Mimetic Theory and Film

Description

The interdisciplinary French-American thinker Rene Girard (1923-2015) has been one of the towering figures of the humanities in the last half-century. The title of Rene Girard's first book offered his own thesis in summary form: romantic lie and novelistic truth [mensonge romantique et verite romanesque]. And yet, for a thinker whose career began by an engagement with literature, it came as a shock to some that, in La Conversion de l'art, Girard asserted that the novel may be an "outmoded" form for revealing humans to themselves. However, Girard never specified what, if anything, might take the place of the novel. This collection of essays is one attempt at answering this question, by offering a series of analyses of films that aims to test mimetic theory in an area in which relatively little has so far been offered. Does it make any sense to talk of verite filmique? In addition, Mimetic Theory and Film is a response to the widespread objection that there is no viable "Girardian aesthetics." One of the main questions that this collection considers is: can we develop a genre-specific mimetic analysis (of film), and are we able to develop anything approaching a "Girardian aesthetic"? Each of the contributors addresses these questions through the analysis of a film.

Paolo Diego Bubbio is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the author of Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition (2014) and God and the Self in Hegel: Beyond Subjectivism (2017). His most recent book, entirely devoted to mimetic theory, is entitled Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes (2018). Chris Fleming is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Social and Cultural Analysis at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is an editor of the Bloomsbury series on mimetic theory, Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, and the author of Rene Girard: Violence and Mimesis (2004) and Modern Conspiracy: The Importance of Being Paranoid (with Emma A. Jane) (Bloomsbury, 2014). He is also co-translator of Rene Girard and Raymund Schwager: Correspondence 1974-1991 (2016).

Recognizing a growing interest at the international level, this volume is a timely publication in studies of film, philosophy, and the work of Rene Girard, exploring with insight and acuity the intersections of mimetic dynamics, sacrifice, and the moving image. Assembling authoritative critical voices on mimetic theory and analysing both classic and recent films, this book shows the hermeneutical and critical productivity of Girard's theoretical insights for film studies. A must-read for anyone in the field. * Pierpaolo Antonello, Reader in Modern Italian Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge, UK, and co-editor of Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: Rene Girard and Literary Criticism (2015) * A strong collection of major Girard scholars who persuasively argue for reading film through Rene Girard's mimetic theory. The introduction by Fleming and Bubbio itself is a valuable guide for extending Girard's ideas. This volume will be of great interest and use for readers in film studies, popular culture, and those following the exciting (re)turn to Girard occurring at Bloomsbury. * William A. Johnsen, Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA, and editor of Contagion: The Journal of The Colloquium on Violence and Religion * For over fifty years, Rene Girard's mimetic theory has given us a startling way of reading texts, especially novels and other classic literature. His approach identifies a strong complicity between 'the sacred' and the violence which is at the root of social and cultural formation. The present volume offers an overdue extension of this hermeneutic, by exploring the mimetic dimension of cinema. However, the essays are far from being a simple mechanical application of Girard's theory. Once again, the remarkable energy and creativity of the Australian circle of Girardian scholars have yielded fresh questions, but also a new fertility, with regard to Girardian theory. * Michael Kirwan, SJ, Research Associate, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK, and co-editor of Philosophy, Theology and the Jesuit Tradition (Bloomsbury, 2017) *