A Good Contagion: René Girard's Influence
Cynthia L. Haven gives a snapshot of the early intellectual movement around one of the most important thinkers of our age.
An excerpt from Cynthia L. Haven—her foreword to the new book, Be Not Conformed: René Girard at the Intersection of Athens, Jerusalem, and Silicon Valley, edited by Luke Burgis, published earlier this month by CUA Press. The edited volume contains 16 original essays on Girard’s work.
Foreword: A Good Contagion
Before he became an acknowledged Silicon Valley guru, before he became the fourth wise man in a Nativity crèche, René Girard lived quietly and inconspicuously on a far-flung corner of campus, on the aptly named Frenchman’s Road. I was fortunate to know René before he was a legend, before he was featured in The New York Review of Books, before he was the subject of a documentary film called Things Hidden, before everybody who was anybody knew him, had read him, or had at least read about him and could quote him or pretend to quote him. My personal encounter with him would prove to be one of the more f…
