Jesuit Colleges and Universities in the United States: A History, Michael T.Rizzi, The Catholic University of America Press, 2022 (ISBN 978‐0‐8132‐3616‐2), xvi + 486 pp., pb $34.95

Abstract

lugubrious build-up to Nazism, clarifying the way that a cult of the heroic dead became foundational for its indoctrination of the populace. All of this suggests that while there is some significant pushback against excesses in Girard's theory of sacrifice, there is also plenty of agreement that his readings of the scapegoating mechanism provide enlightening analyses of human behaviour under certain conditions of social arrangement.Overall, this volume provides a concise and manageable diversity of approaches to the question of how to appropriate Girard's legacy today.In several ways, it confirms the analytic power and fecundity of mimetic theory, even as it also shows its limits and its potential for misreading the plurality of cultural deposits. Queries regarding whether Girard's theories of sacrifice and scapegoating are truly 'universalisable' have been pointed out for decades already, as seen in some of John Milbank's theological deconstruction from the 1990s, as well as Jan Bremmer's scholarship from even earlier. So indeed these questions are not completely new, but the real benefit of this book is that it shows how a range of approaches can illuminate the benefits of mimetic theory, as well as showing where its explanatory capacity becomes less persuasive-particularly here as regards the theme of sacrifice. I think that after reading this book, one can no longer make simplistic inducements or allusions to Girard regarding how the moral problems of 'sacrificial' language outweigh its continued viability, and that therefore such terminology should be discarded as the product of a somewhat more benighted age. This volume shows, once again, the importance and continued relevancy of sacrificial practices in human societies, and that rather than being inherently repressive or destructive may form an outlet for renewed forms of cooperation and mutuality, the ceding of possessive individualism towards experiments in the common good.