Conference Schedule

Unless otherwise noted, all sessions will be held in McKenna Hall.

Throughout the conference, refreshments and the book exhibit will be located in the lower level dining area, McKenna Hall.

All the musical preludes will be performed by Kathy Schuth and Sheila McCarthy.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

2:00 p.m. Registration

4:00-5:45 Plenary Lecture and Discussion Concerning a Question among Girardians (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “The Burning of the Piper’s Hut”
Moderator: Diana Culbertson, O.P., Kent State University
Speaker:James G. Williams, Syracuse University
Hamerton-Kelly on Violence and Mimesis: A Critical Appreciation
Respondent: Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa

5:45 – 7:00 Dinner (on your own)

7:30 Welcome and Opening Keynote Lecture (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude:
“Ships are Sailing”
“Gravel Walk”
“The Flogging Reel”

Introduction: Wolfgang Palaver, University of Innsbruck, President of COV&R
Preliminary Remarks: Ann W. Astell and Margaret Pfeil, Co-organizers
The Spirit of du Lac (audiovisual presentation)

Moderator: Kevin Mongrain, Program of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame
Speaker: Cyril O’Regan, Department of Theology, University of Notre Dame, Girard in the Spaces of Apocalyptic
Respondents: James Alison, Independent Scholar
Wolfgang Palaver, University of Innsbruck, Austria

Thursday, July 1, 2010

8:30 – 10:00 Plenary: Disabilities, Assimilation, and Scapegoating (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “The Shepherd’s Wife Waltz”
Moderator: Essaka Joshua, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Margaret Brinig, Notre Dame Law School, Families, Mimetic Rivalry, and Disabilities
Toby Siebers, University of Michigan, In the Name of Pain

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:45 Parallel Sessions

Violence and Social Thought: Girard and Arendt (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Moderator: Jeremiah Alberg, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan
Speakers: Thomas Ryba, Notre Dame Theologian-in-Residence, Purdue University, Aztlán La Raza and the Chicana Reconquista Movement: Myth, Race, and Mimesis in The Origins of Totalitarianism
Norma C. Moruzzi, University of Illinois in Chicago, Reading Arendt in Tehran: Politics, Violence, and the Author as Scapegoat

Panel on Mimesis and Peace through Commerce (Mendoza College of Business, Jordan Auditorium)
Moderator: John McGeeney, Sypris Solutions, Inc.
Panelists:Peter Thiel, Clarium Capital Management
Wilhelm Guggenberger, University of Innsbruck, Austria
Georges Enderle, University of Notre Dame
Keith Ross, Raven Foundation

11:45 – 1:15 Lunch (on your own)

1:30 – 3:00 Concurrent Seminar Discussion Sessions

1. Mimicry and Mimetic Theory (Room 100-104)
Seminar leaders: Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame; Ernest Cole and Curtis Gruenler, Hope College; Andreas Oberprantacher, University of Innsbruck

2. Transforming Christianity: Resurrection and Apocalypse (Room 210-214)
Seminar leaders: Anthony Bartlett and Dorothy Whiston, Theology and Peace

3. Becoming vs. Copying: Proposing a ‘Right Brain’ Solution to Intrapersonal Mimetic Desire/Rivalry (Room 112-114)
Seminar leader: John Appleton

4. Jean-Michel Oughourlian on Relationship and Rivalry (Room 106)
Seminar leader: Frank C. Richardson, University of Texas-Austin

5. Theology and Film with a Mimetic Focus: A High School Theology Course (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Seminar leaders: Betsy Hansbrough and Students, St. Teresa’s Academy

6. Victims of Victims? The Mimetic Crisis in the Holy Land from a Sociolinguistic Perspective (Room 202)
Seminar leaders: Michael Elias, Dutch Girard Society, and David Burrell, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame

