Author: Helen Roche

Helen's article, 'Zwischen Freundschaft und Feindschaft: Exploring relationships between pupils at the Napolas and British public schoolboys', has recently been published in the 6th volume of Angermion: Yearbook for Anglo-German Literary Criticism, Intellectual History and Cultural Transfers / Jahrbuch für britisch-deutsche Kulturbeziehungen.

The article looks at a series of exchanges which took place between the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten and British public schools, between 1934 and 1939.Read more...

The last two months have seen the appearance of two articles on very different topics. The first, entitled '"Anti-Enlightenment": National Socialist educators’ troubled relationship with humanism and the philhellenist tradition', was published in the latest issue of Publications of the English Goethe Society, a special issue dedicated to the topic of German philhellenism. The second, entitled ‘Spartan Supremacy: A “Possession for Ever”? Early fourth-century expectations of enduring ascendancy’, appeared earlier this month in an edited volume on Hindsight in Greek and Roman History.Read more...

On 13 December 2013, Helen Roche and Carol Atack hosted the Legacy of Greek Political Thought Network Workshop, a one-day colloquium which took place at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.Read more...

On 11 November 2013, Helen presented a paper entitled 'Narrating the Fall of Empires in Weimar and National Socialist Racial Ideology' to the Fieldnotes Seminar at the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH).Read more...

Presented at the Cambridge Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) Fieldnotes Seminar, 11 November 2013.Read more...

Helen has recently contributed to a distance-learning course which is currently offered by the University of Leicester, entitled 'Deconstructing Sparta'. The coursebook contains ten thematic chapters, which aim to synthesise the most up-to-date scholarship on Sparta in an engaging and readable fashion. The chapters also include guides to further reading, study questions, and notes towards further exploration of the topic in question.

Helen's chapter, entitled 'Later Reception and Modern Recreation of Sparta', charts the development of Spartan reception through the ages.Read more...

Presented at an international conference entitled 'Nationalsozialismus und Regionalbewußtsein im östlichen Europa: Ideologie - Machtausbau - Beharrung', organised by the Europäisches Netzwerk Erinnerung und Solidarität and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, 24 October 2013.Read more...

On 24 October 2013, Helen presented a paper entitled 'Herrschaft durch Schulung: The "Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten im Osten" and the Third Reich's Germanising Mission' at an international conference on 'Nationalsozialismus und Regionalbewußtsein im östlichen Europa: Ideologie - Machtausbau - Beharrung'.Read more...

in Angermion: Yearbook for Anglo-German Literary Criticism, Intellectual History and Cultural Transfers / Jahrbuch für britisch-deutsche Kulturbeziehungen 6, 2013, pp. 101-26.

Between 1934 and 1939, pupils from the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten engaged in a series of exchanges with boys from British public schools. This article explores in detail the Anglo-German relationships – including tensions and prejudices – which were forged between pupils and staff during these exchanges, focusing on exchange programmes with Dauntsey's, Kingswood, and The Leys.Read more...

Helen's article, '"Wanderer, kommst du nach Pforta": The tension between Classical tradition and the demands of a Nazi elite-school education at Schulpforta and Ilfeld, 1934–1945' has just been published in the latest issue of the European Review of History / revue européenne d'histoire. The paper explores the tensions which arose when Schulpforta, Germany’s most renowned humanistic boarding-school, was forcibly turned into a Nazi elite-school (a Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt, or Napola).Read more...