Over the course of seven lectures, the core of René Girard’s Mimetic Theory will be presented in a systematic and accessible way. We will illuminate Girard’s most important ideas — mimesis, mimetic desire, the scapegoat mechanism, the epistemology of love — and their relevance for our contemporary world.

In order to do so, we will analyze modern and historical phenomena under a Girardian lens: the genealogy of capitalism and law, the founding of Rome, the Cuban missile crisis, modern victimhood culture, the Sino-American trade war, COVID and social unrest, the philosophy of innovation and many more. We will engage frequently with the western philosophical canon — Nietzsche, Hegel, Plato, Rousseau, and Marx — and even more frequently with the world literary canon — the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Vedas, Homer, Sophocles, Shakespeare, and Dostoevsky. Rest assured, all of these external sources will be gently introduced alongside Girard’s own ideas. No prerequisites are necessary other than interest.

By the end of this intellectual journey, you will have an intimate understanding of how mimetic forces shape your life and human societies at large. You will have grasped, according to Girard at least, the fundamental logic driving human history since the genesis of human evolution all the way to the present moment.