3:00 – 3:30 Break

3:30 – 5:00 Plenary: Student Award Winners of the Raymund Schwager, S.J., Memorial Essay Prizes (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude:
“St. Ann’s Reel”
“John Ryan’s Polka”

Moderator: Margaret Pfeil, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Anne McTaggart, University of Alberta, Canada, Shame, Guilt, and Mimetic Theory
Vanessa Avery-Wall, Hartford Seminary, USA, The Jewish Vaccine against Mimetic Desire: A Girardian Exploration of a Sabbath Ritual
Pasquale Morabito, Messina University, Italy, St. George and the Dragon: Cult, Culture, and the Foundation of the City

5:00 Free Time

5:30 – 7:00 Dinner (on your own)

Dining Option: Oak Room in South Dining Hall, Readers’ Theatre Performance of Dissing or Kissing: A One-Act Play by Anthony Bartlett, (Honorable Mention, Essay Contest) sponsored by the Raven Foundation, starring: Susannah Bartlett, Dorothy Whiston, and Stacey Gassman

7:30 – 9:00 Plenary: The Annual Raymund Schwager, S.J., Memorial Lecture (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “Coming through the Rye”
Moderator: Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame
Words In Memory of Raymund Schwager, S.J. by Jozef Niewiadomski, University of Innsbruck
Speaker: Susan L. Mizruchi, Boston University
The School of Martyrdom: Culture and Class in Catcher in the Rye
Respondent: William Johnsen, Michigan State University

9:00-10:30 Wine and Cheese Reception

Friday, July 2, 2010

8:30 – 10:00 Parallel Sessions

Moderator: Daniel Philpott, University of Notre Dame
The Amish Response to the Violence at Nickel Mines: Practicing a Patient Spirituality (Hesburgh Center Auditorium, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies)
Speaker: Steven Nolt, Goshen College
Respondent: Willard M. Swartley, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Surviving Violence: The Potawatomi (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Moderator: Margaret Pfeil, University of Notre Dame
Panel: George Godfrey, Historian, Citizen Band of the Potawatomi
Rich Meyer, Independent Scholar, Goshen, Indiana
Fr. Thomas Blantz, History Department, University of Notre Dame
Respondent: Vern Neufeld Redekop, St. Paul University, Ottawa, Canada

Suggested Reading: Vern Neufeld Redekop, From Violence to Blessing, pp.187-251.

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:45 Plenary: Mimesis and the Globalization of Religious Terror (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “How Can I Keep from Singing”
Moderator: Suzanne Ross, Raven Foundation
Speaker: James W.Jones, Rutgers University
Respondent: Charles Selengut, Drew University

11:45 – 1:15 Lunch (on your own)

Lunch Option for Graduate Students: Professionalization Discussion with Members of the COV&R Board: Martha Reineke, Therese Onderdenwijngaard, and Suzanne Ross
Location: Geddes Hall Coffee House (next to Hesburgh Library)

1:15 – 2:45 Plenary: Images of Lynching (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
Moderator: Michael Tzvi Novick, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Mechal Sobel, Haifa University, Israel, Bill Traylor’s Forest of Symbols
Erika Doss, University of Notre Dame, Lynching Memorials and Sites of Shame: Transforming Violence in American Commemorative Cultures
Respondent: Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University

2:45 – 3:00 Break

3:00 – 4:30 Concurrent Sessions

1. Prison (Room 100-104)
Moderator: Michael Griffin, Holy Cross College
Speakers: Grant Kaplan, St. Louis University, Girard Behind Bars: Teaching Mimetic Theory to Convicts
James Ward, St. Stephen’s Church, Cracking the Prison Cultural Code: Victim/Offender Groups as Non-sacrificial Communities of Redemption
Matthew Erdel, University of Notre Dame, The Christian and Punishment in a Violent World: John Howard Yoder’s Interaction with Girardian Theory in The Case for Punishment

