Pierpaolo Antonello is Reader in Modern Italian Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St. John’s College. With René Girard and João Cezar de Castro Rocha, he coauthored Evolution and Conversion: Dialogues on the Origins of Culture, and he is a member of the Research and Publications committees of Imitatio.Paul Gifford is Buchanan Professor of French Emeritus at the University of St Andrews, where he also was Departmental Chair for seven years and directed the Institute of European Cultural Identity Studies for ten years. He is one of the very few non-French academics to hold the most prestigious of France’s many doctorates, the Doctorat d’ État ès Lettres.

• Contents Acknowledgments Introduction Part One. Questions of Methodology and Hermeneutics: Mimetic Theory, Darwinism, and Cultural Evolution Coevolution and Mimesis (William H. Durham) Genes and Mimesis: Structural Patterns in Darwinism and Mimetic Theory (Paul Dumouchel) Maladaptation, Counterintuitiveness, and Symbolism: The Challenge of Mimetic Theory to Evolutionary Thinking (Pierpaolo Antonello) Part Two. Imitation, Desire, Victimization: Examining Mimetic Theory on the Evidence Convergence between Mimetic Theory and Imitation Research (Scott Garrels) The Deepest Principle of Life: Neurobiology and the Psychology of Desire (William B. Hurlbut) The Three Rs: Retaliation, Revenge, and (Especially) Redirected Aggression (David P. Barash) Part Three. Violent Origins Revisited Violent Origins: Mimetic Rivalry in Darwinian Evolution (Melvin Konner) Mechanisms of Internal Cohesion: Scapegoating and Parochial Altruism (Zoey Reeve) A Mediatory Theory of Hominization (Giuseppe Fornari) Part Four. Interpreting Archaeological Data: Mimetic Readings of Çatalhöyük and Göbekli Tepe Animal Scapegoating at Çatalhöyük (René Girard) Self-transcendence and Tangled Hierarchies in Çatalhöyük (Jean-Pierre Dupuy) Rethinking the Neolithic Revolution: Symbolism and Sacrifice at Göbekli Tepe (Paul Gifford and Pierpaolo Antonello) Part Five. The Evolutionary Hermeneutics of Homo Religiosus Intrinsic or Situated Religiousness: A Girardian Solution (Warren S. Brown, James Van Slyke, and Scott Garrels) Homo religiosus in Mimetic Perspective: An Evolutionary Dialogue (Paul Gifford) About the Authors Index

Most of the time, the promise of interdisciplinary inquiry remains precisely that—a promise. This collection, however, makes good on such a promise in the most decisive fashion. Here we have a highly esteemed collection of scholars brought together to discuss issues of the first importance—both to the sciences and the humanities. The description "indispensable" rarely applies to collections; in the case here, the label is unavoidable. This is, in short, an outstanding work of interdisciplinary scholarship.—Chris Fleming, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Communication Arts, University of Western Sydney