COV&R-Bulletin No. 17 (Oct. 1999)
Thanks to Cesareo Bandera
As membership in COV&R increases and the influence of the mimetic theory Advanced by René Girard extends, it is important to recall our small beginning at Stanford University in 1991 when 15 scholars gathered to form the Colloquium we now know as COV&R. There are presently over 225 members throughout the world. The seventh annual issue of the journal Contagion has recently been published and the seventeenth issue of the Bulletin has been distributed. No small measure of thanks goes to scholars such as Cesareo Bandera - our parting president - who recognised in René Girard many years ago the potential for a dramatic reconsideration of the anthropology of human behaviour and its relationship to religion, literature, psychology, and culture.
We are grateful for Cesareo's presence among us and his scholarly contributions to the mimetic theory, not only in early monographs such as Mimesis Conflictiva published before the establishment of COV&R, but in major works such as The Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary Fiction. We trust that Cesareo's work with COV&R will continue. We need his scholarly contributions and his always gentle advice.
Diana Culbertson
President
