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Publications (10 of 29) Show all publications
Knudsen, D. (2024). 'Helten' Hammarskjöld. Weekendavisen (240424)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>'Helten' Hammarskjöld
2024 (Danish)In: Weekendavisen, ISSN 0106-4142, no 240424, p. 1Article in journal, News item (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
København: , 2024. p. 1
National Category
History
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-67009 (URN)
Available from: 2024-04-29 Created: 2024-04-29 Last updated: 2024-10-29Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2023). Congress for Cultural Freedoms skandinaviske aktiviteter i 1960'erne, med særlig henblik på Danmark.. In: : . Paper presented at Dansk Historikermøde 2023, Aarhus Universitet, 17.-18. august 2023.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Congress for Cultural Freedoms skandinaviske aktiviteter i 1960'erne, med særlig henblik på Danmark.
2023 (Danish)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [da]

Dino Knudsen undersøger hvorledes Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), en global organisation af prominente intellektuelle og kunstnere der førte kulturkamp mod den internationale kommunisme i 1950’erne og 60’erne, virkede i en dansk og skandinavisk sammenhæng, indtil det i 1966-67 blev en offentlig skandale at organisationen havde været delvist finansieret og styret af den amerikanske efterretningstjeneste CIA. Tidligere forskning har kastet lys over hvordan organisationens danske aktiviteter i 1950’erne blev ledet af den tidligere modstandsmand Arne Sejr. I 1960’erne blev CCF’s arbejde i hele Skandinavien imidlertid reorganiseret og koordineret fra København. Nyt arkivmateriale belyser hvordan organisationen, nu anført af den danske bibliotekar og journalist Jørgen Schleimann, skiftede strategi fra mere lokale og diskrete aktiviteter til offentligt påvirkningsarbejde, blandt andet gennem førende kulturtidsskrifter som danske Perspektiv. Man engagerede sig også i antikolonialisme, hvorved der opstod interessante paralleller og koordinering mellem statslige og private engagementer i blandt andet Afrikansk uafhængighed og udvikling.

Keywords
Kold krig, antikommunisme, amerikanisering, kulturkamp
National Category
History and Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71308 (URN)
Conference
Dansk Historikermøde 2023, Aarhus Universitet, 17.-18. august 2023
Available from: 2024-09-20 Created: 2024-09-20 Last updated: 2024-09-25Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2023). The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs and the perforation of the Iron and Bamboo curtains. In: : . Paper presented at Neutrality, advocacy and dialogue – understanding Cold War Europe, Lund University, September 12, 2023.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs and the perforation of the Iron and Bamboo curtains
2023 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Religious organizations are perfectly situated to perform key roles in global politics. They are some of the largest and best organized civil society organizations, in some instances even more stable than local or national governments. Their networks stretch deep into society, even across state borders, constituting potentially effective channels of communication. Moreover, few can match their ability to formulate norms and values, including influencing public opinion, which provides them with a high moral authority. Together with access to top-level decision makers, this makes religious organizations unique diplomatic players with the ability to influence and frame policy making. 

When the Cold War replaced the Great Alliance of the Second World War, most transnational organizations inspired by this alliance either split, aligned themselves with one camp or crumbled within a few years. However, one of the sole organizations able to resist the escalating East-West tensions and remain relatively independent was a religious organization, the World Council of Churches (WCC). Having faced the breakdown of international order in the 1930s and with Cold War tensions threatening to obstruct the formation of a new one after the Second World War, Christian churches reactivated and reinvented their diplomatic craft through the birth of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.  

This paper looks at the role the Commission played in bridging East and West in the Cold War, especially the significance of its pioneering of East-West cultural exchange and how it reached out to Christians behind the Iron and Bamboo curtains. 

Keywords
Cold War, Christian Churches, Ecumenism, Diplomacy
National Category
History and Archaeology
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71310 (URN)
Conference
Neutrality, advocacy and dialogue – understanding Cold War Europe, Lund University, September 12, 2023
Available from: 2024-09-20 Created: 2024-09-20 Last updated: 2024-09-25Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2023). The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Cultural Cold War in the Nordic region, 1950-1970. In: : . Paper presented at 5th Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network, University of Turku, May 25-27, 2023.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Cultural Cold War in the Nordic region, 1950-1970
2023 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

The Congress for Cultural Freedom and the Cultural Cold War in the Nordic region, 1950-1970

The Cold War was much more than the military arms race and proxy wars between the two superpowers. At its core, the Cold War was a battle between cultures, between ideas and visions. The Cultural Cold War is therefore not a side show, but a central aspect of the Cold War.

In this cultural contest, The Congress for Cultural Freedom, founded in 1950, was the largest covert program of its kind by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in terms of activities, budgets and longevity. Until the CIA-link was revealed in 1966-67, the Congress organized local subchapters and published journals in more than 30 countries worldwide, including on all five continents. 

Congress magazines focused on high culture and included contributions from leading Western writers, artists, and philosophers. Promoting freedom and combatting totalitarianism, the Congress published books and organized conferences, concerts, exhibitions, and campaigns that contributed to a positive view of American culture and the spread of an anti-Communist “Cold War modernism”. On the political level, the Congress contained communist peace initiatives, combatted neutralist tendencies, advanced a Cold War consensus liberalism, and common security in NATO.

