The Australian Girard Seminar

A number of new monographs have been published in the book series, Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, with Bloomsbury Academic, including Susan Connelly’s East Timor, René Girard and Neocolonial Violence: Scapegoating as Australian Policy, Carly Osborn’s Tragic Novels, René Girard and the American Dream: Sacrifice in Suburbia and Joel Hodge’s Violence in the Name of God: The Militant Jihadist Response to Modernity. They come with high recommendations. Congratulations to the authors!

The Australian Girard Seminar (AGS) has launched a new collection of essays, “Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 2: René Girard and Sacrifice in Life, Love and Literature” (edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming and Joel Hodge, published by Bloomsbury). The book was launched by Right Rev’d Dr Stephen Pickard, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture  The launch occurred on the Friday evening of the 2014 AGS conference (17 January), with over 65 in attendance. The essays are mostly derived from the 2012 AGS Conference.

For more information, or to purchase the book, go to:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/violence-desire-and-the-sacred-volume-2-9781623561963/

The 4th annual conference of the Australian Girard Seminar was hosted at St Patrick’s Campus (Melbourne), Australian Catholic University, on 17th-18th January 2014. The topic of the conference was “Crisis and Its Management: Leadership and Relationship in Organisations and Communities”, with keynote speakers, Assoc. Prof. Jennifer George (Melbourne Business School, University of Melbourne) and Rev. Prof. Józef Niewiadomski (University of Innsbruck and visiting fellow, ACU). 46 people were registered for the conference. On the Friday evening of the conference, the collection of essays, “Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, Volume 2: René Girard and Sacrifice in Life, Love and Literature” (edited by Scott Cowdell, Chris Fleming and Joel Hodge, published by Bloomsbury, ) was launched by Right Rev’d Dr Stephen Pickard, Executive Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/violence-desire-and-the-sacred-volume-2-9781623561963/). Following the launch, there was a public lecture, “Risky Business: Mimetic Theory, Executive Envy and Corporate Competitiveness”, by Assoc. Prof. Jenny George. Both events were well attended, with over 65 people. The feedback from the conference was very positive. Many thanks to the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy, Australian Catholic University, for supporting the conference, especially for it to be hosted at ACU.

Photos are available at the 2014 Conference page.

We hope to see everyone again in 2015!

Listen to an interesting radio program “Not peace but a sword” about violence and religion, which features Girardians, Scott Cowdell and James Alison. The program was aired in December 2012 on the ABC’s Encounter program:

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/encounter/not-peace-but-a-sword/4403508

At the inaugural conference of the AGS, Rev. Associate Professor Scott Cowdell spoke with Eureka Street about the bold nature of Girard’s mimetic theory that makes Girard like “The ‘Charles Darwin’ of the Human Sciences”.

Click on “read more” to see the video.

Peter Kirkwood has written an article called ‘Intimacy of religion and violence’ based on an interview with Wolfgang Palaver. The article is based on Palaver’s visit to this year’s AGS conference and is accompanied by a video interview with snippets from his keynote presentation. You can view the article here.

René Girard offers the most comprehensive, boldest, and most controversial account of human motivation, culture and religion. This French-American thinker weaves literature, anthropology, philosophy and theology into a developing project with many convinced followers in all these areas, also many critics. His unique insights have found their way into boardrooms, counselling rooms, lecture halls and pulpits around the world.

A number of Australian academics working on Girard have got together and founded the Australian Girard Seminar (AGS). It’s first Conference, held in Sydney in January 2011, attracted approximately forty interested people from many walks of life—not just academics by any means. Reading groups are underway in Eastern capitals (also one in a rural village called Tilba!). Annual gatherings, this website, and links to the wider Girardian world are the ways that we can help you get to know Girard, and be part of a real historical breakthrough in human understanding.