Several recent studies by Nathaniel Underland, Rosie Germain and Andreas Vrahamis have shed new light on Sartre's reception in the United States and England in the 1950s and 1960s. A comparison of the two situations makes it possible to go beyond the simple observation of an existentialist fad in these countries during these two decades. In Britain, the interest in Sartre and existentialism embodied the need for Europe to position itself in the post-war period, at the beginning of the Cold War, between the United States and the Soviet Union. Elisabeth Bowen's novel The Heat of the Day is exemplary of Sartre's literary and (geo)political reception. In the United States, Sartre's reception is more on a philosophical-ideological register. For the leader of "free" countries, it is a question of giving himself the means to develop a new "civic religion" against the traps of specialisation, social conformism and, ultimately, discrimination. The archives of university curricula are an original resource in this respect. They demonstrate, on the one hand, how existentialist ethics has been used to modernise university education in the United States and, on the other hand, how it has accompanied its feminisation in England.
The Heat of Sartre. Sartre negli Stati Uniti e in Inghilterra dopo il 1945: una nuova storiografia
Maria Russo
2020-01-01
Abstract
Several recent studies by Nathaniel Underland, Rosie Germain and Andreas Vrahamis have shed new light on Sartre's reception in the United States and England in the 1950s and 1960s. A comparison of the two situations makes it possible to go beyond the simple observation of an existentialist fad in these countries during these two decades. In Britain, the interest in Sartre and existentialism embodied the need for Europe to position itself in the post-war period, at the beginning of the Cold War, between the United States and the Soviet Union. Elisabeth Bowen's novel The Heat of the Day is exemplary of Sartre's literary and (geo)political reception. In the United States, Sartre's reception is more on a philosophical-ideological register. For the leader of "free" countries, it is a question of giving himself the means to develop a new "civic religion" against the traps of specialisation, social conformism and, ultimately, discrimination. The archives of university curricula are an original resource in this respect. They demonstrate, on the one hand, how existentialist ethics has been used to modernise university education in the United States and, on the other hand, how it has accompanied its feminisation in England.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