In the past twenty years scholars have studied the Congress locally and globally, including in the Nordic region. However, this panel will deepen and widen the study of this phenomenon, including to new places in the Nordic region, but also with a focus on the still largely unexplored 1960s, including how Congress activities became centrally coordinated from Copenhagen. This will be done with an eye to how Congress activities related to official diplomacy.  

Keywords
Cold War, anticommunism, americanization, art
National Category
History and Archaeology
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71309 (URN)
Conference
5th Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network, University of Turku, May 25-27, 2023
Available from: 2024-09-20 Created: 2024-09-20 Last updated: 2024-09-25Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2022). Dengang Pollocks abstrakte malerier blev billedet på det vestlige samfunds kreativitet og frihed [Review]. Dagbladet Information (2022-05-27)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Dengang Pollocks abstrakte malerier blev billedet på det vestlige samfunds kreativitet og frihed
2022 (Danish)In: Dagbladet Information, no 2022-05-27Article, book review (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Abstract [da]

Anmeldelse: Parapolitics – Cultural Freedom and the Cold War

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
København: , 2022
Keywords
cultural cold war, art, aesthetics, Congress for Cultural Freedom
National Category
History Arts
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-59372 (URN)
Available from: 2023-04-26 Created: 2023-04-26 Last updated: 2023-07-06Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2022). Det finkulturella kriget.: En front i kraftmätningen mellem stormakterna. Clarté (4)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Det finkulturella kriget.: En front i kraftmätningen mellem stormakterna
2022 (Swedish)In: Clarté, ISSN 0345-2085, no 4, p. 6Article in journal (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Stockholm: , 2022. p. 6
Keywords
Cold War, Culture, Art, CIA, Congress for Cultural Freedom
National Category
History and Archaeology Arts
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-58654 (URN)
Available from: 2023-03-15 Created: 2023-03-15 Last updated: 2023-04-14Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2022). The significance of the postwar triangular cultural circuit for our contemporary world. In: : . Paper presented at Nordiska Historikermötet 2022, Göteborgs Universitet, 8-11 augusti, 2022.
Open this publication in new window or tab >>The significance of the postwar triangular cultural circuit for our contemporary world
2022 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

It is widely recognized that Europe rose to global power on the basis of the triangular trade with Africa and America. However, often historians fail to acknowledge the extent to which our contemporary world is the product of a triangular cultural circuit between the three continents. 

This panel explores the cultural circulation between Scandinavia, the US and Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, during decolonization and the Cold War. These transatlantic exchanges led to the reinvention, renegotiation and reformation of fundamental ideas and practices related to freedom and equality, race and universality, dependence and independence, development and modernization. 

But what kind of symbols, discourses and practices evolved as non-state actors engaged in this exchange, which included creating an image of Scandinavia as a tolerant and progressive region? To what degree did the circuit challenge the Color Curtain and the Iron Curtain, the fundamental divisions at the time?

Keywords
Cultural Cold War, decolonization, Americanization
National Category
History and Archaeology
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-71311 (URN)
Conference
Nordiska Historikermötet 2022, Göteborgs Universitet, 8-11 augusti, 2022
Available from: 2024-09-20 Created: 2024-09-20 Last updated: 2024-09-25Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2021). En kultur på markedskræfter, skjulte manøvrer og Marshallplan [Review]. Dagbladet Information (2021-08-07)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>En kultur på markedskræfter, skjulte manøvrer og Marshallplan
2021 (Danish)In: Dagbladet Information, no 2021-08-07Article, book review (Other (popular science, discussion, etc.)) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
København: , 2021
Keywords
cultural cold war; art; aesthetics; Congress for Cultural Freedom
National Category
History Art History
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-59373 (URN)
Available from: 2023-04-26 Created: 2023-04-26 Last updated: 2023-04-27Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2020). Book Review: Thomas Gijswijt, Informal Alliance. The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations During the Cold War, 1952-1968 [Review]. Diplomatica. A Journal of Diplomacy and Society, 2(1), 163-166
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Book Review: Thomas Gijswijt, Informal Alliance. The Bilderberg Group and Transatlantic Relations During the Cold War, 1952-1968
2020 (English)In: Diplomatica. A Journal of Diplomacy and Society, ISSN 2589-1766, Vol. 2, no 1, p. 163-166Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2020
National Category
History
Research subject
Global politics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-45718 (URN)10.1163/25891774-00201014 (DOI)000904910600014 ()
Available from: 2021-09-07 Created: 2021-09-07 Last updated: 2025-01-14Bibliographically approved
Knudsen, D. (2018). Authors response: H-Diplo Roundtable XIX, 30 on The Trilateral Commission and Global Governance. Informal Elite Diplomacy, 1972-1982. H-Net/H-Diplo, XIX(30)
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Authors response: H-Diplo Roundtable XIX, 30 on The Trilateral Commission and Global Governance. Informal Elite Diplomacy, 1972-1982
2018 (English)In: H-Net/H-Diplo, Vol. XIX, no 30Article, review/survey (Other academic) Published
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online, 2018
National Category
History
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-45719 (URN)
Available from: 2021-09-07 Created: 2021-09-07 Last updated: 2024-04-12Bibliographically approved
Organisations
Identifiers
ORCID iD: ORCID iD iconorcid.org/0000-0002-3697-9009

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