscomplex." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 89-97. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Livet, Pierre. "Un Modèle de l'imprédictible." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 558-568. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Livingston, Paisley. "Girard and the Origin of Culture." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 91-110. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

McKenna, Andrew J. "Postmodernism: It's Future Perfect." In Postmodernism and Continental Philosophy, ed. Hugh J. Silverman, 228-242. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

McKenna, Andrew J. "Supplement to Apocalypse: Girard and Derrida." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 45-76. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Menapace, Lidia. "Sula tracce della violenza sacra." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 18.

Morin, Lucien. "Le Désir mimétique chez l'enfant: René Girard et Jean Piaget." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 299-317. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Munk, Linda. "The Design of Violence." Literature and Theology 4 (November 1990): 251-262.

Nielsen, Houth and Claus Thomas. "Girard, Hamlet og Atombomben." Vagand 3/35 (1991): 59-61.

North, Robert. "Lohfinks Empfehlung für Girard." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 85-94. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Orsini, Christine. "Girard et Platon." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 323-329. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Pachet, Pierre. "René Girard et la diversité des pensées." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 385-394. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Radkowski, Georges-Hubert de. "La Régne du signe: richesse et rivalité mimétique." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 267-274. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Resta, Eligio. "Del potere sovrano." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 22f.

Roustang, Francois. "L'Esquive de la rivalité." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 349-358. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Routeau, Luc. "Le Bouz-kaskhi." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 499-512. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Scubla, Lucien. "Théorie du sacrifice et théorie désir chez René Girard." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 359-374. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Seibel, Claude. "Désir mimétique et échec scolaire." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 287-298. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Semelin, Jacques. "La Riconciliazione impossibile." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 24.

Siebers, Tobin. "Nietzsche et nous." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 330-340. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Spariosu, Mihai. "Mimesis in Contemporary French Theory." In The Literary and Philosophical Debate, ed. M. Spariosu, 79-101. Mimesis in Contemporary Theory vol. 1. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1984.

Spiegel, Egon. "Gründungsmord oder Wiederherstellungsmord? Sozio-theologische Anmerkungen zum Stellenwert des Opfers bei René Girard." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 283-306. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Tijmes, Pieter. "De cultuurfilosofie van René Girard." De Uil van Minerva 3/1 (1986): 47-58.

Tijmes, Pieter and Reginald Luijf. "Modern Immaterialism." In Research in Philosophy and Technology, Vol. 12, 271-284. Greenwich, London: JAI Press Inc., 1992.

Tijmes, Pieter and Reginald Luijf. "Het gewicht van de wereld." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 136-153. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Waldschütz, Erwin. "Kritische Õberlegungen zum Verständnis der Mimesis." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 307-316. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Weigand, Hans. "Inleiding: Het begrip mimese." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 9-12. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

3) Interviews with René Girard

Benzoni, Giovanni. "Intervista a René Girard: Il Pacifismo tragico." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 16-17.

Bertonneau, Thomas F. "The Logic of the Undecidable: An Interview with René Girard." Paroles Gelées 5 (1987): 1-24.

Jaccard, Roland. "Une Théologie rationelle." 24 heures, 28 May 28 1985, 51.

Lagarde, Francois. "René Girard, l'apocalypse aujourd'hui." Art Press International (June 1985): 30-39.

Lagarde, Francois. "René Girard: littérature et religion mèlées." Constructions (1986): 103-125.

Leclerc, Gérard. "La civilisation devient pour elle-méme la menace absolue." Le Quotidien de Paris, 10 April 1985, 16-17.

Maussion, Christian de. "Simone Weil vue par René Girard." Cahiers Simone Weil 11/3 (1988): 201-213.

Maussion, Christian de. "Entretien avec René Girard. Simone Weil: une femme pour la France." Art Politique et Littéraire 1 (November/December 1987): 12.

Ponthieu, Gérard. "L'auto-organisation du physique au politique." Création et désordre (1987): 13-52.

Renouvin, Bertrand et al. "Les malheurs de Job: un mythe biblique enfin rendu clair." Royaliste 426 (May 1985): 426-427.

Seawell, Mary Ann. "Comparative Literature: Storming the Barricades Between Academic Fields." Stanford Observer (November 1986): 13.

Suffert, Georges. "Georges Suffert fait le point avec René Girard: Job, bouc émissaire." Le Point no. 660, 13 May 1985, 72-78.

Tortonese, Paolo. "Ma sul capro espiatorio si scaricava la violenza." Corriere Della Sera, 18 September 1988, 3.

4) Reviews about single works of René Girard

Adams, Robert M. "Fatal Triangles." Review of A Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare, by Renè Girard. In: The New York Review of Books 39/13 (July 16, 1992): 51f.

Balaguer, Menene Gras. "Contra el nihilismo contemporáneo." La Vanguardia, 7 June 1984, 43.

Chédin, Renate. "Am Rand der Katastrophe." Evangelische Kommentare 17/12 (1984): 707.

Hoerschelmann, Paul Gerhard. "Die Freunde sind Feinde. Mimetik der Gewalt: Girards 'Hiob'." Review of Hiob, by René Girard. In lutherische monatshefte 31 (1992): 23-27.

Kendrick, Walter. Review of Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel. In Religion and Literature 22 (Spring 1990): 95-99.

Kendrick, Walter. Review of Job, by René Girard. In Religion and Literature 22 (Spring 1990): 95-99.

Lohmann, Hans-Martin. "Sündenböcke werden gebraucht." Review of Das Heilige und die Gewalt, by René Girard. In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 November 1988, Literaturbeilage, p. 11.

Peterson, Thomas V. Review of Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, by René Girard. In Journal of American Academy of Religion 57 (Fall 1989): 640-642.

Williams, James G. Review of The Scapegoat, by René Girard. In Sociological Analysis 49 (Winter 1989): 451-453.

5) Books with references to René Girard

Calasso, Roberto. La Rovina di Kasch. Milano: Adelphi Edizioni, 1983.

Devebec Henning, Sylvie. Genet's Ritual Play. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1981.

Graziano, Frank. Divine Violence: Spectacle, Psychosexuality, & Radical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty War". Boulder, San Francisco, Oxford: Westview Press, 1992.

Gudorf, Christine E. Victimization: Examining Christian Complicity. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992.

Häring, Bernhard. The Healing Power of Peace and Nonviolence. Middlegreen: St. Paul Publications, 1986.

