COV&R at the American Academy of Religion
Online, November 29-December 10, 2020

Times and information on how to attend to be announced.

Session I: Beyond Scapegoats: Marginalized Voices in Conversation with René Girard

Convener and Moderator: Grant Kaplan, Saint Louis University

  1. Julia Robinson Moore (The University of North Carolina at Charlotte), “Mimetic Theory through the Voices of the Little Rock Nine: Black Scapegoats in the Desegregation of Central High School, 1957-1958.”
  2. Martha Reineke (University of Northern Iowa), “An Escalation to Extremes:  Purity Spirals and Victimization.”
  3. Chelsea J. King (Sacred Heart University), “Girard, the Feminist? Bringing Mimetic Theory into Dialogue with Feminist Critiques of Sacrifice”

Session II: Mimetic Theory and Christian Spirituality

Convener: Grant Kaplan, Saint Louis University 

Moderator: Brian Robinette, Boston College

  1. Jared Price (Multnomah Biblical Seminary), “‘All Shall Be Well’: Julian of Norwich, Rene Girard, Jacques Lacan, and the ‘Other Side’ of Christian Mysticism”
  2. Aline Lewis (Graduate Theological Union), “Mimetic Desire in Ignatius of Loyola’s Autobiography”
  3. Joseph Rivera (Dublin City University), “Eucharist as Contemplative Action: A Girardian Perspective”

Co-Sponsored Session with Nineteenth-Century Theology
Academic Rivalry in the Modern Age: Thinking with Girard and Beyond

Convener: Zachary Purvis

  1. Grant Kaplan (Saint Louis University), “Brothers or Enemies? Revisiting Academic Rivalry in the Möhler/Baur Debate”
  2. Bryan Wagoner (Davis and Elkins College), “Franz Overbeck and Carl Albert Bernouilli Through the Lens of Girardian Mimetic Rivalry”

Respondent: Johannes Zachhuber (University of Oxford)