Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center
Finding aid for Ernst Kantorowicz correspondence found in his offprints
SMC.KANTOROWICZ
Table of Contents
Summary Information
- Repository
- Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center
- Title
- Ernst Kantorowicz correspondence found in his offprints
- ID
- SMC.KANTOROWICZ
- Date
- 1940-1942, 1950-1963, and 1985
- Extent
- 1.0 folders
- Language
- English
- Language of Materials note
- While most of the collection is in English, fourteen letters are in German and two are in Italian.
- Small Manuscripts Collections
- The Small Manuscripts Collection (SMC) designation is given to collections of personal papers that comprise less than 0.25 linear feet. In many cases, these collections consist of a single folder.
Preferred Citation note
The suggested citation for the material is "[item], Ernst Kantorowicz correspondence found in his offprints, From the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, USA."
Biographical/Historical note
Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz was born on May 3, 1895, to a Jewish family in what is now Poznan, Poland. He served in the German Army during World War I, then studied philosophy at the University of Berlin. He moved to the University of Heidelberg to study history with Karl Hampe and Friedrich Baethgen, two noted medievalists. While in Heidelberg, Kantorowicz became involved with the so-called Georgekreis, a group of artists and intellectuals devoted to the German poet and aesthete Stefan George and who shared an interest in art, literature and Romantic mysticism.
He published a controversial biography of Frederick II.
He served on the faculty of the University of Frankfurt until 1933, when he was forced to resign by the Nazi regime. He taught briefly at Oxford University, then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley. He remained at Berkeley until 1939, when he left after a controversy in which he refused to sign a loyalty oath. He was asked to join the faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study.
Kantorowicz died on September 9, 1963.
Scope and Contents note
The Ernst Kantorowicz correspondence found in his offprints is comprised mostly of letters to Kantorowicz from fellow scholars representing various fields in the humanities. Roughly thirty unique individuals are among the correspondents. Other kinds of documents in the collection include one short typed manuscript, one business card, and a typed introduction on behalf of a speaker giving a lecture (this appears to have been given by Kantorowicz for Dom Anselm Strittmater). Not all of the documents are in English, but what there is suggests some themes that are likely shared throughout the collection. Some letters express thanks to Kantorowicz for having loaned the offprint in which the letter was found, and which was authored by a third party. In some cases the letter to Kantorowicz is accompanying a courtesy copy of an article written by the letter's author. The level of intimacy both personally and professionally expressed in the letters varies in the collection. The relationship between the materials and the offprint in which they were found also varies. In many cases, the offprint is inscribed.
Administrative Information
Publication Information
Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center
Historical Studies-Social Science LibraryEinstein Drive
Princeton
NJ, 08540
609-734-8375
archives@ias.edu
Custodial History note
The Ernst Kantorowicz offprints collection is in the holdings of the Institute for Advanced Study's Historical Studies-Social Science Library. Though a few scholars and staff appear to have known, at least in part, that correspondence could be found among these offprints, those materials had never been systematically identified or recorded. In response to a research question posed in February of 2011, current Library and Archives staff made a preliminary inspection and found one piece of correspondence inserted into one of the offprints. In response to this, the researcher who had posed the question came to the campus and made a thorough search under Archives staff supervision of the entire Ernst Kantorowicz offprints collection. The offprints themselves were retained by the Library and the found materials were transferred to the Archives Center and now comprise the contents of this collection. In 2012, another researcher found a few more items of a similar kind among the offprints. Those few items were handled in the same way and interfiled with the already existing collection.
Processing Information note
To both preserve the provenance of the items as well as support accessibility for all users, photocopies of the original documents were placed in the Historical Studies-Social Science Library's Ernst Kantorowicz offprints collection in the same location where each item was found and, correspondingly, digital and print copies of identifying pages from the offprints collection have been placed with the original documents in this collection.
Note, too, that this collection provides evidence that there was at least one addition made to the Library's Ernst Kantorowicz offprints collection after the initial transfer. This one identified instance is described in the 1985 gift letter to the Library from Homer Thompson, Faculty member of the Institute's School of Historical Studies, of a Kantorowicz-authored offprint.
Collection Inventory
CorrespondenceErnst Kantorowicz correspondence found in his offprints - Correspondence [http://cdm.itg.ias.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coll12/id/22194] |
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