René Girard

René Girard was a French academic who taught in literature departments in the United States, best known for mimetic theory, holding that desire is imitative and leads to rivalry and the scapegoat. Girard set it out in Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (1961) and carried it into anthropology in Violence and the Sacred (1972). Later works including Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (1978) and I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (1999) applied these ideas to Christian scriptures. Girard was elected to the Académie Française in 2005.