Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Prologue: Jewish Women in Nazi Germany Before Emigration
- Part One A Global Search for Refuge
- Part Two Refuge in the United States
- 12 Women's Role in the German-Jewish Immigrant Community
- 13 “Listen sensitively and act spontaneously - but skillfully”: Selfhelp: An Eyewitness Report
- 14 “My only hope”: The National Council of Jewish Women's Rescue and Aid for German-Jewish Refugees
- 15 The Genossinen and the Khaverim: Socialist Women from the German-Speaking Lands and the American Jewish Labor Movement, 1933-1945
- 16 New Women in Exile: German Women Doctors and the Emigration
- 17 Women Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United States
- 18 Destination Social Work: Emigrés in a Women's Profession
- 19 Chicken Farming: Not a Dream but a Nightmare: An Eyewitness Report
- 20 The Occupation of Women Emigrés: Women Lawyers in the United States
- 21 Fashioning Fortuna's Whim: German-Speaking Women Emigrant Historians in the United States
- 22 Exile or Emigration: Social Democratic Women Members of the Reichstag in the United States
- 23 Women's Voices in American Exile
- Epilogue: The First Sex
- Index
23 - Women's Voices in American Exile
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Prologue: Jewish Women in Nazi Germany Before Emigration
- Part One A Global Search for Refuge
- Part Two Refuge in the United States
- 12 Women's Role in the German-Jewish Immigrant Community
- 13 “Listen sensitively and act spontaneously - but skillfully”: Selfhelp: An Eyewitness Report
- 14 “My only hope”: The National Council of Jewish Women's Rescue and Aid for German-Jewish Refugees
- 15 The Genossinen and the Khaverim: Socialist Women from the German-Speaking Lands and the American Jewish Labor Movement, 1933-1945
- 16 New Women in Exile: German Women Doctors and the Emigration
- 17 Women Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United States
- 18 Destination Social Work: Emigrés in a Women's Profession
- 19 Chicken Farming: Not a Dream but a Nightmare: An Eyewitness Report
- 20 The Occupation of Women Emigrés: Women Lawyers in the United States
- 21 Fashioning Fortuna's Whim: German-Speaking Women Emigrant Historians in the United States
- 22 Exile or Emigration: Social Democratic Women Members of the Reichstag in the United States
- 23 Women's Voices in American Exile
- Epilogue: The First Sex
- Index
Summary
Defining our subject during the course of our research meant proceeding in concentric circles. From a broad definition of women writers in exile, which would have included philosophers, historians, art historians, journalists, and literary critics, we were compelled to retreat to the narrower topic of abstraction about female contributors to the world of belles lettres. Our dilemma, an embarrassment of riches, may highlight once again - as the conference in Washington accomplished - the need and desirability of investigating the intellectual migration from Nazi Germany, particularly under the aspect of gender.
A few examples marking our narrowing circles illustrate (in conjunction with our later observations on autobiographers) the scholarly pathway lying ahead. For two reasons we were tempted to include, stowaway-fashion, the philosopher Hannah Arendt. Although she is an author of nonfiction only some of her prose, as in her biographical volume Men in Dark Times, straddles the invisible line between flawless expository writing and Kunstprosa, or poetic prose. Also, her undiminished influence was demonstrated anew when the prominent news analyst Charles Osgood, commenting on the controversy surrounding Clarence Thomas's confirmation as Supreme Court justice, quoted from her The Origins of Totalitarianism.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Between Sorrow and StrengthWomen Refugees of the Nazi Period, pp. 341 - 352Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1995