2005 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Socio-cultural Studies on Emigre Intellectuals in America
| Project/Area Number |
16520146
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
ヨーロッパ語系文学
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| Research Institution | KYOTO UNIVERSITY |
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Principal Investigator |
MAEKAWA Reiko KYOTO UNIVERSITY, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Associate Professor, 大学院・人間・環境学研究科, 助教授 (30190292)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
WAKASHIMA Tadashi KYOTO UNIVERSITY, Graduate School of Literature, Professor, 大学院・文学研究科, 教授 (10175060)
KATO Mikiro KYOTO UNIVERSITY, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Associate Professor, 大学院・人間・環境学研究科, 助教授 (60185874)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2005
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| Keywords | intellectuals in exile / refugee scholars / fascism / Vladimir Nabokov / emiere writers / cinema studies / red purge / University in Exile |
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| Research Abstract |
This study focuses on a group of emigre intellectuals who fled from several European nations after the Nazi takeover and found refuge in the United States. Their contributions to American culture and learning have been widely discussed by many scholars. However, no extensive work on social scientists and humanists in exile has been undertaken, while scholars in the field of natural and medical sciences have drawn continuing attention. To correct this unbalance, we have tried to shed light on emigre intellectuals whose influence on American culture has only recently begun to be recognized. We are especially interested in the variety and complexity of intellectual transformations that each exiled intellectual underwent as a result of the hybridization of European and American ideas.
Our interdisciplinary perspective led us to pursue three different approaches to this intriguing theme. Firstly, we looked at a group of social scientists who found their permanent or temporary home in the "Un
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iversity in Exile" at the New School for Social Research in New York. By making use of biographical and institutional data on refugee scholars, we tried to examine how their personal backgrounds and the political and intellectual context in which they worked affected their scholarship. Secondly, through a close textual analysis of the novels of Vladimir Nabokov, one of the best-known emigre writers who arrived in the United States in 1940, we explored the more subjective and emotional dimensions of being in exile. Thirdly, we examined the interaction between emigre intellectuals and ordinary immigrants from Eastern Europe, as producers and recipients of American popular culture, especially Hollywood movies. By looking at innovative and conflict-ridden works undertaken by emigre intellectuals, we attempt to capture the central dilemma of intellectuals in exile, being torn between nostalgia for cultured Europe and repulsion toward Nazi oppression, between a sense of gratitude for their host country, and a sense of alienation from what seemed to them the shallowness of American culture. Less
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