René Girard

French historian, literary critic and philosopher

Rene Girard was born in Avignon and attended the prestigious Ecole des Chartres in Paris. He then moved to the US where he completed a PhD at the University of Indiana. He taught at a number of universities before receiving a professorship at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. In 1981 he became Andrew B Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization at Stanford University, where he stayed until his retirement in 1995. He is the author of works that have been published in more than two-dozen languages, including The Scapegoat (1982) and Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1987). His latest book, Achever Clausewitz (2007), has been published in the UK as Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoit Chantre (2010). Girard was inducted into the Academie Francaise in 2005.