Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Library Network

Philippe Despoix is professor of comparative literature and director of the Center for Intermedial Research in Arts, Literatures and Technologies at Université de Montréal. Jillian Tomm is author of a number of essays on the Raymond Klibansky Collection of McGill University Library. Eric Méchoulan is professor of French literature at Université de Montréal. Georges Leroux is professor emeritus at the Department of Philosophy at Université de Québec à Montréal.

"Fresh and original, Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Library Network increases our knowledge of an important group of scholars around a very meaningful institution, and especially Klibansky's personality and work, which deserves great attention." Irene Kajon, Sapienza Università di Roma "Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Library Network is a very strong collection with contributions by eminent scholars in their fields. The structure invites a variety of perspectives on Klibansky and the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg that are biographical, methodological, and intellectual-historical, but it is never guilty of miscellany or diffuse eclecticism. An outstanding explanatory critical introduction details Klibansky's peregrinations and sometimes uncertain or agonistic relationships with the KBW without losing sight of his crucial role in the post-exile continuity of that institution." Ned Curthoys, University of Western Australia "This collection provides a very useful companion for understanding the highly fertile intellectual soil that presided – among other things – over the conception of this legendary work, particularly with regard to the crucial role played by Klibansky, whom we were fortunate enough to welcome to Montreal from 1946 until his death in 2005. This very rich volume proposes a form of intellectual history, transdisciplinary and intercultural, much less focused on individuals than on group interactions, less on methodologies than on their transpositions in new geographical, historical, and cultural contexts, and this, with a constant and rigorous attention to the profoundly humanistic process of transmission – material and intellectual – to which this book itself makes a significant contribution." Jean-François Vallée, Collège de Maisonneuve, Philosophiques [translated from original version in French] "This collaborative book uses Raymond Klibansky as a window through which the reader can become acquainted with the agents and circumstances the philosopher encountered and navigated throughout his life. Although the book demonstrates how Klibansky was the result of his context, it is also clear that his intellectual journey, his philosophical and philological enterprises, and his rigorous commitment to knowledge changed the intellectual landscapes of Art History, Medieval Studies, and Philosophy." SHARP News "The essays in this collection present Klibansky as the philologist-philosopher who rescued a lost chapter in the history of Platonism and in the historiography of philosophy in general. They splendidly describe the way in which Klibansky inhabited the intellectual space of the Warburg network and the various exchanges that nurtured his professional and personal life." International Journal of the Platonic Tradition