French intellectuals in exile: the implications of hospitality

French intellectuals in exile: the implications of hospitality- conference #2

During the 1939-1945 war, several French intellectuals paid with their lives for their commitment to the active Resistance (Jean Cavaillès, Marc Bloch, Victor Basch, Maurice Halbwachs, Jean Prévost), while others chose, voluntarily or not, exile. We can mention the names of Roger Caillois in Argentina, Raymond Aron and Simone Weil in Great Britain, or Jacques Maritain, Claude Lévi-Strauss, André Breton or Paul Vignaux in the United States, in New York. Although they all considered themselves to be hostile to Nazism and the occupation of France, they quickly diverged on the attitude to adopt towards the one who was gradually emerging as a figure capable of embodying Free France, that of General de Gaulle. We will question the significance of this experience of exile, which was for the most part temporary and did not lead, as it did for many German exiles, for example, to an adhesion to a new adopted homeland.

• Speaker : Joël Roman
• Respondent: : Vassiliki-Piyi Christopoulou

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A series of 4 lectures on the intellectual trajectories of exile

Exile has never spared intellectuals. In the twentieth century and up to the present day, it has even been one of the usual conditions for the intellectual life. But if it obstacles thought and creation, it also sometimes leads them to blossom elsewhere, or even to be nourished by this situation made up of losses and constraints.

The series of lectures "Intellectuals in Exile: Humanism without Borders" seeks to make visible the complexity of these intellectual trajectories and their importance both for the renewal of thought and for democracy.

Each conference is organized around an exiled intellectual, most often hosted at the FMSH or the EHESS. Together with the specialists invited to present them, these intellectuals represent a wide range of backgrounds, whether it be their country of origin, their preferred discipline, or the period and conditions of their exile.

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