Lionel Gossman (31 May 1929 – 11 January 2021) was a Scottish-American scholar of French literature. He taught Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University, and wrote extensively on the history, theory and practice of historiography,For evaluations of Gossman's contributions to the field of historiography, see: Bann, Stephen. "Review: Gossman, Lionel. 'The Empire Unpossess'd. An Essay on Gibbon's Decline and Fall.'" History and Theory. XXII (1983): 199-207. Ankersmit, Frank. "Review: Gossman, Lionel. 'Between History and Literature.' Clio. 21 (1992): 173-185." Rigney, Ann. "Review: Gossman, Lionel. 'Between History and Literature.' History and Theory. XXI (1992): 208-222. and on aspects of German cultural history."Most new emeriti intend to keep on reading, writing, teaching." Princeton Weekly Bulletin. 24 May 1999.
Biography Gossman was born in Glasgow, Scotland and educated in public schools in the city, and during World War II, the surrounding countryside.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 1. In 1951, he graduated with an M.A. (Hons.) degree in French and German literature from the University of Glasgow.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 13. In 1952, he obtained the Diplôme d'Études Supérieures at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, and wrote his thesis "The Idea of the Golden Age in Le Roman de la Rose."Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 14.
From 1952 to 1954, Gossman served in the Royal Navy where he was trained to be a simultaneous English-Russian translator.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 15. Upon completion of national service in 1954, he entered the then newly founded St. Antony's College, the first exclusively graduate college of Oxford University. In 1958 he completed a doctoral dissertation on scholarly research and writing on the Middle Ages during the French Enlightenment ("The World and Work of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye").Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 16.
After a brief stint as Assistant Lecturer at the University of Glasgow (1957–1958), Gossman accepted a teaching position in the Department of Romance Languages at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1975, he was made department chair after leading the French language section since 1968. Gossman said he was fortunate to have as colleagues and friends in those years René Girard, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Lucien Goldmann, Jean-François Lyotard, Michel Serres and Louis Marin.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 23. Gossman recalls in his autobiography:
In 1976, Gossman moved to Princeton University, where he remained for 23 years. He served on key university committees, and from 1991 to 1996 chaired the Romance Languages Department. In 1990 he received Princeton's Howard T. Berhman Award for distinguished service in the humanities.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 28.
In 1991 he was made an Officer in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques; in 1996, he was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society; and in 2005 he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humanities from Princeton University."Lionel Gossman." Princeton University: Department of French and Italian. Gossman has also served on the editorial boards of The Johns Hopkins University Press, the Princeton University Press and the American Philosophical Society."CV." Gossman, Jeffrey Lionel. Princeton University, 2009
After retiring in 1999, Gossman resumed his undergraduate studies of German culture. He wrote a number of articles on aspects of 19th-century German art and cultural politics, including several studies of the Nazarene movement. On the Nazarenes, he authored the study "Unwilling Moderns: The Nazarene Painters of the Nineteenth Century"Gossman, Lionel. "Unwilling Moderns: The Nazarene Painters of the Nineteenth Century." Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. 2.3 (Autumn 2003). and the book "The Making of a Romantic Icon: The Religious Context of Friedrich Overbeck's 'Italia und Germania.'""Current Publications." American Philosophical Society.
Annotated bibliography Along with articles on a wide range of topics, Gossman published 14 books. Here are summaries and reviews of some of his best-known books:
Orpheus Philologus: Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity (1983) Gossmen describes the obession Swiss philologist J. J. Bachofen harbored for the more famous German scholar Theodor Mommsen, and which Mommsen was likely unaware of. While detailing this one-sided rivalry, Gossmen introduces the Anglophone world to the theories posited by Bachofen in his life, and which were largely unknown outside of Swiss-speaking scholarship. These theories include Bachofen's contributions to the popular 19th-century theory of "matriarchy" and to scholarly works studying Greek myth and tragedy."Description: Orpheus Philologus: Bachofen versus Mommsen on the Study of Antiquity." Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, Transactions 73:5 (1983)." Diane Publishing Co.: American Philosophical Society.
Arnaldo Momigliano writes in The Journal of Modern History:
Towards a Rational Historiography (1989) Gossman argues for his believe that historiography is a practice which must include not only the writing and argumentation around historic events and the study of history, but also the actions historians undertake to build their wider historical knowledges. Throughout, Gossman puts emphasis on the practice of doing history over any given product of historians. He posits that historiography as a rational practice supposes a community of participants rather than the "anomie" of a world in which every man is his own historian that appears to be implied by privileging the historical "text.""Towards a Rational Historiography; Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 79, Part 3)." Diane Publishing Co.: American Philosophical Society.
