Helen Dallas

Helen is a postdoctoral researcher in English, with interdisciplinary links to drama and history. Her project is entitled The Romantic History Play, 1789–1837.

Helen completed her DPhil (PhD) in English at the University of Oxford (Trinity College). Her thesis was entitled 'The Life and Death of Dramatic Character, 1779–1839'. She is currently revising this work as a monograph. In Oxford, Helen also taught Shakespeare, English Literature 1660–1760, 1760–1830, European Theatre 1800–present, and supervised undergraduate dissertations on various topics related to Romantic literature and nineteenth-century theatre and performance. She was also the Co-Ordinator of the Performance Research Hub in the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, and co-created and co-presented Practice Makes: The Oxford Reimagining Performance Podcast.

Helen studied MA Text and Performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Birkbeck, University of London. Her undergraduate degree is in English from Christ's College, University of Cambridge.

Helen is passionate about practice as research and public engagement work. She has assisted with a number of stagings of eighteenth-century and Romantic plays. A particular highlight was playing Agnes in a professionally-directed rehearsed reading of Joanna Baillie's The Tryal (1798) at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds in 2024.

Helen has also had her own writing staged as part of the Prototype series of plays in Oxford, and was the recipient of the Richard Hillary Prize for Creative Writing 2024.

The Romantic History Play, 1789–1837 offers a new theoretical understanding of history as a dramatic genre in the Romantic period. This project focuses on the role of history in theatre during a turbulent period of revolution and repression, with particular attention to nationhood. This research examines which histories are told and how they're told, the ideological motivations behind those performances, the role they played in an emerging 'British' imperial identity, and how that was reinforced or challenged across the British Isles.