René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis

In Ren Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of Ren Girard's controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard's thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard's singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible's exposure of the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism. In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard's basic intellectual vision (mimesis, sacrifice, biblical hermeneutics) and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of "secularization" and "modernity," as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard (particularly his Battling to the End) and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard's own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: "What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?"

Author: Scott Cowdell
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: 11/30/2015
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780268023744

About the Author
Scott Cowdell is associate professor of theology at Charles Stuart University. He is author and editor of a number of books, including Violence, Desire and the Sacred: Girard's Mimetic Theory Across the Disciplines (edited with Chris Fleming and Joel Hodge).

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