On Violence and Religion

Last week I posted the five programmes in which I introduced Ideas listeners to the thought of René Girard in 2,000.   Since 1990 an international organization called the Colloquium on Violence and Religion (COV&R) has existed to explore, criticize  and further develop Girard's "mimetic theory."  This organization publishes a journal called Contagion and meets for an annual congress  somewhere in Europe or North America.  In 2006 COV&R met for the first time in Canada at St. Paul University in Ottawa.  The host was Vern Redekop, a professor at St. Paul, and one of the founding members of COV&R.   My high regard for Girard's work made this an auspicious occasion for me, and I wanted to honour it on Ideas.  My two-hour report on the meeting was broadcast later that year.  There is, inevitably, some overlap with the earlier series.  René Girard was at the conference, and I interviewed him again, of course.  But, in these programmes, much more attention is given to his collaborators and students and to their interpretation and use of Girard's work.   Included are Sandor Goodhart, Wolfgang Palaver, Gil Baillie, Richard McGuigan, Marie Claude Sicard, Diana Culbertson, Petra Steinmar-Pösel, Rebecca Adams and Vern Redekop...