Heather Dichter and Sport in the Cold War
Sport and the Cold War is the focus for this week’s episode with Geoff talking to Dr Heather Dichter of the International Centre for Sport History and Culture at De Montfort University.There were some technical issues on Geoff’s side but do persevere, the sound quality gets better! It was a wide-ranging discussion in which Heather talked about her latest publications, the first being an article for the International Journal of the History of Sport on the roots of corruption in the dubious practices of bid committees for the 1968 Summer and Winter Olympics.She also talked about her editorship of a new collection on Soccer Diplomacy, in which she has a chapter on the way in which East Germany used its participation in FIFA and UEFA-organised tournaments in the 1960s to gain international recognition.There’s also news of a virtual symposium being held on 19th June 2020 at the British Library in which Heather and other scholars will be exploring the archival resources available for researching Paralympic and Olympic History.And there’s still time to talk to Heather about her work as review editor for the Journal of Sport History, and as an admin for H-Sport, the incredibly useful resource for sports historians, which among other things publishes a database of the latest research into sport history from around the globe.Dr Heather Dichter teaches sport management and sport history at De Montfort University where she is part of the team at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture. Her research interests are the Olympic Games, international sport, diplomacy and international relations, Germany, Europe and NATO. She has written a number of articles and chapters on the diplomacy and history of the Olympics, among other things. Dr Dichter is a valued member of many organisations working in the field of sport history and in recognition of this in 2019 she received the ISHPES Award for her work in the field. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.