Andreas Åkerlund

The impact of foreign policy on educational exchange: the Swedish state scholarship programme 1938–1990

Programmes of international educational exchange are not only carried out for educational purposes, but form an important part of modern-day public diplomacy. Through exchange programmes education and research are linked with foreign policy interests, which then in turn should affect the international contacts of universities and research facilities. The present article applies a long-term perspective on the scholarship programme of the Swedish state in order to show how the shifts in Swedish foreign policy during the period 1938–1990 have affected the number and composition of scholars incoming to Sweden over time.

Ambassadors of the Swedish Nation: National Images in the Teaching of the Swedish Lecturers in Germany 1918-1945.

This article analyses the teaching of Swedish language lecturers active in Germany during the first half of the twentieth century. It shows the centrality of literature and literary constructions and analyses images of Swedishness and the Swedish nation present in the teaching material of that time in relation to the national image present in Swedish schoolbooks. The importance of language teaching to the transfer of knowledge regarding foreign countries is also discussed, in this case the knowledge and images of Sweden that were transferred to German students via their lecturers.

National Relations. Public diplomacy, national identity and the Swedish Institute 1945–1970

National Relations. Public diplomacy, national identity and the Swedish Institute 1945-1970

Das Berliner Schwedischlektorat : Personalpolitik und Ideologie im frühen "Dritten Reich"

In September 1933 the Swedish national socialist Malte Welin was appointed lecturer for Nordic literature at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. Plans also existed to make him lecturer for Swedish at the same university and the lecturer Vilhelm Scharp was therefore dismissed. Welin himself lost the lectureship less than three months later without even having been in Berlin. This article describes and analyzes the „case Welin“ as an example for the attempt to adapt Nordic studies in Berlin to National Socialist politics. The appointment led to protests and a strain in Swedish-German relations. This is also analysed in detail.