The paper analyses, in a comparative perspective, both the similarities and the differences of the "New Yorker" intellectuals, gathered by the Partisan Review, and the "Paulistas," gathered by the Clima magazine. Being heirs to the modernist legacy, familiarized with cultural cosmopolitanism, and aware of the intellectual and artistic local production, they took the stage in the "Paulista" and "New Yorker" cultural scene in the 1940's and 1950's. The latter could also renovate the discussion on the relationship between modernism in the arts and radicalism in politics. As both intellectuals and writers, they were distinct from the academics in the strict sense. As critics and reviewers, they made the essay their expression means by excellence, finding in the New Yorker literary and political magazines their institutional forum. At the same time similar and distinct to the Clima "Paulistas," they provide a reasonable counterpoint to go deeper in the investigation of the intellectual life in Sao Paulo in that period. That will be done if we, above all, are able to advance over the investigative scope of prevailing sociological problems aside the recuperation of the particularities of the cultural and intellectual history of the cities of New York and Sao Paulo, in order to deepen the comparative perspective.
Partisan Review and the Clima magazine; New York and Sao Paulo; Sociology of the intellectual life; Cities