Human Sciences, Beliefs and Literature: Maritain and Catholic Intellectual Networks in Interwar Europe; [Ciências humanas, crenças e literatura: Maritain e redes intelectuais católicas na Europa entre guerras]

Sánchez-Costa E. · Austral Comunicacion (2025) · DOI: 10.26422/aucom.2025.1402.san

Resumen

This work studies, from concepts of network theory, the creation and articulation of Catholic intellectual networks in interwar Europe. Particular attention is devoted to Jacques Maritain, who, from his residence in Meudon and through projects such as the Thomistic Studies Circle, the Society for the Philosophy of Nature and the editorial collection Le Roseau d’Or, became the main superconnector and the connection center of Catholicism, in the field of human sciences and literature, in interwar Europe. It is concluded that these Catholic intellectual networks were more dynamic and creative, in the field of human sciences and literature, than the ecclesiastical hierarchies of the moment. And that, in the face of the crisis of modernity, after the disruptive fever of the avant-garde and the trauma of the Great War, these networks offered, in interwar Europe, spaces of welcome, encounter and hope; prestigious intellectual and vital models, worthy of imitation; exciting collective projects, such as the Esprit and Cruz y Raya magazines; and belonging to a social network and a community of Catholic identity (intellectual, spiritual and friendly) with all the attractiveness of its social capital: maps of meaning, common references, publications and mutual aid networks. For all these reasons, these Catholic intellectual networks were key to repositioning Catholicism, in interwar Europe, as a reference in the human sciences and as a renewing and suggestive response to the crisis of modernity.

Instituciones: Universidad de Piura