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International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

182684

"Thought in American and for the Americans"

Victoria Ocampo, Sur and European modernism

Laura María Lojo Rodríguez

pp. 167-190

Abstract

This essay examines the seminal role of Argentinean writer Victoria Ocampo (1890–1979) in the reception of the so-called High Modernism in Spanish-speaking countries through her professional activity as a literary critic and as a publisher under the auspices of the intellectual circle "Sur" ["South"]. In her project of running a literary journal, Ocampo partly emulated the spirit of Sylvia Beach's monthly publication Navire D'Argent, but was most positively encouraged by Waldo Frank and José Ortega y Gasset—editors of Seven Arts (1916–1917) and Revista de Occidente [Journal of the Western World], respectively. Both Frank and Ortega were extremely influential in Ocampo's ambition to establish an inspiring cultural network connecting Europe and the American continent. Ocampo, Frank and Ortega joined in an effort to counterbalance what they saw as a decadent European aesthetics via Hispanic routes of inspiring connections among cultural capitals in the interwar period. A careful analysis of the sociological impact, in South-America, of these avant-garde publications, allows us to conclude that they served the cause of empowering women intellectuals in the geographical periphery much more than did contemporary European maganizes.

Publication details

Published in:

Falcato Ana, Cardiello Antonio (2018) Philosophy in the condition of modernism. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 167-190

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-77078-9_8

Full citation:

Lojo Rodríguez Laura María (2018) „"Thought in American and for the Americans": Victoria Ocampo, Sur and European modernism“, In: A. Falcato & A. Cardiello (eds.), Philosophy in the condition of modernism, Dordrecht, Springer, 167–190.