Literature of Warning: The State-Private Network, Cultural Patronage, and the Emergence of Foundation Literature during the Cold War

Abstract

The literature on the cultural Cold War acknowledges that American philanthropic foundations provided funding to various Cold War projects, but does not provide a close analysis of the foundations’ involvement or examine how philanthropies and government agencies coordinated their funding, let alone consider the influence it had on writers and their work. This gap in analysis overlooks the intricacies of the foundations’ relationship with the American state and the role philanthropies played in circulating culture and building artistic networks throughout the Cold War. This dissertation begins to close that gap by examining the establishment of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence program by the Ford Foundation in 1963, focusing on its first two years of writing residences before the program was transferred to the German Academic Exchange Service, which still runs it today. Analyzing the function and influence of foundations within international artistic affairs during the Cold War period establishes that foundation personnel played key roles in connecting government policy to results on the ground. More broadly, this project explores how foundations built artistic networks and institutionalized art with a range of residency programs, grants, and accolades, setting a precedent, which still functions to this day. Analyzing the participation of Ingeborg Bachmann, Walter Höllerer, Witold Gombrowicz, Piers Paul Read, and W.H. Auden in the Berlin program shows that this new arrangement and the work it propelled resulted in mixed consequences for artists, extending prestige and visibility to certain artists and creating complications for others. Close attention to the Berlin projects elucidates how philanthropic foundations and Cold War networks played an essential role in connecting writers, while also allowing for exploration of how those writers utilized the opportunity in pursuit of their own goals. Ultimately, the analysis of writers’ texts illuminates their awareness of how the political-economic environment was working to shape them into suitable public intellectuals for the postwar age. The writers’ attention to and discussion of their artistic, social, and financial predicaments within their work defines a new subgenre of mid-century twentieth literature: foundation literature.