Edward Berenson writes in his book "The Trial of Madame Caillaux:"
Between History and Literature (1990) Drawing on English, German and French scholarship, Gossman uses the essays in this volume to illuminate the many facets of the problematic relationship between history and literature which he sees, and to show how each discipline both challenges and undermines the other's absolutist pretensions."Between History and Literature." Harvard University Press The collection includes Gossman's seminal study on French historian Augustin Thierry ("Augustin Thierry and Liberal Historiography")Gossman, Lionel. "Augustin Theirry and Liberal Historiography." Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 1976. and two essays on French historian Jules Michelet.
Ceri Crossley writes in the journal French History:
Basel in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study in Unseasonable Ideas (2000) After co-teaching with Carl Schorske an undergraduate seminar on the civic culture of 19th century Basel, Switzerland, Gossman worked on this book for 20 years. Gossman argues that the peculiar, somewhat anachronistic political and social structure of Basel made it a favorable haven for "untimely" ideas that challenged the positivism and optimistic progressivism of the time: the philosophy of Nietzsche, the historiography of Bachofen and Burckhardt, and the theology of Franz Overbeck.Gossman, "In the Footsteps of Giants", p. 29. Awarded the American Historical Association's 2001 George L. Mosse Prize for an outstanding work on the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since the Renaissance."George L. Mosse Prize." American Historical Association.
John R. Hinde writes in the American Historical Review:
The Making of a Romantic Icon: The Religious Context of Friedrich Overbeck's "Italia" und "Germania" (2007) Gossman focuses on Johann Friedrich Overbeck's painting "Italia and Germania" to discuss the importance of religious conversion in Romantic thought. This book serves as a thoughtful introduction to the way of thinking of one of the most important of the Nazarene movement painters. It treats the evolution of the Nazarene artists' preoccupation with religious issues in an engaging manner and offers a social-historical and theological context to Overbeck's painting."Description: The Making of a Romantic Icon: The Religious Context of Friedrich Overbeck's 'Italia und Germania.'" Diane Publishing Co.: American Philosophical Society. Won the American Philosophical Society's 2007 John Frederick Lewis Award for best book or monograph."John Frederick Lewis Award." American Philosophical Society: Prizes: Award Presentation: Autumn General Meeting, 9 November 2007.
Brownshirt Princess: A Study of the 'Nazi Conscience (2009) () Marie Adelheid, Prinzessin Reuß-zur Lippe, was a rebellious young woman and aspiring writer from an ancient princely family who became a fervent Nazi. Heinrich Vogeler was a well-regarded Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) artist who joined the German Communist Party and later emigrated to the Soviet Union. Ludwig Roselius was a successful Bremen businessman who had made a fortune from his invention of decaffeinated coffee.
What was it about the revolutionary climate following Germany's defeat in World War I that induced three such different personalities to collaborate in the production of a slim volume of poetry – entitled Gott in mir (God in Me) – about the indwelling of the divine within the human? Gossman's study provides insight into the sources and character of the "Nazi Conscience."Gossman, Lionel. "Brownshirt Princess: A Study of the 'Nazi Conscience'" Open Book Publishers.
Hermynia Zur Mühlen. The End and the Beginning: The Book of My Life (2010) () First published in Germany in 1929, this is a new and corrected English translation of a memoir recounting a rebellious young woman's struggle to achieve independence. Born in 1883 into a wealthy aristocratic society of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hermynia Zur Mühlen spent much of her childhood traveling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. After five years on her German husband's estate in Czarist Russia, she broke with both her family and her husband and set out on a precarious career as a professional writer. She also became a convinced and passionate socialist and devoted her considerable literary talent to the propagation of socialism and the struggle against Nazism and anti-Semitism. The author of novels (most of them translated into English), short stories, and highly successful "proletarian" children's fairy tales, she also translated from French, Russian, and English (notably most of the works of Upton Sinclair) into German. Because of her outspoken opposition to National Socialism, she had to flee first Germany in 1933, then her native Austria in 1938, and seek refuge in England, where she died, virtually penniless in 1951. This edition of her memoir is accompanied by thumbnail sketches of the many individuals and events mentioned in it and thus evokes an entire vanished age. In addition, Gossman contributes a comprehensive study of Zur Mühlen's life and work in the form of a "Tribute" to a talented and unjustly neglected woman writer.
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