Scott Cowdell is Associate Professor and Research Fellow in Public and Contextual Theology at Charles Sturt University, Australia, Canon Theologian of the Canberra-Goulburn Anglican Diocese, and Founding President of the Australian Girard Seminar

Chris Fleming is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Anthropology, School of Humanities and Languages, the University of Western Sydney, Australia. His is the author of Violence and Mimesis (2004) and is current Vice-President of the Australian Girard Seminar.

Joel Hodge is Lecturer in Systematic Theology, School of Theology, Australian Catholic University, Australia. He is the author of Resisting Violence and Victimisation: Christian Faith and Solidarity in East Timor and is current Treasurer and Secretary of the Australian Girard Seminar.

Wolfgang Palaver is Professor and Chair of the Institute for Systematic Theology at the University of Innsbruck, Austrian, and President of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R).

Foreword
Ann Astell

Contributors

Introduction
Scott Cowdell, Joel Hodge and Chris Fleming

Part I: Finding Our Bearings
1. René Girard, Modernity, and Apocalypse
Scott Cowdell

Part II: Biblical Studies
2. "Like Being Dragged Through a Bush Backwards": Hints of the Shape of Conversion's Adventure
James Alison
3. Finding the Way: How to Study Scripture with the Help of Scripture and the Desert Fathers
Drasko Dizdar
4. Sacred Men and Sacred Goats: Mimetic Theory in Levitical and Passion Intertext
Debra Anstis

Part III: Theology
5. Beyond Locked Doors: The Breath of the Risen One
Anthony J. Kelly, CSsR
6. Torture and Faith: The Violent Sacred and Christian Resistance in East Timor
Joel Hodge
7. Girard and the Tasks of Theology
Kevin Lenehan

Part IV: Literary Studies
8. René Girard, Jacques Derrida's The Gift of Death, and Salman Rushdie
Vijay Mishra
9. Grace Can Be Violent: Flannery's O'Connor's Novelistic Truth
Jeremiah Alberg

Part V: History and Political Thought
[...]ope and Enmity: How Christianity Can Contribute to a Positive Identity
Wolfgang Palaver
11. Herodian Aspects of the English Reformation Monarchy: Girardian Insights into Unacknowledged Brutality
Ivan Head
12. Human Rights: Controlling the Uncontrollable?
Peter Stork

Part VI: Developments and Critiques
13. Hard Evidence for Girardian Mimetic Theory? Intersubjectivity and Mirror Neurons
Scott Cowdell
14. Nietzsche, the Last Atheist
Chris Fleming and John O'Carroll
15. Is All Desire Mimetic? Lonergan and Girard on the Nature of Desire and Authenticity
Neil Ormerod

Glossary of Key Girardian Terms
Some Further Reading
Index