Mimetic Theory, Identity, and the Formation of the Self

This session brings mimetic theory into dialogue with theology, pedagogy, and contemporary theories of identity to explore how desire shapes personal and communal formation. The first paper presents a pedagogical framework for teaching the lives of the saints in Catholic religious education, emphasizing the saints’ conversion of desire as a model for adolescent development. Drawing on Girard’s theory of mimetic desire, positive mimesis, and affective conversion, it proposes ways educators can invite students to critically reflect on their own desires through figures like St. Ignatius of Loyola. The second paper engages queer and crip theologies alongside mimetic theory to critique the limits of rigid identity categories. While queer and crip perspectives challenge binaries, mimetic theory reveals how such categories can still participate in cycles of exclusion and violence. Together, these papers explore alternative models of identity grounded not in rivalry or social comparison, but in openness to divine and transformative desire.