Between the local and the international: Enrique Gómez Carrillo and Antonio Aita at the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation

Abstract

What was the relationship of Latin American intellectuals with Europe during the interwar period? What were their ideas on intellectual interna- tionalization? How was Latin America perceived by European and Latin American intellectuals? We aim to approach these questions from the perspective of the found- ing and activity of the Argentine National Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, as part of the International Institute of Intellectual Coop- eration (IICI), which operated in Paris between 1925 and 1946. We will examine the profiles of the most prominent actors involved in the Com- mittee, focusing mainly on the work of Argentine representatives Enrique Gómez Carrillo, delegate at the Argentine Legation from 1926 to 1927, and Antonio Aita, secretary of the Argentine National Committee from 1936 to 1940. We review their positions on the concepts of “intellectual cooperation”, “internationalism”, and “Americanism”,2 as well as their relationship with national and foreign literature, based on an analysis of documents from the IICI archives kept at the UNESCO library in Paris.