2. Raven Foundation Essay Contest (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Moderator: Adam Ericksen, Raven Foundation
Speakers: Matthew Packer, Buena Vista University, “Better at Being American than America”: The Chinese Copy, Too—Like We Do (Winner)
Vanessa Avery-Wall, Hartford Seminary, Watchmen and Mimetic Theory: Are We Ready for Rorschach? (Honorable Mention)
Benjamin Barber, University of Victoria, British Columbia, South Park: Wannabes, Victims, and the Death Camp of Tolerance (Honorable Mention)

3. Panel – René Girard and Philip Rieff (Room 210-214)
Moderator: Thomas Ryba, Purdue University, Notre Dame Theologian-in-residence
Speakers: Stephen L. Gardner, University of Tulsa, The Return of the Living Dead: Philip Rieff and René Girard on Order –In-Decline
James Poulos, Georgetown University, Unrealized Selves: Philip Rieff on Family, Individuality, and the Nature of Violence
David Humbert, Laurentian University, Desire and the Politics of Anti-Culture: René Girard and Philip Rieff on the Mystique of Transgression

4. Resurrection (Room 106)
Moderator: Stephanie Perdew, First Congregational Church, UCC
Speakers: Pablo Bandera, Independent Scholar, The Physics of a Miracle
Leonard DeLorenzo, University of Notre Dame, Alison, Creation, and Resurrection
Allen Johnson, Independent Scholar, Contagion in the Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement: A Good Mimesis?

5. Desire and Heroic Love (Room 108)
Moderator: Anne McTaggart, University of Alberta, Canada
Speakers: Christa Bucklin, University of Connecticut, Calderon’s Mimetic Deseo: Personified Desire in the Auto sacramental of Baroque Spain
Nalin Ranasinghe, Assumption College, Trojan Horse or Troilus’ Whore? Ulysses and the Rape of Troy
Julio Hernando, Indiana University, South Bend, Sacrificial and Un-sacrificial Epics: An Examination of El Cid

6. Violence and the City (Room 200)
Moderator: Pasquale Morabito, Messina University, Italy
Speakers: Ashleen Kelly, University of Notre Dame, “To Spare the Conquered and Beat Down the Proud”: Augustine’s Theory of Politics as Sacrifice and Compassion
Sandor Goodhart, Purdue University, Torah, Cities, and Violence: Reading the Toledot and the Tower of Bavel

7. Moral Theory (Room 112-114)
Moderator: Barbara Sain, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Charles K. Bellinger, Texas Christian University, Abortion and the Drama of Human Motivations: With Reference to Kenneth Burke and René Girard
Tyler Graham, Independent Scholar, Imitation in Contemporary Catholic Moral Theology
Michael Tzvi Novick, University of Notre Dame, Charity and the Scapegoat: On Structures of Exchange in Some Rabbinic Texts

8. Violence of Empire and Ritual Representation as Transformative (Room 202)
Moderator: Margaret Pfeil, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Daniel P. Castillo,University of Notre Dame, If Only You Had Eyes to See: The Threat of the “Mythologizing Cross” in the Space of Empire
Michael de las Casas Rolland, Arizona State University, The Chamula maxetik – Transformers of Historical Violence through Ritual Animation
Suzanne Lundquist, Brigham Young University, Unveiling Girardʼs “Immemorial Lie,” Native Americans, and Positive Reciprocity

4:30 – 4:45 Break

4:45 – 6:15 Concurrent Sessions

1. Indigenous Communities and Ritual (Room 100-104)
Moderator: Robert Daly, S.J., Boston College
Speakers: Paulson Veliyannoor, Claretian Missionaries, Morphing Crowd into Community: Eucharist as Ritual and Anti-ritual
Todd David Whitmore, University of Notre Dame, Ritualizing Return: Christian Support for Traditional Acholi Rites of Reconciliation in Northern Uganda
Joel Hodge, Australian Catholic University, The Transcendence of State Violence and Christian Prayer

