State Department Educational Exchange and the Promotion of American Studies in the Early Cold War

Résumé En

Sporadic investigation of the development of American studies in France has not produced systematic research on the development of the discipline. International relations research has focused on educational exchange programs, but, given the central role of university exchanges to these programs, little discussion of their influence on academic disciplines has entered this analysis. This lack is all the more striking in American studies because the creation and promotion of study of American literature, history, political institutions and society was one of the top priorities of US State Department educational exchanges in the first half of the Cold War. From its foundation in 1949 to 1973, the Fulbright commission in France placed American literature and civilization as its highest priority program, adding history and politics as the second most important field to develop in the middle of this range. At the height of the “cultural Cold War”, US diplomatic forces developed a relatively successful program that considerably increased and, in many places, helped found an academic discipline that remains important to university curricula today. This presentation provides initial research into how the State Department and the Fulbright commission in France developed a strategy to encourage the study of the United States in the country, relying primarily on archival material of the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (CU) and the Council for Foreign Exchange of Scholars (CIES), both held at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.