École libre des hautes études

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The École Libre des Hautes Études was a sort of university-in-exile for French academics in New York during the Second World War. It was chartered by the French (the Free French) and Belgian governments-in-exile and located at the New School for Social Research. Its founders included Jean Wahl, Jacques Maritain, and Gustave Cohen and it was supported by the Rockefeller Foundation.

The philosopher Jacques Maritain, anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, and linguist Roman Jakobson all taught at the École Libre.

After the war, it gradually evolved into one of the leading institutions of research in Paris, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, with which the New School maintains close ties.

[edit] References

• Aristide R. Zolberg, "The Ecole Libre at the New School 1941-1946", Social Research, Winter 1998 at HighBeam Encyclopedia at FindArticles