René Girard and Anthropology
A bibliography
The following texts in English apply, discuss or criticize René Girard's theoretical approach. Inclusion in the list (or inclusion of a link) does not necessarily imply endorsement of a given text. Readers may suggest additional references through the contact page of this website.
Mark R. Anspach, “Editor’s Introduction: Imitating Oedipus,” in René Girard, Oedipus Unbound: Selected Writings on Rivalry and Desire (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), pp. vii-liv
Mark R. Anspach, “Negative Reciprocity at the Rashō Gate: The Dynamics of Social Breakdown and the Role of the State,” Ritsumeikan Studies in Language and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 4, March 2015, pp. 119-28
Mark R. Anspach. Vengeance in Reverse: The Tangled Loops of Violence, Myth, and Madness. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2017
Mark R. Anspach, “Vengeance and the Gift,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 53-59
Mark R. Anspach, “‘Every Man’s House Was His Temple’: Mimetic Dynamics in the Transition from Aşıklı Höyük to Çatalhöyük,” in Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life, ed. Ian Hodder. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2018
Emanuele Antonelli, “Little Red Riding Hood: Victimage in Folktales and Cinema—A Case Study,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 22, 2015, pp. 107-32
Andrew Bartlett, “Differing Over Originary Violence: Between Girard and Gans,” Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, Vol. 29, No. 1, Fall 2023
Mirjana Borenović, “René Girard's Scapegoating and Stereotypes of Persecution in the Divine Battle between Veles and Perun,” Theological Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 4, 2019, pp. 1039-52
René Bureau, “A Gabonese Myth,” tr. Mark R. Anspach, in Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard, ed. Paul Dumouchel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 27-43
Ilkwaen Chung. Deconstructing the Buddhist Philosophy of Nothingness:
René Girard and Violent Origins of Buddhist Culture. 2012 [revised and extended translation of Paradoxie der weltgestaltenden Weltentsagung im Buddhismus: Ein Zugang aus der Sicht der mimetischen Theorie René Girards (Berlin: LIT Verlag 2010)]
Francis X. Clooney, “Violence and Nonviolence in Hindu Religious Traditions” (pp. 109-39), followed by Julia W. Shinnick, “Hinduism and Mimetic Theory: A Response” (pp. 140-45) and “Discussion Summary” (pp. 146-50), Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 9, 2002
Scott Cowdell, “Sport and the Sacred Victim: René Girard and the Death of Phillip Hughes,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 22, 2015, pp. 133-40
Paul Dumouchel, “Revenge or Justice? Obama Gets Osama,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 19, 2012, pp. 9-17
Paul Dumouchel. The Ambivalence of Scarcity and Other Essays. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2014
Paul Dumouchel, “An Essay on Hominization: Current Theories, Girardian-Darwinian Approaches,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp.13-19
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, “Totalization and Misrecognition,” tr. Mark R. Anspach, in Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard, ed. Paul Dumouchel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 75-100
Michael Elias, “Neck-Riddles in Mimetic Theory,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 2, Spring 1995, pp. 189-202
Eric Gans, “Generative Anthropology,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 447-53
Eric Gans, “René Girard and the Deferral of Violence,” Forum Philosophicum, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2018, pp. 155–170
Margherita Geniale, “Sacrifice and Evolutionary Incentive: Epigenetic Applications of the Ritual,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2021, pp. 77–97
René Girard. Violence and the Sacred, tr. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1977
René Girard. “To double business bound”: Essays on Literature, Mimesis, and Anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1978
René Girard. The Scapegoat, tr. Yvonne Freccero. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1986
René Girard (with Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort). Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, tr. Stephen Bann and Michael Metteer. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987
René Girard, “A Venda Myth Analyzed,” in Richard J. Golsan, René Girard and Myth: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 151-79
René Girard. Sacrifice, tr. Matthew Pattillo and David Dawson. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011
René Girard. Violence, the Sacred, and Things Hidden: A Discussion with René Girard at Esprit (1973), tr. Andrew J. McKenna. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2022
Richard J. Golsan. René Girard and Myth: An Introduction. New York: Routledge, 2002
E. Tyler Graham, “The danger of Durkheim: Ambiguity in the theory of social effervescence,” Religion, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2007, pp. 26-38
Andrea Grazioli and Mattia Di Pierro, “The Contagion Principle versus Rights: The Mob Justice Phenomenon as Anthro-Poietic Struggle,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 23, 2016, pp. 187-205
Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly (ed.). Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987
Brian Harding, “Tauromachia as Counter-Sacrificial Ritual: Insights from Mimetic Theory,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 25, 2018
