Elisabetta Brighi is a Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Studies, POLIS, University of Cambridge, UK. She is the author of Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics and International Relations (2013) and Pragmatism in International Relations (2009), co-edited with Harry Bauer.
Antonio Ceralla is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. His recent publications include: 'Religion and political form: Carl Schmitt's genealogy of politics as critique of Jürgen Habermas's postsecular discourse', Review of International Studies; 'Terrorismo: Storia e Analisi di un concetto' (2009); 'Forme della violenza nel sistema contemporaneo' (2010). He is currently co-editing and contributing to the Special Issue of the Journal of International Political Theory on 'Mimetic Theory and International Studies'.

What is the relationship between the sacred and the political, transcendence and immanence, religion and violence? And how has this complex relation affected the history of Western political reason? In this volume an international group of scholars explore these questions in light of mimetic theory as formulated by René Girard (1923-2015), one of the most original thinkers of our time. From Aristotle and his idea of tragedy, passing through Machiavelli and political modernity, up to contemporary biopolitics, this work provides an indispensable guide to those who want to assess the thorny interconnections of sacrality and politics in Western political thought and follow an unexplored yet critical path from ancient Greece to our post-secular condition. While looking at the past, this volume also seeks to illuminate the future relevance of the sacred/secular divide in the so-called 'age of globalization'.

Introduction: The Power of Sacrifice: René Girard and the Political
Antonio Cerella (University of Central Lancashire)
Chapter 1. Aristotle on Mimesis and Violence: Things Hidden since the Foundation of Literary Theory
Arata Takeda (University of Chicago & Free University of Berlin)
Chapter 2. René Girard and Thomas Aquinas on Prophecy and the Purging of the Notion of Justice
Paul M. Rogers (University of Cambridge)
Chapter 3. Unlikely Twins? Machiavelli and Girard on Violence, Crisis and the Origins of the State
Ernesto Gallo (The Open University, UK)
Chapter 4. René Girard, Human Nature and Political Conflict
Kent Enns (Humber College, Toronto, Canada)
Chapter 5. Spinoza, Girard and the Possibility of a Purely Immanent Democracy
Stéphane Vinolo (Regent's University of London)
Chapter 6. René Girard's Mimetic Theory: An 'Anti-Political Theology'?
Michael Kirwan (Heythrop College, University of London)
Chapter 7. A 'Theoretical Double': Violence, Religion and Social Order in Schmitt and Girard
Andrea Salvatore (University of Rome - La Sapienza)
Chapter 8. Mimesis and Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason
Paul Dumouchel (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan)
Chapter 9. The Sacred and the Secular: René Girard and Gianni Vattimo on Modernity and Violence
Pierpaolo Antonello (University of Cambridge)
Chapter 10. The Myth of Origin: Archaeology and History in the Work of Agamben and Girard
Antonio Cerella (University of Central Lancashire)
Chapter 11. The Age of Panic. On Mimetic Post-Modernity
Emanuele Antonelli (University of Turin)
Index