The Warburg Institute, founded in the 1920s in Hamburg by art and cultural historian Aby Warburg, is a pioneering institution that has greatly shaped the fields of art, myth, religion, medicine, philosophy, and intellectual history. When, in 1933, the institute was moved to London to escape the Nazis, its research and legacy were protected and further developed by a network of researchers dispersed throughout the UK, the US, and Canada. The first interdisciplinary study of the Warburg network as an arena of intellectual transmission, transformation, and exchange, this volume reveals the dynamics, agencies, and actors at play in the development of the Warburg Institute's program and output, with a specific focus on the role of Raymond Klibansky (1905–2005) in the institute's major ventures. Among these collective projects of the institute are the famous Saturn and Melancholy, which blends art history with philosophical and cultural history, and the Latin and Arabic Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi series, which contributed to research on the continuity of Platonic thought. Consulting published and unpublished sources including correspondences, memories, and diaries of affiliated scholars, the essays explore the history of the Warburg Library as a vital cultural institution and the personal and intellectual relationships of the researchers devoted to it. From Hamburg to London to Montreal, Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Library Network takes readers on a journey into more than forty years of intellectual life at one of the most prestigious cultural research institutes. Contributors include Philippe Despoix (Université de Montréal), Georges Leroux (UQAM), Eric Méchoulan (Université de Montréal), Elisabeth Otto (Université de Montréal), Elizabeth Sears (University of Michigan), Davide Stimilli (University of Colorado at Boulder), Jillian Tomm (Université de Montréal), Martin Treml (Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin), Jean-Philippe Uzel (UQAM), Regina Weber (DLA Marbach), Claudia Wedepohl (The Warburg Institute London), and Graham Whitaker (Glasgow University)

Philippe Despoix is professor of comparative literature and director of the Center for Intermedial Research in Arts, Literatures and Technologies at Université de Montréal.

Philippe Despoix's profile page

Jillian Tomm is author of a number of essays on the Raymond Klibansky Collection of McGill University Library.

Jillian Tomm's profile page

"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

“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

"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

"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