Eric Gans
Encyclopedia
Eric Lawrence Gans is an American literary scholar, philosopher of language, and cultural anthropologist. Since 1969, he has taught 19th century literature, critical theory, and film in the UCLA Department of French and Francophone studies.
Gans invented a new science of human culture and origins he calls Generative Anthropology
, based on the idea that the origin of language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development of that event. In a series of books and articles beginning with The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981) Gans has developed his ideas about human culture, language, and origins. In 1995, Gans founded (and continues to edit) the web-based journal Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology as a scholarly forum for research into human culture and origins based on Generative Anthropology
and the closely related Fundamental Anthropology of René Girard
. Since 1995, Gans has web-published his Chronicles of Love and Resentment, consisting of reflections on everything from popular culture, film, post-modernism, economics, contemporary politics, the Holocaust, philosophy, religion, and paleoanthropology. Over 400 Chronicles have appeared as of January 2011.
grew out of Gans' association with René Girard
at Johns Hopkins University. Gans was Girard’s first doctoral student, receiving his PhD in 1966. But it was only on the publication of "La violence et le sacré" in 1972 that Gans became interested in 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.
.
himself, who claims that Generative Anthropology is just another version of social contract
theories of origins. Others take issue with Gans' conservative political views as expressed in his Chronicles of Love and Resentment. Gans has entered into constructive conversation with contrasting views on Middle Eastern politics in his published dialogue with Ammar Abdulhamid: "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects."
during the 4th Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference. Further information, including how to join, can be found at the Generative Anthropology Society & Conference Website
Since 2007, Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) has held an annual summer conference on Generative Anthropology
.
2007 - Vancouver (Kwantlen University College
, U of British Columbia)
2008 - Orange, CA (Chapman University
)
2009 - Ottawa, Ontario (University of Ottawa
)
2010 - Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah (Westminster College, Salt Lake City
and Brigham Young University
)
2011 - High Point, NC (High Point University
)
2012 - (Scheduled) Tokyo, Japan, International Christian University
"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.
Gans invented a new science of human culture and origins he calls Generative Anthropology
Generative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
, based on the idea that the origin of language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development of that event. In a series of books and articles beginning with The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981) Gans has developed his ideas about human culture, language, and origins. In 1995, Gans founded (and continues to edit) the web-based journal Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology as a scholarly forum for research into human culture and origins based on Generative Anthropology
Generative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
and the closely related Fundamental Anthropology of René Girard
René Girard
René Girard is a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy...
. Since 1995, Gans has web-published his Chronicles of Love and Resentment, consisting of reflections on everything from popular culture, film, post-modernism, economics, contemporary politics, the Holocaust, philosophy, religion, and paleoanthropology. Over 400 Chronicles have appeared as of January 2011.
Background
Generative AnthropologyGenerative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
grew out of Gans' association with René Girard
René Girard
René Girard is a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy...
at Johns Hopkins University. Gans was Girard’s first doctoral student, receiving his PhD in 1966. But it was only on the publication of "La violence et le sacré" in 1972 that Gans became interested in 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
Generative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
. 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
Scapegoat
Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any party for unmerited negative treatment or blame. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals , individuals against groups , groups against individuals , and groups against groups Scapegoating is the practice of singling out any...
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 with Girard that human language originates in the context of a mimetic crisis, but he does not find the scapegoat mechanism, by itself, as an adequate explanation for the origin of language. Gans hypothesizes that language originates in "an aborted 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. For a more detailed explanation of the originary hypothesis, see Generative AnthropologyGenerative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
.
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.Life and Education
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.Critics
The main source of criticism directed against Gans' work comes from Rene GirardRené Girard
René Girard is a French historian, literary critic, and philosopher of social science. His work belongs to the tradition of anthropological philosophy...
himself, who claims that Generative Anthropology is just another version of social contract
Social contract
The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...
theories of origins. Others take issue with Gans' conservative political views as expressed in his Chronicles of Love and Resentment. Gans has entered into constructive conversation with contrasting views on Middle Eastern politics in his published dialogue with Ammar Abdulhamid: "A Dialogue on the Middle East and Other Subjects."
Generative Anthropology Society & Conference
The Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) is a scholarly association formed for the purpose of facilitating intellectual exchange amongst those interested in fundamental reflection on the human, originary thinking, and generative anthropology, including support for regular conferences. GASC was formally organized on June 24th, 2010 at Westminster College, Salt Lake CityWestminster College, Salt Lake City
Westminster College is a private liberal arts college located in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. The college comprises four schools: the School of Arts and Sciences, the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, the School of Education, and the School of Nursing and Health...
during the 4th Annual Generative Anthropology Summer Conference. Further information, including how to join, can be found at the Generative Anthropology Society & Conference Website
Since 2007, Generative Anthropology Society & Conference (GASC) has held an annual summer conference on Generative Anthropology
Generative Anthropology
Generative anthropology is a field of study based on the theory that the origin of human language was a singular event and that the history of human culture is a genetic or "generative" development stemming from the development of language....
.
2007 - Vancouver (Kwantlen University College
Kwantlen University College
Kwantlen Polytechnic University is a public degree-granting undergraduate polytechnic university with four campuses located in the South Fraser region of British Columbia’s Lower Mainland...
, U of British Columbia)
2008 - Orange, CA (Chapman University
Chapman University
Chapman University is a private, non-profit university located in Orange, California affiliated with the Christian Church . Known for its blend of liberal arts and professional programs, Chapman University encompasses seven schools and colleges: Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media...
)
2009 - Ottawa, Ontario (University of Ottawa
University of Ottawa
The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
)
2010 - Salt Lake City and Provo, Utah (Westminster College, Salt Lake City
Westminster College, Salt Lake City
Westminster College is a private liberal arts college located in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Utah. The college comprises four schools: the School of Arts and Sciences, the Bill and Vieve Gore School of Business, the School of Education, and the School of Nursing and Health...
and Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University
Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...
)
2011 - High Point, NC (High Point University
High Point University
High Point University is a private liberal arts university in High Point, North Carolina, USA, affiliated with the United Methodist Church.- Beginnings :...
)
2012 - (Scheduled) Tokyo, Japan, International Christian University
International Christian University
There are several rankings related to ICU, shown below.-Alumni rankings:According to the Weekly Economist's 2010 rankings and the PRESIDENT's article on 2006/10/16, graduates from ICU have the 24th best employment rate in 400 major companies, and their average graduate salary is the 4th best in...
Honors
- Phi Beta Kappa (elected in junior year)
- Woodrow Wilson fellow 1960-61
- Prix de la langue française - Académie française 1977
- Chevalier des Palmes Académiques 1982
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 BovaryMadame BovaryMadame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
: 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.