The Ecole-Libre-des-Hautes-Etudes in New York: exile and intellectual resistance (1942-1946)

Owing to help given by the Rockefeller Foundation and the New School for So cial Research, the creating of an Ecole Libre des Hautes Etudes around such persons as Henri Focillon and Jacques Maritain, gathering of French intell ectuals and academic people for the most part, brings into focus the numero us intellectual, political and cultural stakes this university in exile was confronted with. Torn between the temptations to safeguard the values of t he French intellectual traditions and the necessities of an opening to the reality of the American civilization, between its moral supports from the c ause of the Free French and its refusal of political recruitment, int he ti me of eclipse of the French life, the ELHE intended, despite everything, to enlighten the American elite with the virtues of a teaching community of o utstanding merit. The evocation of the ELHE allows to understand not only t he complicated relations of intellectual rivalries between France and Ameri ca, but also the transfers of knowledge based on direct confrontation of me n.