Outreach

Helen recently contributed a podcast on ‘Classics in Nazi Germany’ to a series of podcasts on Classics and decolonisation hosted by Khameleon Productions.

The series, entitled ‘Interrogating Classics’, forms part of Khameleon’s commitment to exploring new narratives, platforming untold stories, and discovering fresh outlooks through interdisciplinary forms.Read more...

During 2019-2020, the world moved from some semblance of 'normality' to a totally online world, with workshops, public lectures and seminars all being held in virtual form. Engagements with the general public during the year included contributing a lecture in German on Nazi elite-school exchange programmes with British public schools to the 11th public-facing scholarly symposium at the Wewelsburg, alongside historians Mary Fulbrook, Caroline Pearce and Helen Boak.Read more...

Since 2015, Helen has worked with Macat, an academic technology start-up which aims to develop critical thinking skills, as well as curating a library of analyses of the world's most influential intellectual works of non-fiction and works of scholarship. With a growing list of titles across a broad range of subject areas, Macat works with leading academics from the world’s top universities to produce new analyses that focus on the ideas and the impact of the most influential works ever written. Routledge has now published Helen's first two analyses in their Macat Library series of educational guides - Sir Ian Kershaw's The Hitler Myth: Image and Reality in the Third Reich and Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin.Read more...

On 24 October 2016, Helen gave a public lecture at Nordhausen's Museum Tabakspeicher, entitled 'Napola Ilfeld and other Nazi Elite Schools in Central Germany', organised by Town Archivist Dr. Wolfram Theilemann, in conjunction with the Nordhausen Society for History and Antiquity. The lecture also attracted attention in the local media.Read more...

An essay on Hitler's foreign policy, commissioned by Hodder Education, has now appeared in the publisher's new Edexcel-approved A-level textbook, entitled History+ for Edexcel A Level: Nationalism, dictatorship and democracy in twentieth-century Europe.

The textbook, edited by Peter Clements, Robin Bunce, Sarah Ward, Mark Gosling, and Andrew Flint, is intended to encourage students to develop high-level skills in historical studies by providing a stimulating mixture of expert narrative and extended reading, including bespoke essays from leading academics.Read more...

On 7 July 2015, Helen gave a lunchtime lecture to the Rotary Club of Cambridge, entitled 'Nazis at the Leys: British public school exchange programmes with the Third Reich'. The lecture explored the exchanges which took place between the National Political Education Institutes (Napolas) and a number of British public schools during the 1930s, including The Leys School in Cambridge.

The talk was one in a series of general-interest lectures hosted by the Club throughout the year, and was well attended by local Rotarians.Read more...

From 27th September 2014 to 18th January 2015, a selection of editions from Helen's comprehensive collection of Prussian cadet-school literature were recently displayed as part of an exhibition at Durham University's Palace Green Library, entitled 'Books for Boys: Heroism, Adventure and Empire at the Dawn of the First World War'.Read more...

On 18 November 2014, Helen gave a lecture, entitled 'When the Nazis came to Dauntsey's', to the 4th and 5th Form History Society and other interested members of the school community at Dauntsey's School, West Lavington, Wiltshire.

Dick Hargreaves, a ninety-five-year-old former pupil who participated in the exchange programme, was also present.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...

On 20 March 2013, Helen gave a talk, entitled 'Sparta: Myth and Reality' to GCSE students at Soham Village College, a specialist Technology and Languages College which gained Academy status in 2011. This was the very first meeting of the school's new Classics society, 'Plato's People'. The History GCSE classes also attended, which gave the discussion afterwards an extra piquancy - particularly since Spartan reception in Nazi Germany was one of the themes. The event was organised in collaboration with the Cambridge University Museums outreach initiative, led by Rachel Sinfield, as well as Bessie Owen and Jon Stenner, the Classics teachers at Soham VC.Read more...