Life
Brown's father was an Anglo-Irish mining engineer. His mother was a Cuban of Alsatian and Cuban origin. He was educated at Clifton College, then Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., M.A., Greats; his tutor was Isaiah Berlin) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison (Ph.D., Classics).
In 1938, Brown married Elizabeth Potter. During World War II, he worked for the Office of Strategic Services as a specialist on French culture. His supervisor was Carl Schorske, and his colleagues included Herbert Marcuse and Franz Neumann. His other friends included the historians Christopher Hill and Hayden White as well as the philosopher Stuart Hampshire. At Wesleyan University, he befriended the composer John Cage, an association that proved fruitful to both. Brown became a professor of classics at Wesleyan. During Brown's tenure there, Schorske became a professor of history and the two engaged in a mutually beneficial interdisciplinary discourse.
Read more about this topic: Norman O. Brown
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