Background

Generative Anthropology grew out of Eric Gans' association with René Girard at Johns Hopkins University in 1960s and 70s. Gans was influenced by Girard's idea of mimetic desire and the connection between violence and the sacred in Girard's work. The concept of mimetic desire forms one of the cornerstones of Generative Anthropology. Girard argues that human desire is essentially cultural or social in nature, and thus distinct from mere appetite, which is biological. For Girard, desire is triangular in structure, an imitation of the desire of another. Desire, therefore, leads to conflict, when two individuals attempt to possess the same object. In a group, this mimetic conflict typically escalates into a mimetic crisis which threatens the very existence of the group. For Girard, this conflict is resolved by the scapegoat mechanism, in which the destructive energies of the group are purged through the violence directed towards an arbitrarily selected victim. Girard sees the scapegoating mechanism as the origin of human culture and language.

The Originary Hypothesis

Gans agrees that human language originates in the context of a mimetic crisis, but he does not define the scapegoat mechanism, by itself, as an adequate explanation for the origin of language. Gans hypothesizes that language originates in "a deferred gesture of appropriation," which signifies the desired object as sacred and which memorializes the birth of language, serving as the basis for rituals which recreate the originary event symbolically. Gans defines language to the study of human culture and origins. For a more detailed explanation of the originary hypothesis, see Generative Anthropology.

The Scene of Representation

For Gans, language is essentially "scenic" in character, that is, structurally defined by a sacred center and human periphery. In the secular culture which develops later, "significance" serves as an attenuated form of the sacred. The scene of representation is a true cultural universal and the basic model for cultural analysis. Generative Anthropology attempts to understand the various means by which transcendence or meaning (which is always ethically functional) is created on a scene of representation.

Eric Lawrence Gans was born in Bronx, New York on August 21, 1941. He received a B.A. in French (Summa cum laude) from Columbia College in 1960. Going on to graduate work in Romance languages at Johns Hopkins University, he received his M.A. in 1961 and a Ph.D in 1966. After two years as an Assistant Professor at Indiana University, he went on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1969. In 1978, he served at Johns Hopkins University as a visiting Professor. He continues his teaching, research, and writing today as a Professor of French at UCLA.

The main source of criticism directed against Gans' work comes from Rene Girard himself, who claims that Generative Anthropology is just another version of social contract theories of origins. Gans' political views are very controversial as well. Those interested in his political views on Middle Eastern politics should reference his published dialogue with Ammar Abdulhamid: "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects."

Books

• The Discovery of Illusion: Flaubert's Early Works, 1835-37. University of California Press, 1971.
• The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation. University of California Press, 1981.
• The End of Culture: Toward a Generative Anthropology. University of California Press, 1985.
• Madame Bovary: The End of Romance. Boston: G. K. Hall (Twayne's Masterwork Studies), 1989.
• Science and Faith: The Anthropology of Revelation. Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1990.
• Originary Thinking: Elements of Generative Anthropology. Stanford University Press, 1993.
• Signs of Paradox: Irony, Resentment, and Other Mimetic Structures. Stanford University Press, 1997.
• The Scenic Imagination: Originary Thinking from Hobbes to the Present Day. Stanford University Press, 2007.
• Carole Landis: A Most Beautiful Girl. University of Mississippi Press, 2008.

Selected Articles

"Scandal to the Jews, Folly to the Pagans." Diacritics 9, 3, (Fall 1979): 43-53.

"Differences." MLN 96 (French, Spring 1981): 792-808.

"Beckett and the Problem of Modern Culture." Sub-Stance XI, 2 (1982): 3-15.

"The Culture of Resentment." Philosophy and Literature 8, 1 (April 1984): 55-66.

"Christian morality and the Pauline Revelation." Semeia 33 (1985): 97-108.

"Sacred Text in Secular Culture." In To Honor René Girard, Stanford French & Italian Studies 34, (1986): 51-64.

"Art and Entertainment." Perspectives of New Music 24, 1 (Fall-Winter 1985): 24-37.

"The Necessity of Fiction." Sub-Stance 50 (Sept. 1986): 36-47.

"The Past and Future of Generative Anthropology: Reflections on the Departmental Colloquium." Paroles Gelées: UCLA French Studies 8 (1990): 35-41.

"The Beginning and End of Esthetic Form." Perspectives of New Music 29, 2 (Summer 1991): 8-21.

"The Unique Source of Religion and Morality." Anthropoetics 1, 1 (June 1995): 10 pp. Revised version in Contagion 3 (Spring 1996): 51-65.

"Mimetic Paradox and the Event of Human Origin." Anthropoetics 1, 2 (December 1995): 15 pp.

"Plato and the Birth of Conceptual Thought." Anthropoetics 2, 2 (January 1997): 11 pp.

"Chronicles of Love and Resentment" [selections]. Epoché XX (1995—96): 1-22.

"The Holocaust and the Victimary Revolution." In Poetics of the Americas: Race, Founding, and Textuality, Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1997, 123-139.

"Originary Narrative." Anthropoetics 3, 2 (February 1998): 10 pp.

"Aesthetics and Cultural Criticism." boundary 2 25, 1 (Spring 1998): 67-85.

"The Little Bang: The Early Origin of Language." Anthropoetics 5, 1 (Spring / Summer 1999) : 6 pp. Also in 'Contagion' 7 (Spring 2000): 1-17.

"The Last Word in Lyric: Mallarmé's Silent Siren." New Literary History 30, 4 (Autumn 1999): 785-814.

"'Staging as an Anthropological Category.'" New Literary History 31, 1 (Winter 2000): 45-56.

"The Sacred and the Social: Defining Durkheim's Anthropological Legacy." Anthropoetics 6, 1 (Spring / Summer 2000): 7 pp.

"Form Against Content: René Girard's Theory of Tragedy." Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 56, 1-2 (Jan.-June 2000): 53-65.

"The Body Sacrificial." In The Body Aesthetic: From Fine Art to Body Modification, ed. Tobin Siebers, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000, 159-78.

"Originary Democracy and the Critique of Pure Fairness." In The Democratic Experience and Political Violence, ed. David Rapoport and Leonard Weinberg, London: Frank Cass, 2001, 308-24. Also issued as Terrorism and Political Violence 12, 3-4 (Autumn/Winter 2000).

"Mallarmé contra Wagner." Philosophy and Literature 25, 1 (April 2001): 14-30.

(With Ammar Abdulhamid) "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects." Anthropoetics 7, 2 (Fall 2001 / Winter 2002): 16 pp. Also (in two parts) in Maaber 8 (Fall 2002) and 9 (Fourth Quarter, 2002).

“Originary and/or Kantian Aesthetics.” Poetica (Munich) 35, 3-4 (2003): 335-53.

"End of an Illusion." [on Quentin Tarantino] Cinematic: The Harvard Annual Film Review 2 (2004): 29-31.

"The Market and Resentment." In Passions in Economy, Politics, and the Media, ed. Wolfgang Palaver and Petra Steinmar-Pösel, Vienna: Lit Verlag, 2005, 85-102.