Mimetic Theory and Film

Author:   Dr Paolo Diego Bubbio (Western Sydney University, Australia) ,  Dr. Chris Fleming (Western Sydney University, AUS) ,  Joel Hodge (Western Sydney University Aus) ,  Scott Cowdell (Australian Catholic University Aus)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
ISBN:  

9781501367663


Pages:   224
Publication Date:   20 August 2020
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
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Mimetic Theory and Film


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Overview

The interdisciplinary French-American thinker René Girard (1923-2015) has been one of the towering figures of the humanities in the last half-century. The title of René Girard’s first book offered his own thesis in summary form: romantic lie and novelistic truth [mensonge romantique et vérité romanesque]. And yet, for a thinker whose career began by an engagement with literature, it came as a shock to some that, in La Conversion de l’art, Girard asserted that the novel may be an “outmoded” form for revealing humans to themselves. However, Girard never specified what, if anything, might take the place of the novel. This collection of essays is one attempt at answering this question, by offering a series of analyses of films that aims to test mimetic theory in an area in which relatively little has so far been offered. Does it make any sense to talk of vérité filmique? In addition, Mimetic Theory and Film is a response to the widespread objection that there is no viable “Girardian aesthetics.” One of the main questions that this collection considers is: can we develop a genre-specific mimetic analysis (of film), and are we able to develop anything approaching a “Girardian aesthetic”? Each of the contributors addresses these questions through the analysis of a film.

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Author:   Dr Paolo Diego Bubbio (Western Sydney University, Australia) ,  Dr. Chris Fleming (Western Sydney University, AUS) ,  Joel Hodge (Western Sydney University Aus) ,  Scott Cowdell (Australian Catholic University Aus)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic USA
Weight:   0.304kg
ISBN:  

9781501367663


ISBN 10:   1501367668
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   20 August 2020
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"Notes on Editors and Contributors Introduction Diego Bubbio and Chris Fleming, Western Sydney University, Australia 1. Buñuel’s Apocalypse Now Andrew McKenna, Loyola University Chicago, USA 2. On Fiction and Truth: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing Paul Dumouchel, Ritsumeikan Uiversity, Japan 3. Passing ""The Imitation Game"": Ex Machina, the Ethical, and Mimetic Theory Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University, USA 4. Femina ex-machina Jean-Pierre Dupuy, École Polytechnique, Paris, France 5. Looking for a Scapegoat and Finding Oneself: Kieslowski’s Decalogue and Mimetic Theory Jeremiah Alberg, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan 6. Violence and Politics in Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood Richard van Oort, University of Victoria, Canada 7. The Screenic Age Eric Gans, UCLA, USA 8. A Sacrificial Crisis Not Far Away: Star Wars as a Genuinely Modern Mythology Paolo Diego Bubbio, Western Sydney University, Australia 9. Mimetic Magic and Anti-Sacrificial Slayage: A Girardian Reading of Buffy the Vampire Slayer George A. Dunn, University of Indianapolis, USA, and Brian McDonald, Indiana University, USA 10. It’s Not the End of the World: Post-Apocalyptic Flourishing in Cartoon Network's Adventure Time Emma A. Jane, University of New South Wales, Australia Index"

Reviews

Recognizing a growing interest at the international level, this volume is a timely publication in studies of film, philosophy, and the work of Rene Girard, exploring with insight and acuity the intersections of mimetic dynamics, sacrifice, and the moving image. Assembling authoritative critical voices on mimetic theory and analysing both classic and recent films, this book shows the hermeneutical and critical productivity of Girard's theoretical insights for film studies. A must-read for anyone in the field. * Pierpaolo Antonello, Reader in Modern Italian Literature and Culture, University of Cambridge, UK, and co-editor of Mimesis, Desire, and the Novel: Rene Girard and Literary Criticism (2015) * A strong collection of major Girard scholars who persuasively argue for reading film through Rene Girard's mimetic theory. The introduction by Fleming and Bubbio itself is a valuable guide for extending Girard's ideas. This volume will be of great interest and use for readers in film studies, popular culture, and those following the exciting (re)turn to Girard occurring at Bloomsbury. * William A. Johnsen, Professor of English, Michigan State University, USA, and editor of Contagion: The Journal of The Colloquium on Violence and Religion * For over fifty years, Rene Girard's mimetic theory has given us a startling way of reading texts, especially novels and other classic literature. His approach identifies a strong complicity between 'the sacred' and the violence which is at the root of social and cultural formation. The present volume offers an overdue extension of this hermeneutic, by exploring the mimetic dimension of cinema. However, the essays are far from being a simple mechanical application of Girard's theory. Once again, the remarkable energy and creativity of the Australian circle of Girardian scholars have yielded fresh questions, but also a new fertility, with regard to Girardian theory. * Michael Kirwan, SJ, Research Associate, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK, and co-editor of Philosophy, Theology and the Jesuit Tradition (Bloomsbury, 2017) *


Author Information

Paolo Diego Bubbio is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the author of Sacrifice in the Post-Kantian Tradition: Perspectivism, Intersubjectivity, and Recognition (2014) and God and the Self in Hegel: Beyond Subjectivism (2017). His most recent book, entirely devoted to mimetic theory, is entitled Intellectual Sacrifice and Other Mimetic Paradoxes (2018). Chris Fleming is Associate Professor in Philosophy and Social and Cultural Analysis at Western Sydney University, Australia. He is an editor of the Bloomsbury series on mimetic theory, Violence, Desire, and the Sacred, and the author of René Girard: Violence and Mimesis (2004) and Modern Conspiracy: The Importance of Being Paranoid (with Emma A. Jane) (Bloomsbury, 2014). He is also co-translator of René Girard and Raymund Schwager: Correspondence 1974-1991 (2016).

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