Conversations with René Girard

French theorist René Girard was one of the major thinkers of the twentieth century. Read by international leaders, quoted by the French media, Girard influenced such writers as J.M. Coetzee and Milan Kundera. Dubbed “the new Darwin of the human sciences” and one of the most compelling thinkers of the age, Girard spent nearly four decades at Stanford exploring what it means to be human and making major contributions to philosophy, literary criticism, psychology and theology with his mimetic theory.

This is the first collection of interviews with Girard, one that brings together discussions on Cervantes, Dostoevsky, and Proust alongside the causes of conflict and violence and the role of imitation in human behavior. Granting important insights into Girard's life and thought, these provocative and lively conversations underline Girard's place as leading public intellectual and profound theorist.

Cynthia L. Haven was previously Milena Jesenská Journalism Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Austria, Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, USA and Voegelin Fellow at the Hoover Institution, USA.

She is the author of Evolution of Desire: A Life of René Girard, the first-ever biography of the French theorist. She writes regularly for The Times Literary Supplement, and has contributed to The New York Times, The Nation, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. She has published several other books as well, including volumes on Czeslaw Milosz and Joseph Brodsky.