Show Notes
Part of MSU Press’s “Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory” series, Per Bjørnar Grande’s Desire draws on both modern masterpieces and iconic works of contemporary pop culture to shed new light on the frustrating and repetitive nature of human relations in a world of vanishing taboos. In novels and plays by Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Arthur Miller and music by Lana Del Rey, Grande sees desire operating in a complex, slippery way that eludes philosophical and psychoanalytical attempts to pin it down. For Grande, these and other great works of literature corroborate René Girard’s understanding of desire as taking shape “according to the other’s desire.” This mimetic approach frees desire from certain preconceptions of psychology and puts literary criticism in touch with the concrete substance of fictional narratives.
Per Bjørnar Grande is a professor in the Department of Pedagogy, Religion, and Social Studies at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences.
Desire: Flaubert, Proust, Fitzgerald, Miller, Lana Del Rey, is available at
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