Jeff Russell

Sorry, this is not a comment on your post, which I have not (yet) read. It is a comment on your question re Girard's mimetic theory. This theory seems to exert a strange attraction on some people I care about, and they will commend it to me as the work of an "anthropologist" (my BA, in the long long ago, was in the subject of anthropology). When I looked into the theory, it seemed to include a great deal of "backwards projection" onto so-called "primitive" societies, a trait that I have never found impressive. And, so, I decided to send a tweet to the then living David Graeber as to whether Girard could be considered to have carried out significant anthropological work. And Graeber graciously replied to me, (paraphrase) "no, Girard has not done any ethnographic work. Girard is, however, known for "forcing" the work of other ethnographers (not to speak of mythology at large) into the procrustean beds of his theory."