This chapter elaborates the contested position of Classical studies in twentieth-century Sweden through two case studies. The first case study is the classicism of Erik Hedén, a leading social democrat. In order to reconcile classicism with his political ideology, Hedén distinguished between classicism and the conservative connotations of classicism. Classicism is often associated with conservative sentiments. In post-war Sweden, this was coupled with a wider resentment against the humanities.

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... he renaming of several academic disciplines in Sweden around 1970 was an attempt to come to terms with this setting. I suggest, in the second case study, that the change of the official Swedish name for the academic discipline Classical archaeology and ancient history aimed to reconcile classicism.