Niewiadomski, Józef and Wolfgang Palaver, eds. Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion. Innsbrucker theologische Studien 38. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Shapiro, Michael J. Reading the Postmodern Polity: Political Theory as Textual Practice. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1992.

Siebers, Tobin. The Ethics of Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Tanner, Tony. Adultery in the Novel. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.

Varela, Francisco J. and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, eds. Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 130. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

6) Articles with references to René Girard

Arens, Edmund. "Dramatische Erlösungslehre aus der Perspektive einer theologischen Handlungstheorie." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 165-177. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Baldridge, Wilson. "Le Langage de la separation chez Louise Labe." Etudes Litteraires 20/2 (1987): 61-76.

De Benedetti, Riccardo. "Gli stereotipi della persecuzione." Aut Aut no. 203 (1984): 102-112.

Delgado, Mariano. "'Bin ich der Hüter meines Bruders?' - Erlösung in indianischer Perspektive angesichts des Dramas der Conquista. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Gründungsmordmythos bei den Ketschua vor und nach der Ankunft des Christentums." In Dramati sche Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 251-272. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Dumouchel, Paul. "A Morphogenetic Hypothesis on the Closure of Post-Structuralism." In: Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 77-90. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Dupuy, Jean-Pierre. "Fragments pour une histoire intellectuelle du liberalisme." In Alphonse Juilland, D'une passion L'autre, ed. B. Cazelles and R. Girard, 205-238. Stanford French and Italian Studies 53. Stanford: Anma Libri, 1987.

Dupuy, Jean-Pierre and Francisco J. Varela, "Understanding Origins: An Introduction." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. by F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 1-25. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Fiedler, Peter. "Jesus - kein Sündenbock." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 19-36. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Florio, Giuseppe. "Gesù, volto svelato di Dio." Mosaico di pace (March 1991): 19.

Fourny, Diane. "Rousseau's Civil Religion Reconsidered." The French Review 60/4 (1987): 485-496.

Golsan, Richard J. "Introduction to Special Issue of Helios on 'René Girard and Western Literature'." Helios 17/1 (1990): 5f.

Goux, Jean-Joseph. "Primitive Money, Modern Money." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 145-159. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Hamilton, James F. "Pagan Ritual and Human Sacrifice in Mérimée's Mateo Falcone." The French Review 55/1 (October 1981): 52-59.

Jensen, Hans J.L. "The Fall of the King." Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament no. 1 (1991): 121-147.

Johnsen, William A. "Elementary English." The Centennial Review 34/4 (1990): 457-483.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. "Editor's Introduction: Is Symbolic Violence Related to Real Violence?" Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 1-8.

Klarer, Mario. "Homoerotische 'Trigonometrie': Zu David Leavitts Territory (Revieransprüche)." Forum Homosexualität und Literatur 7 (1989): 51-69.

Knauer, Peter. "Rivalität und Nächstenliebe." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 201-212. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Koch, Klaus. "Der 'Märtyrertod' als Sühne in der aramäischen Fassung des Asarja-Gebetes Dan 3,38-40. In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 119-134. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Lascaris, André. "Die Einmaligkeit Jesu." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 213-226. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

McCreary, Charles R. "L'Echange et le desir: Une Analyse de quatre pieces de Racine." Dissertation Abstracts International 47/8 (1987): 3062A.

Metteer, Michael. "Kafka and an Opposition to Philosophy." Journal of the Kafka Society of America 9/1-2 (1985): 107-114.

Nemoianu, Virgil. "Coriolanus, or The Secondary as Hero." In Alphonse Juilland, D'une passion L'autre, ed. B. Cazelles and R. Girard, 63-83. Stanford French and Italian Studies 53. Stanford: Anma Libri, 1987.

Niewiadomski, Józef. "Hoffnung im Gericht. Soteriologische Impulse für eine dogmatische Eschatologie." Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 114 (1992): 113-126.

Orléan, André. "The Origin of Money." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 113-143. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Parlej, Piotr. "Pitfalls of Dialogicality." Constructions (1990): 46-64.

Pattison, George. "Violence, Kingship and Cultus." The Expository Times 102 (1991): 135-140.

Pelckmans, Paul. "La Folie et sa difference dans Jean-François les bas-bleus." Orbis Litterarum 41/2 (1986): 119-138.

Pesch, Otto Hermann. "Erlösung durch stellvertretende Sühne - oder Erlösung durch das Wort: Thesen und einige Kurzkommentare." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 147-156. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Rapoport, David C. "Some General Observations on Religion and Violence." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 118-140.

Reuter, Hans-Richard. "Stellvertretung: Erwägungen zu einer dogmatischen Kategorie im Gespräch mit René Girard und Raymund Schwager." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 179-199. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Schwager, Raymund. "Hörer des Wortes. Eine empirische Anthropologie für die Theologie? (Karl Rahner - Alfred Tomatis - René Girard)." Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 114 (1992): 1-23.

Sesboüé, Bernard. "Erzählung von der Erlösung: Vorschläge einer narrativen Soteriologie." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 243-250. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Tremblay, Victor-Laurent. "Entre le mythe et l'histoire: L'Oscillation du romanesque." Canadian Modern Language Review/La Revvue Canadienne des Langues Vivantes 46/1 (1989): 204-213.

Verweyen, Hansjürgen. "Offene Fragen im Sühnebegriff auf dem Hintergrund der Auseinandersetzung Raymund Schwagers mit Hans Urs von Balthasar." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 137-146. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Waldschütz, Erwin. "Menschsein und Friede: Ein Versuch, philosophisch über den Frieden zu reden." In Gedanken des Friedens, ed. Peter Trummer, 7-37. Grazer theologische Studien 7. Graz 1982.

Westphal, Merold. Review of Philosophers of Consciousness, by Eugene Webb. In Theological Studies 51 (March 1990): 150f.

7) Books applying the mimetic theory

Andrist, Debra D. Deceit Plus Desire Equals Violence: A Girardian Study of the Spanish "comedia". American University Studies II: Romance Languages and Literature 93. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1989.

Baudler, Georg. God and Violence: The Christian Experience of God in Dialogue with Myths and Other Religions. Translated from the German by Fabian C. Lochner. Springfield: Templegate Publishers, 1992.

Girard, René. A Theater of Envy: William Shakespeare. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Kufulu Mandunu, Joseph. Das "Kindoki" im Licht der Sündenbocktheologie: Versuch einer christlichen Bewältigung des Hexenglaubens in Schwarz-Afrika. Innsbruck 1991.

Simonse, Simon. Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in the Southeastern Sudan. Studies in Human Society V. Leiden, New York: E. J. Brill, 1992.

