The University of Chicago and Europe

The University of Chicago and Europe

From its inception The University of Chicago has been marked by its strong ties to European thought and culture. Founded on the model of the German university, to this day it is still considered the most European of American institutions of higher education. Generations of European scholars have found a home in our institution. It has nourished their thought as they have enriched and deepened the culture of our community. Within recent decades, the historian François Furet, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur, and, currently Marc Fumaroli of the French Academy and Jean-Luc Marion of the Doctoral School, University of Paris-IV, have numbered among French scholars of international stature who have served on our faculty. The University of Chicago Press has played a key role in introducing European scholarship to the American academic community in such areas as philosophy, anthropology, and sociology. In fact, this interaction has been a two-way relationship, for the Chicago schools of thought-in sociology, economics, anthropology, business, and law-have had profound effects in European intellectual currents.

In 1991, the French government recognized the University's preeminent role in French studies by designating it as one of six "Centers of Excellence" to receive an annual grant for sponsoring a broad range of cross-disciplinary activities. The resulting Chicago Group on Modern France has played a pioneering role in attracting major French scholars and researchers to interact with our students and faculty in all disciplines, from mathematics and political science to business, law, and the arts. The collaborations that have been fostered, as well as the establishment of various student scholarships and fellowships, have created a constant flow of intellectual engagement between Paris and Chicago. These intellectual and institutional collaborations have been strengthened by the growing political ties between Chicago and Paris, which celebrated their union in 1996 as "Sister Cities." In a further important step in the spring of 2000, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to participate with the University of Chicago in creating an interdisciplinary center called The France Chicago Center. Its core mission is to establish structured cooperative relationships that will encourage an interdisciplinary approach to France, through visiting scholar arrangements, joint faculty research projects, sponsorship of academic and public lecturers, seminars, and conferences, and promotion of the teaching of undergraduate and graduate courses on modern France.