Apocalypse Deferred

“[A] compendium of essays in which religion and scientific rationality intertwines with folk history, literature, theatre, biblical exegesis, and Japanese film, anime, and manga characters. . . . [I]n Apocalypse Deferred: Girard and Japan, the sense of an inevitable nuclear confrontation is taken seriously by the pool of international scholars.” —Catholic Library World

“While readers from diverse fields will find specific chapters—the atomic bombings, folk rituals, anime, popular film—of interest, this reviewer suspects every reader will find something new—and quite possibly challenging or rewarding—in this collection. By extending Girard’s mimetic theory to Japan, these essays demonstrate its usefulness and validity in non-Judeo-Christian contexts.“ —Reading Religion

"Rather than a compendium of essays, this book comprises an entire curriculum for rethinking our understanding of religion and scientific rationality and everything in between, including and especially the looming prospect of planetary catastrophe. Through the lens of René Girard’s mimetic anthropology, the essays in this volume by scholars on both sides of the Pacific range from issues in geopolitics to folk customs, from biblical exegesis to Japanese film, anime, and manga. Abounding with stunning insights into the explanatory scope of Girard’s ideas, every contribution is cogently argued and abundantly researched. It delights the intellect, stretching its potential; it collectively provides an urgently needed epistemology for the role of violence in our globally challenging controversies." —​Andrew J. McKenna, emeritus professor of French, Loyola University Chicago

"This is the first major interdisciplinary response to Girard's apocalyptic-themed late work Achever Clausewitz. The Japanese cultural material explored here not only reveals evidence for aspects of the mimetic theory from folk history, literature, theatre, and popular culture (e.g., anime), but from a non-Western nation it raises the question of necessary Judeo-Christian input into the revealing of scapegoating dynamics." —Scott Cowdell, Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia