Books by Rene Girard

Never before translated in English, this 1973 discussion between Rene Girard (1923-2015) and other prominent scholars represents one of the most significant breakthroughs in mimetic theory. The conversation was an opportunity for Girard to debate with his interlocutors the theories he expounded in Violence and the Sacred.

These hard-to-find writings afford an inside look at the emergence of Girard's scapegoat theory from his pioneering analysis of rivalry and desire. Girard unbinds the Oedipal triangle from its Freudian moorings, replacing desire for the mother with desire for anyone-or anything-a rival desires.

Mimesis and Theory brings together twenty previously uncollected essays on literature and literary theory by one of the most important thinkers of the past thirty years.