I will reach the likely height of my academic career this July when I present a paper at The Colloquium on Violence and Religion about teaching basic Mimetic Theory to children and adolescents using famous books from The Very Hungry Caterpillar to Lord of the Rings. Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory has largely been a movement of “adult converts.” It is time for us to begin raising our “cradle Girardians.” To do that we must convey the perplexing ideas our own original programming struggles with to new, fresh minds. For me stories or games are my goto for teaching children, and in this case the capacity of story to convey rich, entangled and complex ideas moved it to the head of the class.
I think my system is a lot of fun, relying on books so popular they were made into movies or television shows and sticking to small portions of the big ideas for each lesson. If you are teaching a young Girardian and my paper intrigues you leave your email address in the comments, and I will send you a copy.
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