GOLSAN, Richard J(oseph) 1952-

PERSONAL: Born October 18, 1952, in Atlanta, GA; son of Harry W. and Lucy (Broyles) Golsan; married June 21, 1981; wife's name Ines. D.; children: Richard James, Joseph Johnson. Education: Washington and Lee University, B.A., 1974; University of North Carolina, Chapell Hill, M.A., 1978, Ph.D., 1981. Politics: "Liberal/left." Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—Department of Modern and Classical Languages, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Educator and author. Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, assistant professor of French, 1981-86; Texas A & M University, College Station, professor of French, beginning 1986. Visiting professor at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris, France, 2001. Consultant for Visual Memory, Shoah Foundation.

AWARDS, HONORS: Distinguished Research Award, Texas A & M University College of Liberal Arts, 1998.

WRITINGS:

Service inutile: A Study of the Tragic in the Theatre ofHenry de Montherlant, Romance Monographs (University, MS), 1988.

(Editor) Fascism, Aesthetics, and Culture, University Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 1992.

(Editor, with others) German and InternationalPerspectives on the Spanish Civil War: The Aesthetics of Partnership, Camden House (Columbia, SC), 1992.

René Girard and Myth: An Introduction, Garland (New York, NY), 1993.

(Editor, with Steven M. Oberhelman and Van Kelly) Epic and Epoch: Essays on the Interpretation and History of a Genre, Texas Tech University Press (Lubboch, TX), 1994.

(Editor) Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice:The Bousquet and Touvier Affairs, University Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 1966.

(Editor, with Melanie Hawthorne) Gender and Fascism in Modern France, University Press of New England (Hanover, NH), 1997.

(Editor) Fascism's Return: Scandal, Revision, andIdeology since 1980, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1998.

(Author of notes) Alain Finkielkraut, Dispatches from the Balkan War, translated by Peter S. Rogers, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 1999.

(Editor and translator, with Lucy B. Golsan) The Papon Affair: Memory and Justice on Trial, Routledge (New York, NY), 2000.

Vichy's Afterlife: History and Counterhistory inPostwar France, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2000.

(Editor and author of introduction) Henry Rousso, editor, Stalinism and Nazism: History and Memory Compared, translation from the French, University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE), 2004.

Contributor to journals, including Nottingham French Studies, Mots, and Studies in Twentieth-Century French Literature. Editor, South Carolina Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Robert J. Golsan has published extensively in his area of expertise: French postwar literature, political ideology, and culture. A professor of French at Texas A & M University since 1986, Golsan has also translated and edited several works of interest to a primarily academic audience, among them Fascism's Return: Scandal, Revision, and Ideology since 1980, a collection of eleven essays on the legacy of fascism in France, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Russia after 1980. While Library Journal contributor Stephen L. Hupp described the collection as "dense" and "highly technical," in his Journal of European Studies appraisal Joachim Whaley dubbed Fascism's Return "a valuable guide to the darker side of contemporary European politics." Golsan's introduction to the volume, in which he provides an overview of modern neofascist movements and revisionist views on the region's fascist legacy, was described as "admirable" by Whaley, the critic praising in particular the editor's "level-headed and . . . sensitive" presentation.

The term "fascism" has become increasingly problematic as historians have dissected political movements of the early twentieth century and discovered numerous disparate root causes at their heart. This is particularly the case with regard to modern France; as Signs reviewer Sian Reynolds noted, questions arise with regard to the Vichy government as well as to various right-wing organizations. Golan and coeditor Melanie Hawthorne attempt to prompt further discourse in this area with their 2001 volume Gender and Fascism in Modern France. Reynolds explained the purpose of the book thus: "to explore critically the sterotypical view that fascism is and was 'pathologically masculine' and misogynist, while avoiding reductive 'gyno/homophobic' readings." Noting that the book's focus is more literary than historical, the critic praised it as a "contribution to cultural studies" on modern France.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Ethnic and Racial Studies, November, 1999, Roger Eatwell, review of Fascism's Return: Scandal, Revision, and Ideology since 1980, p. 1078.

French Review, October, 1998, Rosalie A. Vermette, review of Gender and Fascism in Modern France, p. 146.

French Studies, July, 1991, W. L. Hodson, review of Service Inutile: A Study of the Tragic in the Theatre of Henry de Montherlant, p. 349.

Journal of European Studies, June, 1999, Joachim Whaley, review of Fascism's Return, p. 215.

Journal of World History, fall, 2000, Roger Griffin, review of Fascism's Return, p. 301.

Library Journal, May 1, 1998, Stephen L. Hupp, review of Fascism's Return, p. 199.

New York Review of Books, October 3, 1996, John Gross, review of Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice: The Bousquet and Touvier Affairs, p. 36.

Religion, July, 1994, James G. Williams, review of René Girard and Myth: An Introduction, p. 279.

Signs, winter, 2001, Sian Reynolds, review of Gender and Fascism in Modern France, p. 594.

Zygon, June, 1996, Cesario Bandera, review of RenéGirard and Myth, p. 360.*