The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period

This paper deals with exile in the 20th century and makes some suggestions for a reconsideration of this experience. The reasons for its peculiarity lie in a series of political, religious, racial and moral elements but when we speak of exile we are implicitly referring to substantially different ex...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Renato Camurri
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2014-10-01
Series:Transatlantica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/6920
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832580793473433600
author Renato Camurri
author_facet Renato Camurri
author_sort Renato Camurri
collection DOAJ
description This paper deals with exile in the 20th century and makes some suggestions for a reconsideration of this experience. The reasons for its peculiarity lie in a series of political, religious, racial and moral elements but when we speak of exile we are implicitly referring to substantially different experiences and phenomena: social exile, political exile and intellectual exile.The historiography of cultural migration has been through new and important developments over the past twenty years, developments that have enlarged the field across the borders of where sector-based studies grew. The first phase of studies into intellectual exile was strongly conditioned by two classic interpretative paradigms: the acculturation paradigm and the paradigm of the impact refugee scholars had on American culture. However, the field of so called “Exile Studies” has widened remarkably in recent years extending to philosophy, literature, sociology and anthropology. This has provoked a series of negative effects, such as an excessive generalization of the concept of exile and the loss of the historical specificity of this phenomenon.The author analyzes some features of the experience of Italian exiles in the United States starting from a comparative approach. His aim is to highlight major differences between various national cases (German, French and Italian). He concludes that the meaning of exile in the 20th century essentially indicates an experience of fracture, of displacement from the motherland, of alienation lived as a loss, of injury.
format Article
id doaj-art-e9a03a41764c44ad807faf3625932f32
institution Kabale University
issn 1765-2766
language English
publishDate 2014-10-01
publisher Association Française d'Etudes Américaines
record_format Article
series Transatlantica
spelling doaj-art-e9a03a41764c44ad807faf3625932f322025-01-30T10:44:12ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662014-10-01110.4000/transatlantica.6920The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar PeriodRenato CamurriThis paper deals with exile in the 20th century and makes some suggestions for a reconsideration of this experience. The reasons for its peculiarity lie in a series of political, religious, racial and moral elements but when we speak of exile we are implicitly referring to substantially different experiences and phenomena: social exile, political exile and intellectual exile.The historiography of cultural migration has been through new and important developments over the past twenty years, developments that have enlarged the field across the borders of where sector-based studies grew. The first phase of studies into intellectual exile was strongly conditioned by two classic interpretative paradigms: the acculturation paradigm and the paradigm of the impact refugee scholars had on American culture. However, the field of so called “Exile Studies” has widened remarkably in recent years extending to philosophy, literature, sociology and anthropology. This has provoked a series of negative effects, such as an excessive generalization of the concept of exile and the loss of the historical specificity of this phenomenon.The author analyzes some features of the experience of Italian exiles in the United States starting from a comparative approach. His aim is to highlight major differences between various national cases (German, French and Italian). He concludes that the meaning of exile in the 20th century essentially indicates an experience of fracture, of displacement from the motherland, of alienation lived as a loss, of injury.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/6920Political and intellectual exileEuropean cultural migrationexile studiescomparative perspectiveItalian case
spellingShingle Renato Camurri
The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
Transatlantica
Political and intellectual exile
European cultural migration
exile studies
comparative perspective
Italian case
title The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
title_full The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
title_fullStr The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
title_full_unstemmed The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
title_short The Exile Experience Reconsidered: a Comparative Perspective in European Cultural Migration during the Interwar Period
title_sort exile experience reconsidered a comparative perspective in european cultural migration during the interwar period
topic Political and intellectual exile
European cultural migration
exile studies
comparative perspective
Italian case
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/6920
work_keys_str_mv AT renatocamurri theexileexperiencereconsideredacomparativeperspectiveineuropeanculturalmigrationduringtheinterwarperiod
AT renatocamurri exileexperiencereconsideredacomparativeperspectiveineuropeanculturalmigrationduringtheinterwarperiod