Verbatim quote · from the corpus

“Sparagmos! is a Vancouver-based reading and discussion group that meets regularly to discuss the mimetic theory of René Girard and the generative anthropology of Eric Gans. Sparagmos! reads all kinds of books together, including novels; Dostoevsky’s The Devils was a recent project. Interested locals are invited to contact the group through the GA List about joining the Vancouver meetings. Andrew Bartlett, with great hospitality and style, has been hosting the meetings at his home for some years now. The dialogue below is compiled and edited from a recent exchange concerning the originary scene. In it, various Sparagmos! members are grappling with the details and merits of both Girard’s and Gans’s hypotheses concerning hominization. The dialogue begins with Pablo who, from the perspective of the Girardian hypothesis, starts to ask the local GA expert, Richard, questions about the Gansian hominization hypothesis. Pablo: Both Girard and Gans agree that the central object/victim must be arbitrary. How can a truly arbitrary object be an object of appetitive desire? Richard: How can the words “roast beef” both be arbitrary (you need to learn their meaning from someone else) and refer to real roast beef? What enables humans to distinguish arbitrary signs from non-arbitrary objects? Suppose I put a juicy piece of roast beef in front of my dog, then point at it and say, “roast beef.””

— Eric Gans, Sparagmos! A Dialogue on Girard and Gans · Spring 2005 · Anthropoetics