8) Articles applying the mimetic theory

Anspach, Mark R. "Violence Against Violence: Islam in Comparative Context." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 9-29.

Bandera, Cesáreo. "From Virgil to Cervantes: Literature Desacralized." Helios 17/1 (1990): 89-108.

Bougnoux, Daniel. "Girardisme et litérature: une lecture de La Mise à mort d'Aragon." In Violence et vérité: colloque de Cérisy autor de René Girard, ed. P. Dumouchel, 459-467. Paris: Grasset, 1985.

Delvaux, Pierre-Paul. "Monsieur Ouine, des profondeurs de l'angoisse a l'esperance." Les Lettres Romanes 42/4 (1988): 433-441.

Delvaux, Pierre-Paul. "Esquisse pour une lecture de Monsieur Quine a la lumiere de René Girard." La Revue des Lettres Modernes: Histoire des Idees et des Litteratures 857-864 (1988): 209-228.

Dieckmann, Bernhard. "Judas als Doppelgänger Jesu? Elemente und Probleme der Judastradition." In Dramatische Erlösungs lehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 227-242. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Girard, René. "Dionysus versus the Crucified." MLN 99 (1984): 816-835.

Girard, René. "Origins: A View from the Literature." In Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society, ed. F. J. Varela and J.-P. Dupuy, 27-42. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Girard, René: "Theory and Its Terrors." In The Limits of Theory, ed. Thomas M. Kavanagh, 225-254. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1989.

Glaudes, Pierre. "De la lecture comme double-bind: Le Retournement du theme sacrificiel dans La Femme pauvre de Leon Bloy." Litteratures 17 (Fall 1987): 123-139.

Griffiths, Frederick T. "Murder, Purification, and Cultural Formation in Aeschylus and Apollonius Rhodius." Helios 17/1 (1990): 25-40.

Haas, Wim de. "De meester en zijn leerlingen." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 109-118. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G. "Die 'Menschenmenge' und die Poetik des Sündenbocks im Markusevangelium. In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 49-67. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G. "Violent Epiphany: Nuclear Deterrence and the Sacred." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 59 (1991): 481-509.

Henry, Patrick. "Old and New Mimesis in Cervantes." Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 10/1 (Spring 1990): 79-86.

Jensen, Hans J.L. "Sandemose - det mimetiske begaers taenker." Vagand 3/35 (1991): 63-66.

Juergensmeyer, Mark. "Sacrifice and Cosmic War." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 101-127.

Kaptein, Roel. "Krankheit und Heilung: Ursprung, Hintergründe und Vorbereitung eines Projektes im City-Hospital in Belfast. In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 317-336. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Kaptein, Roel. "Maatschappelijk opbouwerk in Noord-Ierland." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 165-173. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Klindienst Joplin, Patricia. "Ritual Work on Human Flesh: Livy's Lucretia and the Rape of the Body Politic." Helios 17/1 (1990): 51-70.

Koepke, Wulf. "Quest, Illusion, Creativity, Maturity, and Resignation: The Questionable Journey of the Protagonist of the Bildungsroman." Helios 17/1 (1990): 129-144.

Kramer, Martin. "Sacrifice and Fratricide in Shiite Lebanon." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 30-47.

Lascaris, André. "Protestanten en katholieken in Noord-Ierland: Mogelijkheden van een Girardiaanse analyse van een maatschappelijk conflict." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 153-164. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Lascaris, André. "Van de god van het geweld naar de god van de liefde." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 56-74. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Lawrence, Bruce B. "The Islamic Idiom of Violence: A View from Indonesia." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 82-100.

McKenna, Andrew J. "Biblical Structuralism: Testing The Victimary Hypothesis." Helios 17/1 (1990): 71-87.

Neff, D.S. "Two into Three Won't Go: Mimetic Desire and the Dream of Androgyny in Dancing in the Dark." Modern Fiction Studies 34/3 (1988): 387-403.

Norheim, Dag. "Om romantikken og det mimetiske begjaer I litteratauren." Vagand 3/35 (1991): 52-55.

Pucci, Pietro. "The Tragic Pharmakos of the Oedipus Rex." Helios 17/1 (1990): 41-50.

Schoffeleers, Mathieu. "De zieke als zondebok: Gebedsgenezing en politiek in Zuid-Afrika." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 119-135. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Segal, Charles. "Sacrifice and Violence in the Myth of Meleager and Heracles: Homer, Bacchylides, Sophocles." Helios 17/1 (1990): 7-24.

Sivan, Emmanuel. "The Mythologies of Religious Radicalism: Judaism and Islam." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 71-81.

Sprinzak, Ehud. "Violence and Catastrophe in the Theology of Rabbi Meir Kahane: The Ideologization of Mimetic Desire." Terrorism and Political Violence 3/3 (1991): 48-70.

Stern, Ernst. "Het heilige na het geweld." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 174-178. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Strauss, Walter A. "Dostoievsky: The 'Double' Precursor." Helios 17/1 (1990): 121-128.

Tijmes, Pieter. "Onze gemeenschappelijke Toekomst?" De Uil van Minerva 5/3 (1989): 139-153.

Tijmes, Pieter. "De maatschapij in de slip." In Arbeit adelt niet, ed. P. Tijmes, 72-99. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1989.

Tijmes, Pieter. "De karige natuur." In Boven de groene zoden, ed. Petran Kockelkoren, 33-59. Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1990.

Tijmes, Pieter and Reginald Luijf. "Kanttekeningen bij het Brundtlandrapport." In Boven de groene zoden, ed. Petran Kockelkoren, 59-71. Utrecht: Jan van Arkel, 1990.

Tijmes, Pieter. "Het technologisch Universum." In Op zoek naar een ecologische cultuur: Milieufilosofie in de jaren negentig, ed. W. Zweers, 236-243. Utrecht: Ambo/Baarn, 1991.

Tijmes, Pieter. "The Ambivalence of the Technological Universe." In The Technology of Discovery and the Discovery of Technology: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of The Society for Philosophy and Technology, SPT, ed. Joseph Pitt and Elena Lugo. 1991.

Tijmes, Pieter. "The social construction of a 'meagre nature'." In Conference Preprints of the International Forum for Biophilosophy in Collaboration with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Leuven, Belgium 1992.

Ungar, Steven. "The Appeal of History: Reading Girard on Camus." Helios 17/1 (1990): 144-155.

