Proiectul american interbelic al lui Mircea Eliade

Abstract

In his first year spent in India, 1929, Mircea Eliade nurtured two projects related to America, which remained unaccomplished. On the one hand, he was planning a long return trip to his homeland, which would pass through the United States. On the other hand, he considered obtaining a teaching position in an American university, the first target being Harvard. This early American project – hitherto unexplored – becomes symbolic in the perspective of Eliade’s subsequent evolution and choices. Decades later, as a professor at the University of Chicago, he turned down an invitation to occupy a chair at Harvard, which offered him far better conditions and opportunities than those in Chicago. We present here the first results of an ongoing research that tries to clarify all the details related to the young Eliade’s American project.

Keywords

• american universities
• harvard
• geneva
• india
• interwar romania
• communist romania
• history of religions
• george sarton
• george foot moore
• ananda k. coomaraswamy