Intimate strangers : Arendt, Marcuse, Solzhenitsyn, and Said in American political discourse

319 Pages·2014·1.02 MB·English

by  Arendt

I N T I M AT E
S T R A N G E R S
ARENDT
MARC
USE
N
Y
S
T
N I
E
H
Z
L
O
S
AND S
AI
D
in American
Political Discourse
ANDREEA DECIU RITIVOI
INTIMATE STRANGERS

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INTIMATE
STRANGERS
Arendt, Marcuse, Solzhenitsyn, and Said in
American Political Discourse
ANDREEA DECIU RITIVOI
Columbia University Press
New York
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Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
cup.columbia.edu
Copyright © 2014 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ritivoi, Andreea Deciu, 1970–
Intimate strangers : foreign intellectuals and American political discourse /
Andreea Deciu Ritivoi.
pages. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-231-16868-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 978-0-231-53791-9
(e-book)
1. Politics and culture—United States—History—20th century.
2. Intellectuals—United States—History—20th century. 3. Rhetoric—
Political aspects—United States—History—20th century. 4. United
States—Intellectual life—20th century. 5. Arendt, Hannah, 1906–1975—
Infl uence. 6. Marcuse, Herbert, 1898–1979—Infl uence. 7. Solzhenitsyn,
Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918–2008—Infl uence. 8. Said, Edward W.—
Infl uence. I. Title.
e169.12.r538 2014
320.97309'049—dc23
2014003432

Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent
and durable acid-free paper.
Th is book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America

c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Jacket design by Julia Kushnirsky
Jacket illustration by R. Kikuo Johnson
References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.
Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
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It is a mistake to think of the expatriate as someone who
abdicates, who withdraws and humbles himself, resigned to
his miseries, his outcast state. On a closer look, he turns out
to be ambitious, aggressive in his disappointments, his very
acrimony qualifi ed by his belligerence. Th e more we are dispos-
sessed, the more intense our appetites and our illusions become.
—E. M. CIORAN, THE TEMPTATION TO EXIST
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
INTRODUCTION 1
1. THE STRANGER PERSONA 34
2. HANNAH ARENDT:
THE THINKER AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 56
3. HERBERT MARCUSE’S GERMAN REVOLUTION
IN AMERICA 108
4. COLD WAR PROPHESIES: ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN
AND MYTHOLOGICAL AMERICA 156
5. EDWARD SAID AND THE CLASH OF IDENTITIES 196
CONCLUSION 249
Notes 261
Index 289
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A
FTER MAJOR fl ooding in the region where I live, my husband and
I went to a food bank in a nearby church to donate food for the
victims. We brought a large box of canned goods and left it in the
car as we went scouting for the entry. We asked a member of the church
staff where the food bank was, and she pointed to the back of the building,
adding that we would have to return the next morning to receive food. I was
initially confused by her answer, but then I realized she had assumed we
were there to ask for food, not to donate it. My husband and I both look like
white middle-class Americans. We are also immigrants. Her “clue” was our
accent, which trumped race and class and, in her eyes, made us into indigent
foreigners at the mercy of their hosts.
While this is a book about the negative representations of foreigners in
American public and political discourse, I could have written a much dif-
ferent one about the welcoming reception of foreigners in American aca-
demic institutions based on my own experience. I have benefi ted not only
from many suggestions off ered by my colleagues and students at Carnegie
Mellon University but also, and perhaps most important, from their open-
ness and generosity. Unlike the protagonists of my book, who were often
dismissed as unreliable and uninformed even though they were illustrious
scholars and artists, I have been fortunate to have not only the intellectual
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