Weigand, Hans. "Narcisme: De overgang van mimese naar bemiddeling." In Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard, ed. A. Lascaris and H. Weigand, 98-108. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Williams, James G. "Die Wahrheit des Opfers." In Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion, ed. J. Niewiadomski and W. Palaver, 69-81. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Wilson, Rob. "Othello: Jealousy as Mimetic Contagion." American Imago 44/3 (1987): 213-233.

Abstracts of the COV&R-Conference ("Ethnocentrism and the Study of Violence") at Stanford University May 7-9, 1992

Gil Bailie (Temenos) Crossing the Jor dan "Opposite Jericho"

To try to understand today's ethnic violence in terms of ethnicity is as naive as it is to try to curb that violence by encouraging ethnic identification. What underlies the resurgence of ethnic passions is the demise of larger more heterogeneous cultural units. As these larger units disintegrate, both social and psychological reflexes favor a revival of smaller more ethnically homogeneous ones, but the same process that led to the demise of the larger social systems will eventually overtake the smaller ones as well. Ethnic passions are symptoms of a much larger and more profound cultural crisis. Inter-ethnic conflict is a desperate attempt to snatch at the remnants of cultural and psychological identification in a world now living on non-renewable cultural resources.

Passages from the books of Numbers and Joshua in the Hebrew Bible are used to show how a mounting sacrificial crisis can lead to a fierce preoccupation with historical antagonists. The crossing of the Jordan "opposite Jericho" is taken as the pivotal moment in the Israelite cultural enterprise when this preoccupation becomes the dominant fact of cultural life. After the holy violence at Jericho and Ai there occurs a revival of the sacrificial cult that had been rocked by dissent in the days of Moses and Aaron. By comparison with Joshua, Pope Urban II's launching of the Crusades is briefly discussed. Mention is made of the Joshua of the New Testament, who enters the Jordan "opposite" his heavenly Father.

Louis Burkhardt (Colorado University), Ethnocentrism & the Reception of the Work of René Girard

The accusations of 'ethnocentrism' and 'ethnocentric' operate as one of the final ways for a speaker to invert a hierarchy of ethnic differences, while claiming to view differences in a non-hierarchical, inclusive way. This use of 'ethnocentrism' and 'ethnocentric' as tools of exclusion is especially common when 'ethnic' is extended from racial and national differences to cultural, religious and phi losophical ones. In other words, the use of the labels 'ethnocen trism' and 'ethnocentric' constitutes a culturally-specific abuse of ostensibly egalitarian, multi-cultural language. As long as a group can be labelled 'ethnocentric' it can be excluded from serious consideration and deprived of respect. The risk of this informal and anecdotal talk is that I might simply reproduce and extend the problems I discuss. I want to relate the reception of the work of René Girard to what I detect as a form of intellectual ethnocen trism without simply reciprocating the attitudes and perceptions that strike me as undesirable. Most of you have probably been aware of the kind of adverse reactions to the theory of mimetic desire to which I will make reference. The fact that I am a relative newcomer to the work of Girard (being in first grade in 1961, the year Mensonge romantique et vérité ro manesque was published in France) foregrounds the pertinen ce of what I have to say. Any theory--psychoanalytical, Marxist, structuralist, feminist, et. al.--is bound to be misunderstood in its introductory phases. What's remarkable is that radical misunderstandings of Girard's theory still persist among scholars at a level of intensity unmerited by either its level of conceptual clarity or its novelty.

My assumption is that ethnocentrism involves a desire to protect one's identity. This protective desire might as well be called conflictive mimesis, for it arises only in the context of an other who somehow threatens to take away that identity. As we know, conflictive mimesis always exaggerates differences in order to justify itself. These exaggerations are neither conscious nor controllable, and the misperceptions begin to loop back into the situation, giving even more (illusory) cause for alarm and, again, overdifferentiation. Such is the fate of Girardian theory in many circles. However, the misreadings and misperceptions themselves validate with existential immediacy the claims of the theory.

René Girard (Stanford University), Ethnocentrism and Western Culture

The contemporary struggle against ethnocentrism is complicated by the fact that, far from being a contemporary invention, anti- ethnocentrism has been an important intellectual tradition, at least since Montaigne, and a purely Western one.

Under more elegant labels, ethnocentrism is the main object of satire in Enlightenment literature. Nietzsche defends ethnocentrism as aristocratic self-confidence and denounces the struggle against it as an integral part of our Christian heritage and its concern for victims.

Roel Kaptein (University of Ulster), Ethnocentrism in Northern Ireland: Its Escalation into Violence and Terrorism

1. The word ethnocentrism is first used in print in 1907. This reflects a change. Originally it was the pre-rational certainty that the own culture was right and good, the others wrong and, if they were the culture of enemies, bad. Culture as such gave being. In modern times this certainty has disappeared. We are not any longer sure about our culture because it does not any longer give being and so it becomes a model-obstacle. We have to win over it, in order to have again being.

The development in fact went already further. We have become anthropocentric. We are not any longer sure about our being as human. Our very humanity has become our model-obstacle.

2. Ethnocentrists always seek scapegoats, because they cannot cope with the situation. The reason for the (not understood) uncertainty must come from outside. This is in fact true: The reason is the decay of culture as a whole. All ethnocentrists seek a powerful outside scapegoat-enemy. For Northern Irish Roman Catholics it is the UK, for the Protestants the R(epublic of) I(reland). For us as anthropocentrists it is nature, the world as a whole.

3. In N(orthern) I(reland) two ethnocentrists groups are fighting for the power. The RCs are the weakest, so the most ethnocentrist. Both groups are mirroring the endless double-relationships in the world (UK<>RI; US<>USSR &c).

4. Ethnocentrism being a model-obstacle relationship with the own culture and, consequently, with all surrounding cultures, which can be seen as enemies, it is full of model-obstacle relationships everywhere. Structure is constantly destroyed by it, all relationships inside and outside being replaced by model-rival and model- obstacle relationships.

5. So the world of ethnocentrism is full of scapegoats, from outside and inside (as, in fact, NI itself is originally the scapegoat of the UK and the RI). And, the other way round, the whole world being ethnocentric (and anthropocentric), openly ethnocentric groups are heavily scapegoated by the whole world.

6. Consequently an ethnocentric situation cannot be saved by normal political means inside or even outside of the country (Yugoslavia and Nagorno-Karabach are points in case). Because ethnocentrism is full of the sacred, churches are part of the problem and of very little help to solve it.

