has just completed a PhD in Classics at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, under the supervision of Paul Cartledge and Robin Osborne.
The basic subject of her thesis concerns the influence of ideas of Sparta in German education, particularly in elite schools, during the 19th and 20th centuries. Her two case studies are the Prussian Cadet-Schools and the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas). During her doctorate, she was awarded scholarships from the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) and the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz for archival research in Germany. The thesis is to be published as a monograph this autumn by the Classical Press of Wales.
Other research interests include:
On April 12th, Helen presented a paper at the Classical Association annual conference, University of Exeter, entitled 'Youth of Sparta and of Mars: Uses and Abuses of Classics at the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps'.
A slightly longer version of this paper will be given to the Caius Graduate Arts Society at 8.30pm on June 5th, in the Senior Parlour, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge.
Helen has recently been interviewed about her PhD-research by Dr. Jessica Hughes of Classics Confidential, the Open University’s vodcasting site for Classical ‘news, gossip and curiosities’. The interview is now being featured on the OU website in an article entitled 'Bitesize interviews take a closer look at Classical Studies'.
To view the video, entitled 'Sparta and the Nazi Imagination', click here.
Helen’s article ‘"Spartanische Pimpfe": The Importance of Sparta in the Educational Ideology of the Adolf Hitler Schools’, has just been published in Sparta in Modern Thought, ed. Stephen Hodkinson, Ian Macgregor Morris (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales). To read the University of Nottingham's press release, click here.