Perry Miller

Last summer PERKY MILLER, Professor of American Literature at Harvard, was one of five college teachers a who were invited to conduct a seminar in American Studies at the l niversities of Tokyo and Hiroshima. The impressions which Mr. Miller brought back with him were not those of an expert on the Orient, but of a man especially sensitive to the interests and the dedication of scholars all over the world. Atlanlic readers will remember his provocative article “What Drove Me Crazy in Europe,”the account of his experiences lecturing on the Continent.

The contemporary American writers have made an impact on Europe comparable to the one created by Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, says PERRY MlLLER. Professor of American Literature at Harvard, Mr. Miller writes from close observation of the academic world of Western Europe. He was visiting lecturer at the University of Leiden, and he spoke at many other institutions in Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Outward hound for a year of teaching at a number of European universities, PERRY MILLER, Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. encountered on the float a novelist whose work he had been discussing for many years — Sinclair Leuis. Their friendship sparked on sight and they saw much of each other during the last year of Mr. Letwis’s life. At Mr. Miller’s request. Mr. Lewis lectured at the University of Leiden, and it is against this foreign background that Mr. Miller has drawn this clear. unforgettable portrait.

Why do so many educated Europeans cling to misconceptions and outworn stereotypes about the l nited States? What do they realty think of us? PERRY MILLER, Professor of American Literature at Harvard, struggled to answer these questions during his recent tour of duty in the university world of Western Europe. Eisiting Lecturer at the University of Leiden, Mr. Miller also became acvjuainted with a number of other institutions in Holland. Belgium, Eranee. Switzerland, and Italy. Again and again, he found a fundamental misunderstanding of this country.