Abstract
European intellectuals’ relationship to American culture is characterized by a complex interplay of fascination and rejection. Two prominent thinkers, Jean Baudrillard and Tzvetan Todorov, offer insights into this dynamic. Having spent time in the United States, primarily in academic settings, they have documented their observations. Baudrillard’s book, America, delineates an insurmountable chasm between European and American cultures, positing that these two entities remain disparate in their affective and intellectual dimensions. Todorov, in his work L’homme dépaysé [A Man without a Homeland], offers his impressions of America, centering on the disconnection between intellectual life and urban life. He argues that American intellectual life is centered around university campuses away from the life of the city and focuses on methodologies without addressing the fundamental question of culture’s social purpose. In this paper, I contend that America and Europe function on two separate cultural registers, a conclusion that can be substantiated by a close reading of the writings of these intellectuals and my own expatriate experience. America, I argue, is an uprooted reality, a utopia realized in a literal and cultural desert.
Presenters
Matthew MotykaAssociate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures, University of San Francisco, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—Oceanic Journeys: Multicultural Approaches in the Humanities
KEYWORDS
Baudrillard, Todorov, Multiculturalism, America vs. Europe, Cultural Uprootedness
