Female Friendship in the World of Higher Learning: The Entangled Lives of Grethe Hjort/Greta Hort (1903–1967) and Julie Moscheles (1892–1956)

Abstract

During WW2, the Danish scholar of English literature Grethe Hjort developed a close friendship with the Czech-Jewish geographer Julie Moscheles. Their paths crossed in Melbourne, and afterwards they settled in Prague. When Moscheles died in 1956, Hjort returned to Denmark to become only the second female professor at Aarhus University in 1958. Based on a study of private correspondence, this article has three interlinked intentions. Firstly, I explore the two women’s entangled lives and their encounters with the world of academia during peacetime and war. Secondly, I situate their biographies in a historical context in light of the academic paths followed by modern young women of the interwar generation, who experienced education as a gateway to independence from conventional gender norms. Finally, the article offers an affective sensibility that adds to the conceptualization of scholarly personae.

Keywords

• history of higher learning
• scholarly personae
• modern women
• female friendship
• Julie Moscheles
• Grethe Hjort [Greta Hort]