The 'École Libre des Hautes Études' was a sort of university-in-exile for French academics in New York during the
Second World War. It was chartered by the French (the
Free French) and Belgian governments-in-exile and located at the
New School for Social Research. Its founders included
Jean Wahl,
Jacques Maritain, and
Gustave Cohen and it was supported by the
Rockefeller Foundation.
The philosopher Jacques Maritain, anthropologist
Claude Lévi-Strauss, and linguist
Roman Jakobson all taught at the École Libre.
After the war, it gradually evolved into one of the leading institutions of research in Paris, the
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, with which the New School maintains close ties.
References
★ Aristide R. Zolberg, "The Ecole Libre at the New School 1941-1946", ''Social Research'', Winter 1998
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