Ark of Civilization: Refugee Scholars and Oxford University 1930-1945 – Sally Crawford, Katharina Ulmshneider, Jas Elsner (Eds.)
Editor(s): Sally Crawford, Katharina Ulmshneider, Jas Elsner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Print Length: 416 pages
Genre: Academic / Essay, Non-Fiction / History, Non-Fiction / Migration & Refugee Studies
Topic: Archaeology, Asylum & Refugee System, Civilization, History, Music, Peace, Philosophy, Theology, World War II
In the opening decades of the twentieth century, Germany was at the cutting edge of arts and humanities scholarship across Europe. However, when many of its key thinkers–leaders in their fields in classics, philosophy, archaeology, art history, and oriental studies–were forced to flee to England following the rise of the Nazi regime, Germany’s loss became Oxford’s gain.
From the mid-1930s onwards, Oxford could accurately be described as an “ark of knowledge” of western civilization: a place where ideas about art, culture, and history could be rescued, developed, and disseminated freely. The city’s history as a place of refuge for scientists who were victims of Nazi oppression is by now familiar, but the story of its role as a sanctuary for cultural heritage, though no less important, has received much less attention.
In this volume, the impact of Oxford as a shelter, a meeting point, and a center of thought in the arts and humanities specifically is addressed, by looking both at those who sought refuge there and stayed, and those whose lives intersected with Oxford at crucial moments before and during the war. Although not every great refugee can be discussed in detail in this volume, this study offers an introduction to the unique conjunction of place, people, and time that shaped Western intellectual history, exploring how the meeting of minds enabled by libraries, publishing houses, and the University allowed Oxford’s refugee scholars to have a profound and lasting impact on the development of British culture. Drawing on oral histories, previously unpublished letters, and archives, it illuminates and interweaves both personal and global histories to demonstrate how, for a short period during the war, Oxford brought together some of the greatest minds of the age to become the custodians of a great European civilization.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Oxford’s Ark: Second World War Refugees in the Arts and Humanities – Sally Crawford, Katharina Ulmschneider, and Jaś Elsner
PART I. GENERAL
1. Pfeiffer, Fraenkel, and Refugee Scholarship in Oxford
during and after the Second World War – Jaś Elsner
2. Academic Refugees in Wartime Oxford: An Overview – Anthony Grenville
3. Welcoming and Supporting Refugee Scholars: The Role
of Oxford’s Colleges – Laurence Brockliss
4. Out of the Archives: Oxford, the SPSL, and Literae Humaniores Refugee Scholars – Philip Davies
5. Networks of Association: The Social and Intellectual Lives of Academics in Manx Internment Camps during the Second World War – Harold Mytum
PART II. ARCHAEOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY
6. Otto Brendel and the Classical Archaeologists at Oxford – Katharina Lorenz
7. ‘The Bund’ and the Oxford Philological Society, 1939–45 – Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider
8. Brian Shefton: Classical Archaeologist – David W. J. Gill
9. The ‘Cheshire Cat’: Paul Jacobsthal’s Journey from
Marburg to Oxford – Katharina Ulmschneider and Sally Crawford
10. Eduard Fraenkel (1888–1970) – Christopher Stray
PART III. HISTORY
11. Arnaldo Momigliano on Peace and Liberty (1940) – Oswyn Murray
12. Rudolf Olden in Oxford – Charmian Brinson and Marian Malet
13. ‘I shall snuffle about and make relations’: Nicolai
Rubinstein, the Historian of Renaissance Florence,
in Oxford during the War – Kate Lowe
14. Karl Leyser, Oxford, and Wartime – Conrad Leyser
PART IV. ART AND MUSIC
15. Becoming Artists: Ernst Eisenmayer, Kurt Weiler, and
Refugee Support Networks in Wartime Oxford – Fran Lloyd
16. Milein Cosman at the Slade – Ann Rau Dawes
17. From Onchan to Oxford—An Émigré Journey: Heinz
Edgar Kiewe – Rachel Dickson
18. Bringing Asia to Oxford: Dr William Cohn and the
Museum of Eastern Art – Alexander Cullen
19. Shipwrecked on the Island of the Blessed: Egon Wellesz’s
New Beginnings in Wartime Oxford – Bojan Bujić
PART V. PHILOSOPHY AND THEOLOGY
20. Jacob Leib Teicher between Florence and Cambridge:
Arabic and Jewish Philosophy in Wartime Oxford – Anna Teicher
21. Philosophy in Exile: The Contrasting Experiences of
Ernst Cassirer and Raymond Klibansky in Oxford – Graham Whitaker
PART VI. PUBLISHING
22. German-Speaking Refugee Publishers in Oxford:
Phaidon, Bruno Cassirer, and the Oxford University Press – Anna Nyburg
23. A New Start—The English Publishing House Bruno Cassirer Oxford (1940–90): A Bibliographical Examination – Rahel E. Feilchenfeldt
Index
Sally Crawford has lectured in medieval archaeology at the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford. She is a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
Source: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/author/sally-crawford-132095/
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Katharina Ulmschneider is a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at Worcester College Oxford, acting archivist at the School of Archaeology, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and an Associate Member of the Society of Archivists. She has published widely on archaeological refugee scholars, medieval archaeology and economy, and on the impact of metal-detecting in archaeology. Her co-edited books Markets in Early Medieval Europe won the British Archaeology Book award in 2004, and Celtic Art in Europe was shortlisted Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2016. She is Director of the Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR), an interdisciplinary photographic database set up to rescue endangered historic image collections and make them available to researchers and the public for free. She is currently finishing a book on Second World War refugee archaeologist Prof. Paul Jacobsthal.
Source: https://www.worc.ox.ac.uk/about/our-people/dr-katharina-ulmschneider
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Jas Elsner is a distinguished art historian and professor whose expertise lies in the field of classical art and archaeology. With a profound understanding of ancient cultures and a keen eye for visual analysis, he has made significant contributions to the study and interpretation of ancient art and its historical context.
One of Elsner’s notable contributions is his exploration of the relationship between art and religion in the ancient world. He has investigated the ways in which religious beliefs and practices shaped the production and reception of art, unveiling the intricate interplay between the spiritual and the visual.
Source: https://www.aarome.org/people/residents/jas-elsner
More from Jas Elsner in this library, click here.