Women and international intellectual co-operation

Abstract

The article explores ways in which intellectual co-operation at the League of Nations [SDN] provided a space for the engagement of culturally elite women in intellectual co-operation circles in Geneva, Paris and a range of national contexts stretching across Europe, Latin America and Asia. It discusses the language of the “international mind” and of “moral disarmament” that built on understandings of international co-operation, underpinned by an approach to sovereignty that transcended the nation state. In addition to charting the engagement of women with the International Committee of Intellectual Co-operation [ICIC] at Geneva, the article looks at the links between international women’s organisations and women ICIC members and experts on ICIC sub-committees. The article uses the International Federation of University Women’s [IFUW] work on the equivalence of university degrees to illustrate how transnational women’s networks progressed the work of the SDN.