Our Country, Our Culture Conference
INTRODUCTION
Edith Kurzweil:
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I want to wel–
come you to this conference, "Our Country, Our Culture," but first I
want to introduce Jon Westling, President of Boston University.
Jon Westling:Thank
you, Edith. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great plea–
sure to welcome you to Boston University and to this conference on
"Our Country, Our Culture: The Changing Role of Intellectuals,
Artists, and Scientists in America
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2-2002."
This conference comes
at a crucial moment in our history. Our country, of course, has been gal–
vanized by the terrorist attacks of last September. So at a time when,
quickened by catastrophe, the national feeling seems stronger than at
any time in the last half century, it is very appropriate, I think, to step
back and reflect on whether these apparent changes are real, whether, if
real, they are deep, and whether, if deep, they are durable.
"Our Country, Our Culture" is, of course, a twice-told tale. Fifty
years ago
Partisan Review
assembled some of that era's leading intel–
lectuals to consider whether America had snapped out of its Euro–
trance. Would America's writers and artists cease to take their lead from
London, Paris, Rome, Trieste, Zurich? Wou ld they, after decades of
deriding their homegrown, demotic culture, find a new love of country?
At mid-century, America was preeminent in the free world .
It
had gone
into World War II uncertain of its place in the world, or even whether it
wanted a place in the world, but had emerged with a new vitality. Sub–
sequently, the political and cultural challenges of the Cold War sharp–
ened its self-understanding as the nation that leads the fight for
freedom. Americans in
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no longer looked to Europe, as had Henry
James or Henry Adams, no longer saw Europe as the embodiment of
high civilization. After all, civilized Europeans had slaughtered each
other in the two most destructive wars the world had ever seen. And the
U.S. had not only stepped in to rescue European civilization, but it also
sheltered a remarkable array of artists and intellectuals through
Europe's dark decades. Americans at mid-century were still interested in
the ideas that Europe had to offer, but were no longer willing to grant
