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Project

Language and Translation Policies in the Intellectual Cooperation Organization (1922-1946). Promoting The Internationalization of the Intellectual Field

This thesis project is part of the ERC StG project ‘Social Networks of the Past: Mapping Hispanic and Lusophone Literary Modernity (1898-1959)’ , whose main objective is to empirically study the role of the so-called Ibero-American peripheries in the process of cultural modernization by focusing on the transnational networks that were established by Ibero-American cultural mediators in different sociocultural processes between 1898 and 1959. Within this general framework, this dissertation focuses on the presence of Ibero-American intellectuals in the international networks woven through the Organization of Intellectual Cooperation, composed mainly by the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation (ICIC) (1922-), the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation (1926-1946) and the National Committees of Intellectual Cooperation (NCIC), created in order to grant the coordination between the organizations previously mentioned and each national cultural field. Although the main concern of the League of Nations (LoN) was the discussion and settlement of political and economic issues, its action also encompassed the reinforcement of intellectual relationships between cultures. Through this set of organizations, educational, scientific, and cultural exchanges were fostered in order to promote a better understanding between cultures after the First World War. Such exchanges can be framed within the new international order emerging out of the increase of flows of people, symbolic goods (Bourdieu 1971), and ideas that took place during the first half of the twentieth century. Thus, the international intellectual networks that were established through the OIC can be considered as instances that illustrate the first steps of the process of integration of an international cultural arena. This dissertation will hence not only focus on the presence of Ibero-American intellectuals in the Paris and Geneva headquarters, but also on the role of Ibero-American national committees in this set of organizations. Such an approach appears all the more necessary given the European perspective from which the Leagues’ task on intellectual cooperation has historically been approached (Renoliet 1999; Laqua 2011a; Grandjean 2018). While some research on Ibero-American countries has been conducted recently (Pernet 2015; Dumont 2018; Grandjean 2020), it can be considered that the participation and role of Ibero-American countries in such organization is still in its infancy. To deepen in such line of research appears also necessary due to the focus of the available critical literature on the bigger and stronger Latin-American countries, such as Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Given the contemporary perception, within the organizations of intellectual cooperation, of Ibero-America as a common cultural area (Grandjean 2020), a relation approach seems especially suitable in order to overcome national boundaries. Thus, the concept of network will be mobilized to refer to intellectual communities whose recurrent interaction results in the emergence of a semi-structured community. The specific objectives of this dissertation are: 1) To analyze the role of the so-called Ibero-American periphery within the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in the framework of a process of unification of a world cultural space that found in the IIIC one of its main vectors. 2) To study the transnational intellectual networks that were articulated through the IIIC and its respective Ibero-American national committees and their functioning. Special attention will be devoted to the study of the individual trajectories of Ibero-American cultural mediators that played a nodal role in the articulation of such networks. 3) To analyze in detail four Ibero-American national committees in regard to their internal functioning, the potential links established with other cultural organizations of local/national/regional/international scope and the relations with the sociohistorical context in which they carried out their activity, with special interest in the intersections of the political and the cultural field. The hypothesis that serves as a starting point for this project is that, during the first half of the 20th century, certain Ibero-American intellectuals participated significantly in transnational networks articulated through cultural organizations such as the IIIC and its national committees. Such networks contributed to the internationalization of Ibero-American cultures and to the consolidation of political and cultural projects in a national scale, as they contributed to the receiving culture’s cosmopolitism and promoted ties between local and foreign intellectuals. Also, a positive and modern view of the hosting culture could be conveyed abroad through the visiting intellectuals. At the same time, exercising de jure or de facto as representatives of their countries of origin, this moving elite reinforced the international presence of their countries of origin and contributed to their consolidation, a dimension that was especially salient in the case of Latin American countries due to their still recent State formation. Therefore, it is proposed that the effects of the activities they carried out exceeded their strictly cultural scope and acquired political dimensions. Following this hypothesis, special attention will be given to the ways the literary and political fields intertwine in the field of cultural promotion.

Date:23 Oct 2020 →  Today
Keywords:cultural diplomacy, intellectual cooperation, global history, cultural history
Disciplines:Cultural history, World history, Literary history, Literary translation, Cultural sociology
Project type:PhD project