2. Apocalyptic (Room 210-214)
Moderator: Brian Barrett, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Justin Jackson, Hillsdale College, “And Suffering Appeared on their Faces”: Dostoevskyan Apocalypse, Dostoevskyan Paradise
Marco Russo, Institute for Systematic Theology, Innsbruck, Paraphrasing Clausewitz: Peace Is a Mere Continuation of War By Other Means. About Bauer’s “Barbarism” and the “Apocalypse of the Prodigal Sons”
Nikolaus Wandinger, University of Innsbruck, Original Sin, Grace, and the Apocalypse

3. Girard and Post-Structural Thought (Room 108)
Moderator: Jonathan Fine, IDC and IDT, Herzliya, Israel
Speakers: Colby Dickinson, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, The End of Representation: The Figure of the Homo sacer in Giorgio Agamben and Its Affinity with the Work of René Girard
Eric Bugyis, Yale University, Toward a Rational Critique of Violence: Beyond Habermas’ Semantic Genealogy and Girard’s Mimetic Anthropology
Woody Belangia, Augusta State University, Metaphysical Desire in Girard and Plato

4. Nonviolence (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Moderator: Martha Reineke, University of Northern Iowa
Speakers: Russell Powell, Independent Scholar, Ethics of Hope: Praxis in the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement of 1963 Examined through René Girard’s Concept of Mimetic Crisis
John Roedel, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Overcoming the Humiliation of Oppression through Nonviolence: Using Mimetic Theory to Re-read Fanon
Tillman Russell, Purdue University, Transforming Violence: The Iraq War and the Rhetoric of Conscientious Objection

5. Victimization and Justice: Girard and Weil (Room 202)
Moderator: Julia Douthwaite, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Krista Duttenhaver, University of Notre Dame, The World and the Text: Simone Weil and René Girard on the Transformative Power of Reading
Jane Doering, University of Notre Dame, René Girard’s Mimetic Desire Seen through the “Great Beast” of Simone Weil

6. Scandal (Room 112-114)
Moderator: Thomas Michael, Independent Scholar
Speakers: Jim Grote, University of Louisville, “Oops! I Did It Again”: The Scandal of the Kiss
Jeremiah Alberg, International Christian University, Japan, Blessed Is the One Who Takes No Scandal in Me
Tadd Ruetenik, St. Ambrose University, Another View of Arthur Dimmesdale: A Profound Lesson in Scapegoating from The Scarlet Letter

7. In the Aftermath of Religious War (Room 200)
Moderator: Dorothy Whiston, Theology and Peace
Speakers: Michael Darcy, Duquesne University, Francisco Goya, Witness to Satan’s Rise
William Dever, Governors State University, Mimetic Principles during the English Restoration

8. Overlooked Scapegoat (Room 106)
Moderator: Curtis Gruenler, Hope College
Speakers: Andrew Cooper, Independent Scholar, The Youth Worker as Secular Priest
Emily Stetler, University of Notre Dame, Anti-Mimetic Scapegoating: Mental Illness’s Unaesthetic Pain
Richard West, Purdue University, Moving from “Hostile Environment” Sexual “Harrassment” Law to “Sexual Discomfort” Law: A Call for Terminological and Ideological Change

6:15 – 7:30 Dinner (on your own)

7:30 – 8:15 COV&R Business Meeting (McKenna Hall Auditorium)

8:45 Parallel Films and Discussion:
Inherit the Wind (McKenna Hall Auditorium), Introduced by Ann Astell, University of Notre Dame
MONSEÑOR (Geddes Hall Auditorium),Introduced by Robert Pelton, C.S.C.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

8:30 – 10:00 Concurrent Sessions

1. Suffering and Sacrifice (Room 112-114)
Moderator: Nancy Cavadini, Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend
Speakers: Sheila McCarthy, University of Notre Dame, Liturgy as Healing of Trauma: Girardian Insights on the Passion
Jordan Wales, University of Notre Dame, Can Violence Cast Out Violence? Christian Sacrifice According to St. Gregory the Great

