Sacrifice has always been central to the study of religion yet attempts to understand and assess the concept have usually been controversial. The present book, which is the result of several years of interdisciplinary collaboration, suggests that in many ways the fascination with sacrifice has its roots in modernity itself. Theological developments following the Reformation, the rediscovery of Greek tragedies, and the encounter with the practice of human sacrifice
in the Americas triggered a complex and passionate debate in the sixteenth century which has never since abated. Contributors to this volume, leading experts from theology, anthropology, and literary
and cultural studies, describe and discuss how this modern fascination for the topic of sacrifice has evolved, how it has shaped theological debate, the literary imagination, and anthropological theory. Individual chapters discuss in depth major theological trajectories, theories of sacrifice including those of Marcel Mauss and René Girard, and current feminist criticism. They engage with sacrifice in the context of religious and philosophical thought, works of literature and film. They
explore different yet overlapping aspects of modernity's obsession with sacrifice. The book does not intend to impose a single narrative over all these diverse contributions but brings them into a
conversation around a common centre.
Sacrifice has always been central to the study of religion yet attempts to understand and assess the concept have usually been controversial. The present book, which is the result of several years of interdisciplinary collaboration, suggests that in many ways the fascination with sacrifice has its roots in modernity itself. Theological developments following the Reformation, the rediscovery of Greek tragedies, and the encounter with the practice of human sacrifice
in the Americas triggered a complex and passionate debate in the sixteenth century which has never since abated. Contributors to this volume, leading experts from theology, anthropology, and literary
and cultural studies, describe and discuss how this modern fascination for the topic of sacrifice has evolved, how it has shaped theological debate, the literary imagination, and anthropological theory. Individual chapters discuss in depth major theological trajectories, theories of sacrifice including those of Marcel Mauss and René Girard, and current feminist criticism. They engage with sacrifice in the context of religious and philosophical thought, works of literature and film. They
explore different yet overlapping aspects of modernity's obsession with sacrifice. The book does not intend to impose a single narrative over all these diverse contributions but brings them into a
conversation around a common centre.
Johannes Zachhuber and Julia Meszaros: Introduction
1: Johannes Zachhuber: Modern Discourse on Sacrifice and its
Theological Background
2: Pamela S. Anderson: Sacrifice as self-destructive love : why
autonomy should still matter to feminists
3: Paul S. Fiddes: Sacrifice, Atonement and Renewal: Intersections
between Girard, Kristeva and von Balthasar
4: Julia Meszaros: Sacrifice and the self
5: Wolfgang Palaver: Sacrificial Cults as the Mysterious Centre of
Every Religion : A Girardian Assessment of Aby Warburg s Theory of
Religion
6: Jessica Frazier: From Slaughtered Lambs to Dedicated Lives:
Sacrifice as Value-Bestowal
7: Gavin Flood: Sacrifice as Refusal
8: Philip McCosker: Sacrifice in Recent Roman Catholic Thought:
From Paradox to Polarity, and Back Againa
9: Nick Allen: Using Hubert and Mauss to think about sacrifice
10: Laura Rival: The Aztec Sacrificial Complex
11: David Brown: Human Sacrifice and Two Imaginative Worlds, Aztec
and Christian. Finding God in Evil
12: Bettina E. Schmidt: Blood Sacrifice as a Symbol of the
Paradigmatic Other: The debate about ebó-rituals in the
Americas
13: Jon Pahl: Apocalypse and Sacrifice in Modern Film: American
Exceptionalism and a Scandinavian Alternative
14: Derek Hughes: Human Sacrifice and the Literary Imagination
Julia Meszaros is a postdoctoral researcher,
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Catholic University of
Leuven.
Johannes Zachhuber is Reader of Theology,
Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford.
This volume presents sacrifice as an enduring obsession of modern
theory, whether in contradistinction to primitive rites or allusion
to the tragically noble in war. This is a significant study for
readers interested in the contemporary resonance of the cross and
Eucharist given a 'riotously polyvalent' term (p. 133).
*David Robinson, The Expository Times*
A smart volume on sacrifice
*Michon M. Matthiesen, Journal of Theological Studies*
The book, I believe, succeeds in its aim to bring together and
explore the interlocking endeavours of a diversity of scholarly
views on sacrifice without imposing or even suggesting one
underlying narrative, or more explicitly, an interpretative
unity.
*Andrew O'Shea, Louvain Studies*
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