Girard, Schmitt, Strauss

Catalog description

An examination of central concepts of Rene Girard, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: mimetic desire, sacrifice, the friend-enemy distinction, political theology, and the crisis of modernity. Key topics in the course will include the pertinence of religion or theology for understanding political formations; literary criticism; conflict and entropy in social order; tensions between tradition and universalism. Primary texts such as Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Schmitt's Concept of the Political and Land and Sea and Strauss Natural Right and History. No auditors.