7. Terrorism is consistent ethnocentrism. It tries to destroy its own culture and the culture of the opponent. "Deep down" it seeks to destroy culture in order to create a new world, the goal of primitive ritual (as anthropocentrism tries to destroy nature and humanity, driven by the same dark goal). Terrorists, being deeply into the sacred, seek being by dying for the cause, seek to become (religious) saints.

8. So terrorism in our world is no accident. It is in fact everywhere, here and there, where the circumstances are favorable, as they are in NI, coming into the open. All terrorism and terrorists in the world, even of opposite groups, belong together and eventually work together, in a small sub-culture, on the fringe of culture and no-culture. The media are the big allies of terrorism, in many senses doing the same as they do.

9. The only way out is freedom from the mimetic mechanisms. Time and again it becomes clear that this freedom is possible and changes the situation. In NI there are several "cradles of freedom", groups of people who know what is happening and seek their way together out of the ethnocentric madness.

10. Since 1980 the mimetic model has been introduced to NI, in the community of Corrymeela and in many other groups. Some years ago a team "Understanding conflict, and finding ways out of it", working exclusively with the model, with four members, was founded. A medical project is using the model in order to give cancer patients freedom from their illness.

Andrew J. McKenna (Loyola University Chicago), The Song of Roland, Ethnocentrism and Violence: Euracism and Mine

Ignorance of others defines Otherness as such. The anonymous XIth- century epic poem, The Song of Roland, reads as a text-book case of a "text of persecution" as described in Girard's The Scapegoat. The work's Western movie style or Manichaean dualism, and attendant racism, weds violence to the sacred in the manner of Old Testament mythology (as opposed to its prophetic tradition), whereby its ethno-ethic differs more from Homeric epic than from a properly sacrificial violence informing much contemporary geopolitics. Its splendid rhythms connect with ritual, while the fate of the treacherous Ganelon beckons compari son and contrast with the Passion narrative in Scripture.

Tobin Siebers, The Ethics of Anti- Ethnocentrism

The paper forms a collage detailing the meeting place between ethnocentrism in our anthropological culture and current debates about multiculturalism. First, it presupposes that the West is an anthropological culture, in which self-image is constructed via an encounter with cultural others. This is why anthropology today is so conflicted: it does not know how to use the diversity that it finds, whether it should, or even whether diversity really exists. Second, I presuppose that multiculturalism reproduces descriptions created by Western anthropological culture and that we may understand why certain debates arise in academia by thinking about anti-ethnocen trism in the context of ethnography. In effect, the paper asks about the differences between intercultural and intracultural differences, which, I submit, is to ask about the difference between ethics and politics.

The first section on anti-ethnocentrism concentrates on Geertz's essay, "The Uses of Diversity," because it clinches the problem of what anthropology is today: the zone where we worry the most about whether encounters with others victimize them. Although Geertz writes ethnography from the native's point of view, he wants to use diversity. How do we justify using human difference, if our fundamental insight in the West is that using differences victimizes? We have come to believe that there are no objective grounds to regulate encounters with cultural others, so we are left with three choices. 1) We conclude that we cannot represent others without distorting their lives and harming them. 2) We become connoisseurs of diversity -- aesthetes -- but are compromised politically because the native remains a museum piece, a collectible, exotica. 3) We use the encounter with otherness as an occasion to reflect on ourselves. This is the "I confess" mode of anthropology, where the field trip is a crucible of adversity in which my suffering forms myself. It is self-victimization for the sake of aggrandize ment. In short, anthropologists must victimize others or themselves, but both spectacles of violence are staged for the edification of Western culture.

The second section on multiculturalism takes up Rorty's response to Geertz. Rorty sees Geertz's attitude as apolitical because it either descends into self-loathing, which is not useful for utopian reform, or it tries to posit a supercommunity, which exists nowhere and has no local politics; it is an aestheticized morality. Rorty opposes objectivity to solidarity, arguing that we too often sacrifice anti-cruelty for the truth, solidarity for objectivity, and he recommends that we stop worrying about whether we are hypocrites or liars and attend to solidarity as a first principle: to do whatever is necessary not to victimize. But the current scene makes this choice difficult because it gives the lion's share of ethics to the victim. The worst thing that anyone can do is to deny that someone is a victim when he or she makes the claim. We cannot dislodge people from the position of the victim. We have a problem siding with the victim, therefore, because victims are all around, and we have no way of deciding who is really being harmed and when. Multiculturalism tries to build solidarity through curriculum reform but it cannot be sufficiently inclusive in the final analysis to satisfy its own principles, and it reproduces the threefold dilemma of the ethnographer: 1) Experience the other and distort the other in the process. 2) Appreciate the other as an aesthetic category. 3) Use multicultural reading to forge a new self for the reader.

We need some way to talk about what violence is, symbolic or not, what a community is, who is in, who is out, what is cruel, what is not--which means that solidarity begins to rely on objectivity. Solidarity and objectivity are the rock and hard place where we are caught.

Finally, it is important to note that canon formation, while necessary, will not solve the problems of a multicultural society. In fact, the shift to "multiculturalism" and "ethnicity" as terms is a way of shifting the site of race relations to the university. It scapegoats the university, making it responsible for problems that it cannot solve. You have to overlook a great deal of suffering and cruelty to place social reform on the back of curriculum. You have to get to the university before entering these debates, and this fact effectively excludes those for whom the debate is most important: the racially excluded, the underprivileged, and the poor of this country. The shift from civil rights to multiculturalism is one of the great failings of the last 4 decades. In the best light, it shows our political leadership trying to solve race relations on the cheap, from the top down (the famous trickle down effect). In the worst light, it is a scheme to scapegoat the university for the political irresponsibility of federal, state, and local government.

Norman C. Stolzoff (U.C. Davis), Generative Violence and Participant-Observation

This paper explores three points. First, I ask: what is the relation between the anthropological method of participant-observation and the Girardian theory of generative violence? How does mimetic desire enter into the field-research equation and influence interpretation? Knowing as we do about the mimetic basis of violence, how does a Girardian fieldworker do research on "theatres of violence"? By drawing on my own fieldwork experience in Jamaica to date, I want to show how the effects of mimetic desire on ourselves as fieldworkers may distort our judgement and how we interpret ritual events. As inquisitive visitors from afar, it is hard not set up pyschosocial "shields" to protect ourselves from the most violent manifestations of mimetic desire and our interactions with local people who have their own complicated feelings about wealthy, white Euro-Americans. In the process, we can also block ourselves off from the mimetic struggle and the violent means we use to get out of it. Second, I extend Jeffrey Alexander's insight presented in his critical introduction to the volume entitled Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies (1988) that we must "separate the ritual process from any expectation of its consensual outcome" (14). That is, we often fail to recognize that we impute structure on ambiguous events that are inherently polyvalent. Third and finally, I discuss the Jamaican dancehall in order to ground my analysis in an empirical context. The dancehall in Jamaica is both an "entertainment" event and a type of popular music among the young, poor, black masses. However, the study of the dancehall is important because it is the site of many forms of violence ranging from the symbolic to the collective. For example, on more than one occasion thousands of angry fans have been known to drive stars from the stage by hurling bottles at them. The paper concludes by offering an interpretation of these "stonings" as a form of generative violence.

