Of Sartre, race, and rabies: “Anti-Americanism” and the transatlantic politics of intellectual engagement
2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 8; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14788810.2011.589698
ISSN1740-4649
Autores Tópico(s)French Historical and Cultural Studies
ResumoAbstract Abstract Jean-Paul Sartre has been called "the most prominent anti-American" in France, and his critiques of US society and foreign policy have been attributed to his ingrained anti-Americanism. This article questions the utility of this concept in understanding Sartre's political engagements, for he does not fit into standard definitions of anti-Americanism that emphasize special hostility and general resentment toward the United States. Instead, Sartre's writings about the United States reveal an enthusiastic embrace of contemporary American culture, while his sharpest critiques focused on two issues that were lifelong concerns of his, regardless of national context: racial discrimination and the arbitrary exercise of power. Despite his period of fellow traveling that made him sympathetic to the Soviet Union in the early 1950s, Sartre's political biography shows that he was much more interested in the deficiencies of French society and foreign policy than he was in America's failings. The article concludes that Sartre can be better understood as a member of a multiracial, transatlantic community of engaged intellectuals who struggled, and sometimes failed, to find an activist Marxism that was compatible with individual integrity. Keywords: Jean-Paul Sartreanti-Americanismintellectual engagementMcCarthyismracismanti-colonialism Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Frank Costigliola, Michael Creswell, Martin B. Friedman, Lisa Moses Leff, Katharina Vester, and the anonymous reviewers for Atlantic Studies for their suggestions. Notes 1. Roger, L'Ennemi américain, 354. 2. Revel, La Grande Parade, 308. 3. Armus, French Anti-Americanism, 155–6; Kimball, "Anti-Americanism Then and Now," 240. 4. Chiddick, "Cold War and Anti-Americanism," 152. 5. Sartre, "Les Animaux malades," discussed below. 6. Roger, L'Ennemi américain, 568. 7. "[T]he writer reveals": Judaken, Jean-Paul Sartre, 161; "taste" and "absolute refusal": Michael Winock, quoted in Riding, "To Honor Sartre." 8. Wright, "Blurred and Distorted Images," 22. A slightly different version appears in Kuisel, Seducing the French, 29. 9. Hollander, "Introduction," 9. 10. Krastev, "Anti-American Century?" 7. 11. Joffe, Überpower, 76. 12. Ceaser, "Philosophical Origins," 45. 13. Sartre, Colonialism and Neocolonialism; Judaken, Race after Sartre. 14. Judaken, Race after Sartre, 4. 15. Sartre, "Présence noire," cited in Judaken, Jean-Paul Sartre, 160. 16. Gordon, "Sartre and Black Existentialism," 157. 17. Lévy, Sartre, 347; Elbendary, "Of Words and Echoes." 18. Riding, "To Honor Sartre." 19. Roger, L'Ennemi américain, 478. 20. Jacobs, "Downtown Is for People," 157. See also Sparberg Alexiou, Jane Jacobs, 156. 21. Sartre, "New-York," 122–3. 22. Sartre, "American Novelists," 114. 23. Cau, L'Ivresse des intellectuels, 30. 24. Boschetti, "Sartre"; Beauvoir, Second Sex. 25. Hollander, Anti-Americanism, 334–5. 26. Sartre, "American Novelists," 118. 27. Sartre, "American Novelists,", 116. 28. Kuisel, Seducing the French, 187. Kuisel, however, deems Sartre a textbook case of anti-Americanism. 29. Contat and Rybalka, Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, 138. 30. Murphy, "Sartre on American Racism"; Caute, Dancer Defects, 309–10. 31. Sartre, "Objections Noted." 32. Sartre, "L'Enfance d'un chef"; Sartre, Réflexions. 33. Sartre, "Objections Noted"; "Sartre Now Target." 34. Lévy, Sartre, 301. 35. Sartre, "Ce que j'ai appris." 36. Romano, Race Mixing, 30–3; Myrdal, American Dilemma. 37. Lederer, Flesh and Blood, 107, 117. 38. Saunders, Cultural Cold War, 69. 39. Beevor and Cooper, Paris after the Liberation, 351. 40. Wennersten, Leaving America, 72. 41. Rowley, Richard Wright, 349–50. 42. "Morehouse Student Allen." 43. Fabre, From Harlem to Paris, 93. 44. Gordon, "Sartre and Black Existentialism," 161; Plummer, Rising Wind, 254–5. See also Gilroy, Black Atlantic; Gordon, Existence in Black; Judaken, Race after Sartre; Von Eschen, Race against Empire; and Sartre, Orphée noir. 45. Sartre, "American Novelists," 117. 