Chris Haw, “Human Evolution and the Single Victim Mechanism: Locating Girard’s Hominization Hypothesis through Literature Survey,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 24, 2017, pp. 191-216
Ian Hodder, ed. Violence and the Sacred in the Ancient Near East: Girardian Conversations at Çatalhöyük. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019
Hans J. L. Jensen, “The Bible Is (Also) a Myth: Lévi-Strauss, Girard, and the Story of Joseph,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 14, 2007, pp. 39-57
Christopher J. Knüsel and Bonnie Glencross, “Çatalhöyük, Archaeology, Violence,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 24, 2017, pp. 23-36
Matthew Kratter, “Twilight of the Vampires: History and Myth of the Undead,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 5, 1998, pp. 30-45
Gregory J. Lobo, “The Neurology of Culture, or How We Move From Rage to Ritual in the Process of Hominization,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 31, 2024, pp. 255-73
Mathias Moosbrugger, “Recovering the Snorra Edda: On Playing Gods, Loki, and the Importance of History,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 17, 2010, pp. 105-120
Malachie Munyaneza, “Violence as Institution in African Religious Experience: A Case Study of Rwanda,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 8, 2001, pp. 39-68
Charles D. Orzech, “Mechanisms of Violent Retribution in Chinese Hell Narratives,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 1, 1994, pp. 111-26
Wolfgang Palaver, “Girard and Burkert: Hunting, Homo Necans, Guilt,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 45-52
Desiderio Parrilla Martinez, “Mimesis, Ritual Sacrifice, and Ceremony of Proskynesis,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 24, 2017, pp. 57-72
John Pemberton III, “Sacred Kingship and the Violent God: The Worship of Ogun among the Yoruba,” Berkshire Review, Vol. 14, 1979, pp. 102-5
Vern Neufeld Redekop, “Reconciling Nuers with Dinkas: A Girardian approach to conflict resolution,” Religion, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2007, pp. 64-84
D. Vincent Riordan, “The Scapegoat Mechanism in Human Evolution: An Analysis of René Girard’s Hypothesis on the Process of Hominization,” Biological Theory, Dec. 2021, pp. 1–15
Miguel Rolland, “Mesoamerican Civilizations and Sacrifice,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 61-67
Miguel Rolland, “Migration and Identity Appropriation in Ancient Mesoamerica,” in Imagining the Other: Mimetic Theory, Migration, Exclusionary Politics, and the Ambiguous Other, ed. Dietmar Regensburger and Nikolaus Wandinger (Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 2023), pp. 139-57
Lucien Scubla, “Vindicatory System, Sacrificial System: From Opposition to Reconciliation,” in Vengeance, ed. Mark Rogin Anspach (Stanford French Review, Vol. 16, No. 1, 1992), pp. 55-76
Lucien Scubla, “Hocart and the royal road to anthropological understanding,” tr. Declan Quigley, Social Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2002, pp. 359-76
Lucien Scubla, “Sacred King, Sacrificial Victim, Surrogate Victim, or Frazer, Hocart, Girard,” in The Character of Kingship, ed. Declan Quigley (Oxford: Berg, 2005), pp. 39-62
Lucien Scubla. Giving Life, Giving Death: Psychoanalysis, Anthropology, Philosophy, tr. M. B. DeBevoise. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2016
Lucien Scubla, “Lévi-Strauss and Girard on Mythology and Ritual,” in The Palgrave Handbook of Mimetic Theory and Religion, ed. James Alison and Wolfgang Palaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 85-93
Robert Segal, “The Frazerian roots of contemporary theories of religion and violence,” Religion, Vol. 37, No. 1, 2007, pp. 4-25
Simon Simonse, “The Burst and the Cut Stomach: The Metabolism of Violence and Order in NiloticKingship,” Nilo-Ethiopian Studies (Osaka), Vol. 2, 1994, pp. 1-13
Simon Simonse, “Tragedy, Ritual and Power in Nilotic Regicide: The Regicidal Dramas of the Eastern Nilotes,” in The Character of Kingship, ed. Declan Quigley (Oxford: Berg, 2005), pp. 67–100
Simon Simonse, “Kings and Gods as Ecological Agents: From Reciprocity to Unilateralism in the Management of Natural Resources,” Contagion: Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture, Vol. 12, 2006, pp. 31-46
Simon Simonse, “Sacrifice as a Game-changer between Negative and Positive Reciprocity,” Concilium, 2013/4, pp. 36-48
Simon Simonse, “Can we be at peace without sacrifice? The connection between sacrifice and crisis in the work of René Girard,” in The Actuality of Sacrifice: Past and Present, ed. A. Houtman et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 323-42
Simon Simonse. Kings of Disaster: Dualism, Centralism and the Scapegoat King in Southeastern Sudan, 2nded. Kampala: Fountain, 2017
Simon Simonse, “Complementary Segmentary Opposition, Early Kingship and the Looming State: Bridging the Dichotomy of African Political Systems,” in African Political Systems Revisited: Changing Perspectives on Statehood and Power, ed. Aleksandar Bošković and Günther Schlee (New York: Berghahn, 2022), pp. 47-78
Elizabeth Traube, “Incest and Mythology: Anthropological and Girardian Perspectives,” Berkshire Review, Vol. 14, 1979, pp. 37-54
Cas Wepener, “The Practice of Ritual Sacrifice and the Role of Religion in Development: A South African Practical Theological Exploration,” Stellenbosch Theological Journal, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2021, pp. 1-18
Masao Yamaguchi, “Towards a Poetics of the Scapegoat,” tr. James Valentine, in Violence and Truth: On the Work of René Girard, ed. Paul Dumouchel (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988), pp. 179-91