Panel Discussion of Sacred Violence: Paul's Hermeneutic of the Cross, by Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly

Paul Brooks Duff (George Washington University), Sacred Violence and Social Order in 1 Corinthians

R. Hamerton-Kelly, in his recent book Sacred Violence: Paul's Hermeneutic of the Cross, suggests that Paul justly condemns the law because it is a instrument of "sacred (i.e. exclusionary) violence." In his analysis of Paul's writings, Hamerton-Kelly suggests that Paul recognized the fact that the same violence which was responsible for the death of Jesus was also culpable for the "violence" of excluding gentiles from its community. It is our suggestion that, if Hamerton-Kelly is correct in his analysis of Paul, then the apostle is guilty of the same sacred violence for which he indicts the torah of Judaism.

One of the most interesting and overlooked passages in the Corinthian correspondence concerns the so-called "incest" incident in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians. What is especially surprising about this incident is Paul's extraordinarily vehement reaction to the rumor of this kind of sexual activity. Summoning all of his apostolic authority, Paul demands that the Corinthian community condemn this individual to death by means of an execration oath, a practice not unheard of in the ancient world. Hence what is usually described as an excommunication is, in fact, much more than a mere expulsion from the community. It is an execution through the agency of demonic powers. Stranger still is the fact that the perpetrator is not, in actual fact, engaging in incest per se.

Paul's violent reaction to the sexual behavior of the unnamed Corinthian individual only makes sense if we envision the Christian community of Corinth in the throes of mimetic crisis (See R. Hamerton-Kelly, "A Girardian Interpretation of Paul," Semeia 33 [1985]: 65-82), a crisis in which distinctions (especially sexual distinctions) have radically diminished. If 1 Corinthians is read in this light, then Paul's solution to the mimetic crisis includes the violent expulsion of one who appears to symbolize all that is wrong with the community.

It is significant that Paul (here as well as in connection with sexual conduct in 1 Thess 4:3-5) contrasts the morality of Christians with that of the "Gentiles"--although he deliberately distorts the facts in his description of gentile morality--implying the kind of exclusionary move for which he condemns the law. It is also noteworthy that in connection with this situation, Paul uses the metaphor of "leaven," a metaphor which suggests the infectious and hence dangerous character of the perpetrator's activity.

Neil Elliott (College of St. Catherine, St. Paul), Paul and the Lethality of the Law--Issues in Interpretation"

As the panel discussion demonstrated, Robert Hamerton-Kelly's Sacred Violence is a provocative addition to an already controversial field, the study of Paul's view of the Torah. Since a number of other questions, theological, moral, political, are immediately caught up in this discussion, precision in our historical discussion of Paul is imperative. Since the works of Krister Stendahl, Rosemary Ruether, and E. P. Sanders in the mid-1970s, much older doubts about the cogency of Paul's comments on the Torah (what Hans-Joachim Schoeps called the apostle's "fundamental misunderstanding") are increasingly weighty; one regularly finds references in the literature to a "new perspective" or "paradigm shift" in Pauline studies. One might say that Sacred Vio lence arrives at a dancehall already in full swing.

Briefly, Professor Hamerton-Kelly argues that Paul's thinking centers in a profound insight, won through the Cross, into "the sacred violence in his ancestral religion"; in a paraphrase of Sanders, he writes that for Paul "the problem with Judaism was . . . that it was a sacrificial structure of sacred violence" (pp. 6-7).

The "hermeneutic of the Cross" operates in Paul's thinking at three distinct levels. At a personal level, "the Cross showed Paul that he had been the servant of sacred violence" (p. 183). I think this is an insight long overdue, although I incline, with Paula Fredriksen, to locate that sacred violence within the Judaean Temple establishment and its collaboration with imperial Rome, not within "Judaism" or "the Mosaic Torah" as such.

The argument continues: "At the next horizon [the Cross] exposed the Judaism that Paul served as an expression of sacred violence. Along the widest horizon it exposed the generative role of the primitive Sacred in all religion and culture" (p. 183). Except for the substitution of mimetic conflict for the dynamic of self- justification, this interpretation follows the Protestant convention of reading Paul as everywhere in fundamental opposition to Judaism, "the Jew" becoming the example par excellence of sinful humanity. Just here I diverge emphatically from the argument in Sacred Violence, for what I am convinced are good historical reasons.

On the basis of 1 Thess. 2:15-16, Professor Hamerton-Kelly argues that Paul blamed the Jews of Judaea for the death of Jesus; arguments of other scholars to the contrary, that such language is so untypical of Paul's other letters and of the pre-70 Jesus movement generally as to indicate an interpolation, are dismissed. This passage is given weight in the book that it cannot sustain, dominating even the interpretation of Romans (pp. 100-101). In Galatians 2, Hamerton-Kelly sees a link in Paul's thought between the lethal violence of the Cross and the "exclusionary" violence of Torah observance (which "excludes" Gentiles). But despite the conventions of Protestant exegesis, it is clear from the text that the Antioch controversy did not involve the "imposition" of Torah on Gentiles--to the contrary, Cephas and his Jewish companions withdrew themselves from the company of Gentiles; Paul's question in 2:14 is desperately rhetorical--and that the Jerusalem apostles unreservedly endorsed the "Law-free" mission among Gentiles. To characterize keeping kosher as "exclusionary violence" is, in my opinion, as historically untenable as it is theologically tendentious.

