First Person

Intellectual Immigration

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By Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen

I arrived in Chicago three months ago, full of hopes, with my pregnant wife and luggage. It was 6 a.m. and I was jet-lagged. All the rumors about rude immigration officials proved false. I received lots of "Welcome to America" comments, and had virtually no problems.

Within weeks I had my Social Security card in hand and could begin the job hunt -- yet another in the long line of immigrants arriving in the U.S.A., attempting to start a better life. At Chicago's O'Hare Airport, my wife and I waited together with a family from Africa and a woman and child from Hong Kong. It felt good to join the line.

I guess I am better off than most immigrants. Born in 1972, in Copenhagen, I am the progeny of a family of academics. I have a master's degree in history from the University of Copenhagen and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Free University of Berlin. I have written several articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes; most of them are in Danish, but others are in English and French. I met my wife some years ago, while visiting a major research university in California. She was born in Seoul, South Korea, but is a naturalized American citizen. I already have contacts and friends in the American academy.

However, I have no illusions. My background will necessarily become a problem. In Europe, my wife had trouble finding a proper job, although she has a degree from an Ivy League institution.

In America, nobody has read my newspaper opinion columns, few have heard my talks and lectures, and most of my writings are inaccessible. Even if they could read Danish, the style is different. An old Baroque saying declares: "The more one increases in learning, the more one decreases in manners." Unfortunately, for me, the saying is wrong. The academy has rules of decorum and those rules vary from country to country.

It is not only academic habits, styles of arguing, teaching, and writing, which can create problems. The small quotidian details single you out as a stranger.

The first time I had lunch with a group of American academics (at an Italian restaurant in Berlin), I asked for a glass of wine with my food. When the waiter arrived with our orders, I realized that everyone else was drinking mineral water. Maybe it did not matter, but I felt like an outsider -- a depraved European. In California, I experienced something similar each time I stepped outside a dinner party or a conference meeting to smoke a cigarette.

Last winter, when we began considering immigrating to America, I read various writings of famous intellectual exiles. I also stumbled over a lecture, which Adorno delivered to the Los Angeles Jewish Club in May of 1945, about "intellectual emigration."

It was depressing reading. For a day I was in a lousy mood and my wife forbad me to read any more Adorno. In May 1945, when the German troops were surrendering across Europe and the world celebrated the victory of freedom, Adorno spoke in German about resisting the American lifestyle. German intellectual emigrants should stay emigrants, instead of embracing their new country as immigrants. They should not, Adorno insisted, sell out to the forces of capitalism or accept the superficiality of American society -- exactly the kind of talk that got Germany into trouble in the first place and now is getting much of Europe into trouble again.

Adorno's reaction is not uncommon among European academics visiting American universities. They return to Europe more European than ever before. They remember silly European mannerisms, which no one otherwise adheres to (such as changing from brown to black shoes at 6 p.m.). They find confirmation in their imagined profundity and authenticity (nothing could be less authentic). Confronted with American rules and customs, which they do not master, they revert to the rhetoric of cultural supremacy.

Personally, I would love to sell out to the forces of capitalism, preferably as soon as possible. (How did Adorno pay his rent?) The problem is finding someone who is willing to buy what I have to sell.

The next year is more or less secured. I have received some grants to finance my visit at the University of Chicago this fall. And in the spring, I will be teaching at the research university in California, where I met my wife. It does not pay a lot, but at least it will give me the chance to prove that I can teach in English and work with American students. From the summer of 2006, however, I have no idea how I shall support my family (including Junior who is now moving around in my sleeping wife's stomach).

My dream job would be a position at a small liberal-arts college in New England. I enjoy teaching and seeing individual students mature intellectually. One major problem at European universities is that they stuff too many students into the same classrooms with little consideration for their differences.

I hope to find employment at an institution that allows me to attend to the needs of each individual student, and does not force me to prioritize among them. I imagine that high tuition costs would create such a teaching environment. Private enterprises cannot afford to neglect their customers.

But my preference for New England is not a demand. Honestly, much of America is unknown territory to me. I have never been to San Francisco, but have often heard it described as something close to an academic's Garden of Eden. I also have some romantic notions about small coastal cities in the South (also those notions have diminished considerably since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita roared through).

Only the vast heartland scares me, coming from a nation of islands. But I did survive three years as a graduate student in Berlin, so why not some nice old town looking over the Mississippi?

I think I have the qualifications for a position at a liberal-arts college. I am broadly trained in European intellectual history. I like teaching and I am publishing. However, I do not know how to convince American colleges that I am the best candidate and that my application is sincere. Ideas only have cash value if you know how to sell them.

Before we left Europe, I read a booklet that Harvard University gives to its new Ph.D.'s and discovered a world of academic career tricks. For example, I originally thought that a cover letter was only a formality, announcing your address and current position. Reading the Harvard booklet, I realized that it comes closer to a love letter to a yet unknown but -- at a distance -- beautiful woman.

Also the size of the CVs surprised me. Are departments really interested in knowing all the talks I have given or the honors I received? Some tricks were very helpful; for example, translating the titles of articles in foreign languages: "The Northern European Enlightenment" certainly looks better on my CV than "Den nordeuropaeiske oplysning." I had also never considered the possibility of quoting my students' evaluations.

I am not sure that I can replicate the Harvard examples without sounding phony. Will I look like an imposter? After all, I am European.

Well, I would rather be an imposter than a bitter old man like Adorno. I discarded my last pack of cigarettes at O'Hare Airport and will happily discard other bad habits as well. I am ready for "intellectual immigration"!