Slochower, Harry, 1900-....

Harry Slochower was born in 1900 in Bukovina, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and came to the United States in 1913. He grew up in the Bronx and graduated from the College of the City of New York in 1923 with a B.S.S. in Philosophy and German. Mr. Slochower continued his studies at Columbia University where he received his M.A. in 1924 and Ph.D in 1928, both in German. He married in 1942 and the coulple had a daughter, Joyce. In 1925-26 Harry Slochower went to Europe and studied at hte Universities of Munich, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He expounded on the philosopohy ofJohn Dewey (in English) at the University of Berlin and gave a series of lectures on Contemporary American Literature at the Humboldt-Akademie also in Berlin. In 1929 Harry Slochower was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study what the effects of Schopenhauer's works had on literature and philosophy. Harry Slochower began his career teaching English to immigrants in the New York City Public School system. He taught German at Columbia University's Extension Division between 1924 and 1927, and, in 1930, joining the faculty at Brooklyn College as Assistant Professor in the German Department. He taught Comparative Literature and, in time, gave an introductory course in the Department of Philosophy. Professor Slochower was later affiliated with the New School for Social Research, the William Alanson White Institute for Psychiatry, the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, the Brooklyn Academy of Arts and Sciences, and, in 1967, lectured at the University of Rochester. He was Visiting Professor at Drew University, Adjunct Professor at Syracuse University in 1969, and Visiting Professor at Sir George Williams University (Montreal) in the summer of 1973. The controversy over Dr. Harry Slochower began in the 1940's when an English professor at Brooklyn College, Bernard Grebanier, accused Harry Slochower of being a member of the Communist Party. Harry Slochower never denied that he was drawn to Marxist writings andwas sympathetic to the Communist Party. However, under oath, Dr. Slochower denied the accusations and, since the charges could not be substantiated, he continued to teach and to write. In 1952 Harry Slochower was called before a Senate Internal Security subcommittee regarding "subversive activities". He refused to state whether or not he had been a Communist in the 1940's, and invoked the Fifth Amendment. Professor Slochower was then dismissed from Brooklyn College. Subsequently, Dr. Slochower was reinstated with more than $40,00.00 in back pay, but was again suspended on charges that he had made false statements under oath at the Senate hearing. Dr. Slochower resigned and spent the rest of his life practicing psychoanalysis. Harry Slochower wrote five books of literary criticism, including Three Ways of Modern Man (1937), Thomas Mann's Joseph Story: An Interpretation (1938), and No Voice is Wholly Lost (1945), and contributed frequently in philosophical, literary, and psychoanalytic journals. Dr. Slochower was President of the Association for Applied Psychoanalysis for several years, and editor in chief of American Imago, a psychoanalytic quarterly from 1964 until his death. Dr. Harry Slochower died on May 11, 1991 at his home in Brooklyn.

From the description of The Papers of Harry Slochower; 1915-1991. (Brooklyn College). WorldCat record id: 425811874

Educator and psychiatrist, professor at Brooklyn College from 1930-1957 who taught German and was popular with students.

Implicated in "red scare" of the McCarthy era; dispute with Gideonse, president of the college, over alleged communist affiliations.

From the description of Professional and personal papers, 1910-1988 1930-1987. (Brooklyn College). WorldCat record id: 36978855