2. Girard and the Theatre (Room 106)
Moderator: Justin Jackson, Hillsdale College
Speakers: Rico McCahon, Dartmouth University, and Mark Reeder, Reading “Footloose” through the Lens of The Bacchae and Mimetic Theory: Euripides’ The Bacchae, Starring Ren McCormack as Dionysius, directed by René Girard

3. Religion and Violence (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Moderator: Tyler Graham, Independent Scholar
Speakers: Jonathan Fine, IDC and IDT, Herzliya, Israel, Fundamental Religious Violence as a Minority Strategy to Form a Communal Existence as a Non-assimilated Counterculture
Per Bjørnar Grande, Bergen University College, Norway, Analyzing the Religious Nature of Mimesis and Desire in René Girard
Joshua Hren, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Cloaked Kings and Revealed Brothers

4. African American Experience (Room 100-104)
Moderator: Matthew Pattillo, New School for Social Research
Speakers: Hanna Mäkelä, University of Helsinki, “Let Evil Run Its Course”: Rivalry, Scapegoating, and Conversion in Toni Morrison’s Sula
Julia Robinson-Harmon, University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Strange Fruit: Mimetic Theory and the Lynching of Black Bodies

5. Mimetic Desire, Market Culture, and Possession (Room 210-214)
Moderator: Mary Hirschfeld, University of Notre Dame
Speakers: Christopher S. Morrissey, Redeemer Pacific College, Canada, Mimetic Desire According to Mad Men
Kyle Scott, University of Houston, Locke(ing) the Desire to Acquire: Using Girard to Unravel Locke’s Theory of Money
John McGeeney, Independent Scholar, Toward a Girardian Theory of Market and Regulatory Behaviors

6. Acculturation (Room 200)
Moderator: Christina Biava, Missouri State University
Speakers: Yoon K. Son, CUNY Graduate Center, Mirrored Images: Love and Loathing in Korean-American Fiction
Elisabeth Bayley, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Can the “Art” of Peace Become the Work of Violence? Explorations of Religious “Works of Peace” in Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop

7. Girard, Theology, and Spirituality (Room 202)
Moderator: Dietmar Regensburger, University of Innsbruck
Speakers: Kevin Mongrain, University of Notre Dame, Reading René Girard and Hans Urs von Balthasar as Theologians of Spiritual Transformation: Setting the Table for a Mutually Illuminating Dialogue
Petra Steinmair-­‐Pösel, Diocese of Feldkirch, Austria, The Church as Therapeutical Community

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:45 Plenary Lecture (McKenna Hall Auditorium)
Musical Prelude: “Simple Gifts”
Moderator: Ann Astell, University of Notre Dame
Speaker: Rhys Williams, Loyola University of Chicago, Liberal Individualism and Civic Integration among America’s New Religious Communities
Respondent: Kraig Beyerlein, Center for the Study of Religion and Society, University of Notre Dame
Respondent: Daniel Groody, C.S.C., Theology Department and the Institute for Latino Studies, University of Notre Dame

11:45 – 1:00 Lunch (on your own)

1:15 – 6:00 Excursion:
Mennohof, Shipshewana, Indiana

Or

2:00 – 3:00 A Walking Tour of Campus – Meet at Eck Visitors’ Center

Free Time

6:30 Banquet (by reservation) (Lower Level Dining Area, McKenna Hall)

Poetry Reading: Henry Weinfield, University of Notre Dame
Music: Kathy Schuth and Sheila McCarthy

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Worship Opportunity: 8:30 a.m. Mass at the Log Chapel
Fr. Thomas Blantz, C.S.C., Presider

Departure

Conference Contacts

Papers
Margaret Pfeil at mpfeil1@nd.edu or
Ann W. Astell at aastell@nd.edu

Registration
115 McKenna Hall
Registration
voice (574) 631-6691
fax (574) 631-8083