Following Johannes Munck, some recent scholars have emphasi zed the rhetorical context of Galatians: it is a letter addressed to Gentiles who are not, in fact, interested in becoming Jews (as Gal. 5:3 makes clear). Gentiles are also the addressees of Romans. If we take rhetorical constraints seriously, these observations ought to make us cautious of reading anything Paul says about the Torah in either letter as a straightforward representation of his views on Judaism. Only in Romans 9-11 is Paul unambiguously addressing the subject of contemporary Jews, and this argument is as unambiguously directed against Gentile "boasting" over Israel. That is, at least one major concern in Romans (several scholars would say, the major concern in Romans) is to oppose mimetic rivalry among Gentile Christians. Much of Hamerton-Kelly's analysis of the dynamics of mimetic rivalry in Paul's thought is brilliant; but to obscure Paul's argumentative goals by reading both letters as indictments of Judaism is, I think, an exegetical error with grave consequences.

In the dancehall of Pauline studies (to return to a metaphor begging to be overworked), not everyone is moving in the same direction. The sweep of Protestant exegesis (Paul vs. "works- righteousness": Luther) and its "sociological" variation (Paul vs. "exclusivism" or "ethnocentrism": Baur) is powerful. By locating the heart of Paul's work and thought in the discovery of his own complicity in sacred violence, Professor Hamerton-Kelly has stopped the music of traditional dogmatics, even if some of the momentum of that tradition continues to carry his book along. The publication of Sacred Violence will mark a turning point in Pauline studies; my remarks are offered as suggestions for our next steps together.

Robert Hamerton-Kelly's (Stanford University) responses

To Paul Duff:

I have argued at some length in the book that Paul is not hoist on his own petard. The Pauline church is not simply an alternative version of Jewish exclusionism (pp. 85-87). Indeed, the heart of Paul's theology is the inclusiveness of the church whose membership is based solely on adherence to Christ in faith without regard to ethnic origin. Paul does, however, distinguish between ritual and ethnic criteria on the one hand, and moral criteria on the other. The former are matters of indifference the latter are matters of grave importance. One can exclude oneself from the community by one's moral acts. The celebrated case in 1 Cor 5 is significant not because of its similarity to the execrations attested in the magical papyri, in which the victim is sent to death, but because of its critical difference. In Corinth the victim is sent out for purgation in order that he might live rather than die. The nearest interpretive analogue is in 1 Cor 3:15, where a person might lose everything in the fire of judgement but still escape with his soul.

To Neil Elliott:

I cannot separate the temple from the rest of Judaism. At the time of Paul the temple was the center of the religion and so I believe that I use the term Judaism responsibly to refer to Paul's religion. Of course, I am not unaware of the factions within Judaism at the time, but I think the temple-centered Pharisaism to which Paul belonged with its fanatic and persecutory propensities is a fair representation of Judaism at the time. I generalize from Paul to Judaism to all religion by the carefully argued right of the theory.

It is a counsel of desperation to excise 1 Thess 2:15-16. It is there in the text and I do not believe I have given it undue weight. Kosher is exclusionary violence specifically in the context of Gal 2. Whether it is always so is another matter. If my interpretation is tendentious Elliott's is fallacious.

The recipients of the letters to the Romans and Galatians are emphatically not communities of gentiles only. The text and common sense attests that they are mixed communities of Jews and gentiles. I find this insistence on the purely gentile nature of the communities especially perverse, and I can only suspect a desperate anti-anti-semitism as the motive for this perversion.

I do not believe I have committed "an exegetical error," although the consequences of my candor may indeed be grave, because I have shaken a hornet's nest of political correctness and guilty prevarication.

Booknote

André Lascaris and Hans Weigand, eds. Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992. ISBN 90-391-0042-X. 186 pp.

When René Girard received a honorary degree at the Free University in Amsterdam in 1985, a group had already benn meeting regularly in this university to discuss the philosophical, anthropological and theological presuppositions of Girard's hypothesis. Its members, coming from all over the country and working in many different disciplines, discussed with one another their use of the Girardian hypothesis in their field of work. The fruits of their discussions are collected in this book. The essays examine whether Girard's views need corrections and/or additions and attempt to stimulate further research efforts. These authors all agree that Girard's hypothesis relates to real life. But can it also impact social, economic, and political reality? They answer this question in the affirmative, at least partly.

The book contains the following essays: an introduction to the concept of mimesis (H. Weigand), Girard and modern sciences (G. Heidendal), the metaphor of the scapegoat (M. Elias), Girard and Levinas (P. Altena), Girard compared with D. Bonhoeffer and K. Barth (A. van Egmond), from the God of violence to the God of love (A. Lascaris), how to organize 'love'? (A. Douwes), criticism on the use of Freudian texts by Girard (M. Leopold), narcissism in Girard and Kristeva (H. Weigand), the teacher-disciple paradigm (W. de Haas), the 'sick role' and the scapegoat mechanism (M. Schoffeleers), a critique of Girard's view on the 'immaterialism of our time' (R. Luijf and P. Tijmes), the conflict in Northern Ireland (A. Lascaris), social work in Northern Ireland (R. Kaptein), protection against violence without religion (E. Stern). The two editors conclude the book by encouraging more reflection on Girard's methodological and philosophical presuppositions. Often, one needs finer distinctions than Girard himself makes. Finally, they challenge us to integrate existing theories and terminology into Girard's hypothesis.

Reviews

Bernhard Dieckmann, Judas als Sün denbock: Eine verhängnisvolle Geschichte von Angst und Vergeltung. München: Kösel, 1991. 376 pp. Hard bound, ca. 36 DM.

This book should be of interest to all readers of German who are concerned with the phenomenon of scapegoating, particularly in Western culture with its Christian heritage. Dieckmann presents a historically oriented study of the Judas tradition in order to lay out a basis not only for understanding Judas as an archetype of enemy and fiend but also for dismantling this archetype.

The first and longest part of the book, which deals with the medieval picture of Judas, was the most instructive for this reviewer. The survey of Judas legends, Passion plays (the Donaue schinger Passion is the primary example), works of art, and the connections made between Judas and the Jews presents some eye-opening texts and a wealth of bibliography. Particularly striking from the standpoint of comparative mythology is the motif of Judas as a new Oedipus. The chapter on "The Donaueschinger Passion: Judas and the Jews," in which Judas is represented as a stereotypi cal Jew and the Jews are depicted as the murderers of God, should be required reading for all theologians, clerics, and educators.

The second part of the book, on depictions of Judas since the Enlightenment, contains brief discussions of views of Judas in the works of thinkers such as Goethe, Anatol France, Claudel, et al. Part three, a Christian theological critique of the Judas tradition, is a clear statement concerning the human condition and the central role of the cross in the Christian gospel. The author concludes that all of us carry an image of a "mortal enemy" (Todfeind) within us that can easily be transferred to an archetypal scapegoat like Judas. Dieckmann argues, however, against turning Judas into an image of a poor, misunderstood victim who was a prey to fate. He emphasizes rather that "we, we ourselves are the real mortal enemy--through our mistrust, through our anxiety in the face of trust and love" (319). We should not make for ourselves an image of the evil other but occupy ourselves with the knowledge of our own sin. "We should beware lest we cast a stone at Judas . . ." (323)--that is, at the enemy other, at any scapegoat--knowing as we do the gospel message of forgiveness.

