Violence, Desire, And The Sacred, Volume 2: Ren... Apr 2026

While the first volume established the "how"—the way we borrow our desires from others—this second installment investigates the "where." It traces the trajectory of the as it moves through various cultural and historical contexts, moving from the sacrificial rituals of antiquity to the secular, often camouflaged violence of the modern age. Key themes explored in this volume include:

The influence of René Girard’s mimetic theory has rippled far beyond the walls of theology and literary criticism, finding a profound and unsettling home in the study of human history and social order. In Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 2 , the focus shifts from the foundational mechanics of mimesis to the visceral, often bloody ways these forces manifest in the real world. Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 2: Ren...

The volume bridges the gap between Girard’s intuitive anthropology and the empirical findings of history and sociology, testing whether his theories hold up under the weight of historical data. While the first volume established the "how"—the way

Ultimately, Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 2 is a sobering reflection on the human condition. It suggests that until we understand the borrowed nature of our desires, we are doomed to repeat the cycles of rivalry and exclusion that have defined our species since its inception. The volume bridges the gap between Girard’s intuitive

How modern societies, despite their claims of secularism, still rely on Girardian "sacred" structures to contain internal conflict.

The contributors to this volume don’t just echo Girard; they challenge and expand his work. They ask whether the "revelation" of the scapegoat mechanism—the Christian insight that the victim is innocent—has truly freed us from violence, or if it has simply made our conflicts more desperate as we lose the ancient tools used to end them.

A look at how contemporary politics and media have reinvented the sacrificial victim, often under the guise of justice or ideological purity.