William Schweiker is Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at the Divinity School of the university of Chicago. He holds degrees from Simpson College, Duke University, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Chicago. Previously he taught at the School of Religion of the University of Iowa. He has edited two books and has published articles in several scholarly journals.

This book argues that a basic problem in thinking about understanding, temporality, and selfhood is due to "imitative" modes of thought found in much traditional Western philosophy and theology. Given this, the book examines the complex role that "image" and "imitation" play in understanding and its world of meaning, the import of language and narrative for configuring human temporality, and the existence of self. The author's contention is that when critically understood, mimesis, with its roots in performative enactment, holds resources for reconsidering these basic dimensions of human life beyond imitative paradigms of thought.