Bloomsbury Revelations / Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World

BOOK I: FUNDAMENTAL ANTHROPOLOGY Chapter 1: The Victimage Mechanism as the Basis of Religion Acquisitive Mimesis and Mimetic Rivalry; The Function of the Law: Prohibiting Imitation; The Function of Ritual: Imperative Mimesis; Sacrifice and the Victimage Mechanism; The Theory of Religion Chapter 2: The Development of Culture and Institutions Variants in Ritual; Sacred Kingship and Central Power; The Polyvalence of Ritual and the Specificity of Institutions; The Domestication of Animals and Ritual Hunting; Sexual Prohibitions and the Principle of Exchange; Death and Funeral Rites Chapter 3: The Process of Hominization Posing the Problem; Ethology and Ethnology; The Victimage Mechanism and Hominization; The Transcendental Signifier Chapter 4: Myth: The Invisibility of the Founding Murder The 'Radical Elimination'; 'Negative Connotation', 'Positive Connotation'; Physical Signs of the Surrogate Victim Chapter 5: Texts of Persecution Persecution Demystified: The Achievement of the Modern and Western World; The Double Semantic Sense of the Word 'Scapegoat'; The Historical Emergence of the Victimage Mechanism BOOK II: THE JUDAEO-CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES Chapter 1: Things hidden since the Foundation of the World Similarities between the Biblical Myths and World Mythology; The Distinctiveness of the Biblical Myths; The Gospel Revelation of the Founding Murder Chapter 2: A Non-Sacrificial Reading of the Gospel Text Christ and Sacrifice; The Impossibility of the Sacrificial Reading; Apocalypse and Parable; Powers and Principalities; The Preaching of the Kingdom; Kingdom and Apocalypse; The Non-Sacrificial Death of Christ; The Divinity of Christ; The Virgin Birth Chapter 3: The Sacrificial Reading and Historical Christianity Implications of the Sacrificial Reading; The Epistle to the Hebrews; The Death of Christ and the End of the Sacred; Sacrifice of the Other and Sacrifice of the Self; The Judgement of

René Girard

Rene Girard's work is both a rationally articulated study and a prophetic vision of the hidden origins of culture and the nature of cultural processes. In its enormous, breathtaking scope it suggests the projects of those nineteenth century intellectual giants (Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud) who still cast long shadows today. By contrast, contemporary criticism seems paltry and faint-hearted. Comparative Literature