46. Sartre, "American Novelists,", 116. 47. Central Intelligence Agency, "Crisis of International Communism"; Central Intelligence Agency Office of Central Reference, Untitled. 48. Central Intelligence Agency, "Bi-Weekly Propaganda Guidance." 49. Beauvoir, America Day by Day, 101. 50. Beauvoir, La Force des choses, 12, 174–5. 51. McCarthy, "Mlle. Gulliver en Amérique"; Beauvoir, L'Amérique. 52. Gilroy, Black Atlantic, 186; Coffin, "Historicizing the Second Sex." 53. McCarthy, "Mlle. Gulliver en Amérique." 54. Reed, Chicago NAACP, 150–5. 55. Berg, "What's Happened." 56. "Minister Dies"; "1952 First Lynch-Free Year "1952 First Lynch-Free Year , Tuskegee Reports" . Jet 3 , no. 12 1953 : 10 . [Google Scholar]"; Price, "Race Conflict Flares." 57. Referring to a petition against lynching presented to Secretary of State Byrnes in Paris, in HUAC's "Report on American Youth for Democracy," in Rankin, "Extension of Remarks." 58. Wade, Fiery Cross, 274. 59. Beauvoir, America Day by Day, 94. 60. Quoted in Oshinsky, Conspiracy so Immense, 347. 61. Berghahn, America, 136. 62. Quoted in Saunders, Cultural Cold War, 197. 63. For example, compare Judt, Past Imperfect, to Wall, "From Anti-Americanism to Francophobia." 64. Beevor and Cooper, Paris after the Liberation, 294. 65. Beevor and Cooper, Paris after the Liberation, 334–5. 66. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, 87. 67. Caute, Dancer Defects, 310–16. 68. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, 110–12. 69. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, 113. 70. Sartre develops this theme most clearly in La Nausée [Nausea] and Critique de la raison dialectique [Critique of Dialectical Reason]. 71. Aronson, Camus and Sartre. 72. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, 214. 73. Birchall emphasizes Sartre's published statement taking "full responsibility" for the article by Marcel Péju, which showed the trial to be rigged and marked by anti-Semitism See Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, 138. Judt emphasizes Sartre's failure to write anything himself and his subsequent continued participation in communist-organized events. See Judt, Past Imperfect, 185. 74. See, for example, Radosh and Milton, Rosenberg File. 75. Sartre, "Les Animaux malades." 76. MacKnight to Evans, "European Reactions to the Rosenberg Case," January 14, 1953, Box 2, Special Papers, Coordinator for Psychological Intelligence, 1952–54, RG 306, National Archives, College Park, Maryland. 77. The PCF organized a Comité Français pour la Défense des Rosenberg, whose first brochure was entitled Une nouvelle "Affaire Dreyfus" – l'affaire Rosenberg. See Glynn, "L'Affaire Rosenberg in France"; "Affaire Dreyfus " Affaire Dreyfus – Affaire Rosenberg ." Esprit 1953 : 217 – 23 . [Google Scholar] – Affaire Rosenberg." 78. Reinhold Niebuhr, "The French Do Not Like Us: The Roots of the Anti-American Sentiment in France," [December 1953], Box 15, Speech, Article and Book File, Niebuhr Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. 79. Saunders, Cultural Cold War, 180–2. 80. "Telephone Conversation with Attorney General Brownell," June 12, 1953. Box 1, Telephone Calls Series, Dulles Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas. 81. Walter report, in Flood, "Extension of Remarks." 82. Costigliola, France, 79. 83. Mathy, Extrême-Occident, 153, paraphrasing Ory and Sirinelli, Les Intellectuels en France, 182. 84. Fontaine, One Hundred Fables, 58–64. 85. Lévy, Sartre, 323–7; Aron, Opium of the Intellectuals, 225. 86. "La Délivrance est à nos portes," excerpted in Contat and Rybalka, Writings of Jean-Paul Sartre, 102–3. 87. Sartre, "American Novelists," 116. 88. Quoted in Lévy, Sartre, 328. 89. Central Intelligence Agency, "Crisis of International Communism." 90. Saunders, Cultural Cold War, 305; Aronson, Camus and Sartre, 202. 91. "Sartre Terms Invasion." See also Williams, Prague Spring, 158. McNamara gives his figure in the documentary Fog of War. The transcript is available at http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html
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