Jewish intellectual diaspora and the circulation of mathematics: Alessandro Terracini in Argentina (1939-1948)

The racial laws of 1938, which determined for Italian Jews the loss of civil and political rights, and the complete banishment from scientific and academic arenas, deeply impacted Italian mathematics, which suddenly lost outstanding figures like Levi-Civita, Volterra, Castelnuovo, Enriques and many others. Their dismissal triggered a series of institutional, epistemic and social changes in culture and scholarship. Jewish intellectual diaspora is among them. In this paper, after providing an overview on the phenomenon of Jewish mathematical emigration from fascist Italy after 1938, we will focus on the biographical and professional experience of Terracini, who succeeded in reconstructing his life and scientific career in Argentina, where he left a substantial and long-term legacy on a entire generation of young mathematicians (Luis Santalò, Félix Herrera, Mischa Cotlar, …).