The author refers to Girard's work several times and is clearly in debt to Girard for his analysis of scapegoating and rivalry. In fact, the chapters on the question of Judas as a double of Jesus and on reciprocity and despair show the influence of Girard to good advantage. It is unfortunate, however, that Dieckmann did not include an analysis of Judas as subject to and mediator of mimetic desire. Mimesis, the foundation of the mimetic model, is strangely missing from this otherwise fine treatise.

James G. Williams

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Freud's Mo ses: Judaism Terminable and Intermi nable. New Haven: Yale University, 1991. 159 pp. $25.

Yerushalmi's nicely written book is one of a number of recent studies pointing out the documentary and anecdotal evidence that religious instruction and practice were an important part of Freud's early life. I referred to two of these in The Bible, Vio lence, and the Sacred: William J. McGrath, Freud's Discovery of Psychoanalysis (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1986) and Emanuel Rice, Freud and Moses (Albany: State University of New York, 1990). Freud disclaimed this Jewish formation in public comments and in some of his letters but he was disguising himself in his scientific, psychoanalytic persona in making these comments. His sense of his Jewish identity was quite strong. Yerushalmi further confirms this in a number of ways, including reproduction of the text of a previously unpublished letter from Freud to Theodor Herzl. Dated September 28, 1902, it informs Herzl that Freud has asked his publisher to send a copy of The Interpretation of Dreams to him as a token of great esteem for "the poet and battler for the human rights of our people . . ." (107).

Yerushalmi argues that the problem of tradition, of "transmission" or "handing-over," of Jewish identity is the central concern of Freud's Moses and Monotheism. The Jewish attachment to this dynamic transmission is so compulsive that conscious acts could not account for it. Yerushalmi infers that Freud's solution was a "psycho-Lamarckism," i.e., he believed that only phylogenetic heritage could account for the compulsive character associated with the religious phenomena--a genetic legacy that achieved complete form in five to eight centuries!

Against the stream of current Freud interpretation, the author maintains that Moses does not stem from Freud's ambivalence about his Jewish heritage. It is, rather, an example of "deferred obedience" to his father. His father had brought him up in his religious and cultural heritage, and when Freud was 35 years old (1891) Jakob Freud gave his son an unusual gift: the Philippsohn Bible Freud has studied in his childhood, now rebound in leather, and inscribed by Jakob in Hebrew with a dedication which in Hebrew literature is known as melitzah. The melitzah is a combination of phrases from the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic literature. The inscription may thus be read both as a straightforward message and as a web of allusions to aspects of the Scriptural and Talmudic heritage that emphasize the wisdom of the revealed word of God and the mandate to read and interpret it through the inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord. Yerushalmi deduces that in writing Moses Freud belatedly obeys his father and fulfills this mandate; he does it, however, in his own way, maintaining independence from his father by rejecting the "material truth" of the biblical narrative while rejoicing in his discovery of its "historical truth" (78).

Yerushalmi presents some interesting, occasionally new material. However, he glosses over aspects of Moses and Monotheism that exhibit Freud's ambivalence about the "Jewish" as opposed to "Egyptian" strain in his conception of the monotheistic tradition. It is the god of Sinai-Horeb whom he describes as "an uncanny, bloodthirsty demon" and it is "the savage Semites" (die wilden Semiten), in his own words, who do away with Moses. Eventually this Semitic god Yahweh (Jahve) lost his original character and "became more and more like the old God of Moses," the god of Akhnaton.

Yerushalmi's acceptance of the myth of the Oedipus complex (see esp. p. 94) leads him to connect Freud's motivation in writing Moses to his father. No doubt his father was a key person in his life, but during his career Freud was obsessed with both Jewish model-obstacles and with his Aryan double. From the standpoint of the mimetic model it was the latter, especially, whom he perceived as the obstacle to success and the recognition of his foundational achievements in psychoanalytic theory (see Williams, loc. cit., 94). Were these Jewish and non-Jewish rivals all simply substitutes for his father? Unlikely. The mimetic model makes more sense of Freud's life and work than his own version of the Oedipus myth.

James G. Williams

New Books

Baudler, Georg. God and Violence: The Christian Experience of God in Dialogue with Myths and Other Religions. Translated from the German by Fabian C. Lochner. Springfield: Templegate Publishers, 1992.

Lascaris, André and Hans Weigand, eds. Nabootsing: In discussie over René Girard. Kampen: Kok Agora, 1992.

Livingston, Paisley. Models of Desire: René Girard and the Psychology of Mimesis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

Niewiadomski, Józef and Wolfgang Palaver, eds. Dramatische Erlösungslehre: Ein Symposion. Innsbrucker theologische Studien 38. Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1992.

Simonse, Simon. Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in the Southeastern Sudan. Studies in Human Society V. Leiden, New York: E. J. Brill, 1992.

Varela, Francisco J. and Jean-Pierre Dupuy, eds. Understanding Origins: Contemporary Views on the Origin of Life, Mind, and Society. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 130. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992.

Future Meetings

The next annual meeting of COV&R will take place April 22-24, 1993 at the University of North Carolina. Theme: "Literature and the Sacred." Judith Arias and Cesáreo Bandera will be the organizers. We thank Cesáreo for the invitation and Judith for agreeing to serve as the primary administrative facilitator. Proposals for papers and workshops should be sent to her.

In 1994, the meeting will be held in Wiesbaden, Germany, probably in June, with focus on social philosophy and the work of Jean-Pierre Dupuy.

Keeping with a precedent of the last two years, COV&R will meet in conjunction with AAR/SBL, this year in San Francisco. This will be on Friday, November 20 in Monterey A of the San Francisco Hilton. Charles Mabee will present a paper on "The Problem of Myth: Bultmann and Girard," with René Girard and Robert Hamerton-Kelly responding, and there will be a discussion of James Williams's book, The Bible, Violence, and the Sacred, with René Girard and Leo Perdue as panelists. It should also be noted that René will give a major address ("The Satan of the Gospels") at AAR on Monday, November 23 at 8.00 p.m. (SFO - Hilton Square).