New Book Showcasing SHL Archive of WWII Cryptanalyst & Scholar of University of London

A new book Cultural Translation and Knowledge Transfer on Alternative Routes of Escape from Nazi Terror : Meditations Through Migrations was published by Routledge on 6 August 2021. It features a chapter exploring the archive of William Rose, Scholar of German at the University of London, translator of exiled writers, soldier at Dunkirk, and Enigma cryptanalyst at Bletchley Park, held at Senate House Library. 

The chapter “Between the Couch and Two Cultures. William Rose, psychoanalysis, translation and the creation of cultural capital by literary exiles during the Second World War” by Andrea Meyer Ludowisy, Academic Librarian for European Art and Culture at Senate House Library, uses examples from the archive to show how he and other University of London Germanists acted as "cultural mediator" for refugees (you can read more about this academic research in the Talking Humanities blog). Rose not only used his skills to aid literary exiles, but he also put his linguistic and cultural skills in the service of cryptanalysis and counterintelligence at Bletchley Park and The London Cage (the MI19 prisoner of war facility) – find out more about his work in the SHL blog.   

The chapter in this new book highlights one of the many SHL collections that are located at the intersection of the recently emerging field of the history of knowledge, transnational history, migration, exile, as well as cultural transfer studies.