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Helen King

(She/her)

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Professor Emerita, Classical Studies, The Open University

My book Immaculate Forms: Uncovering the History of Women’s Bodies was published by Profile Books in September 2024, and will be followed by the US/Canada version in January 2025.

My background? Well, I’m a classicist and historian of medicine specialising in the history of obstetrics and gynaecology, and I studied Ancient History and Social Anthropology at UCL, where I also gained my PhD in History. I worked at the universities of Cambridge, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Reading, before joining the Open University in 2011. I’ve taught medical students too, and I’ve also held visiting positions in Texas, British Columbia, Vienna and at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. My earlier publications include a very short introduction to my central subject, ancient medicine: Greek and Roman Medicine (Bloomsbury, 2001), https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/greek-and-roman-medicine-9781853995453.

Experience

  • 2017–present
    Emeritus professor, The Open University
  • 2011–2017
    Professor of Classical Studies , The Open University
  • 1996–2011
    Professor of the History of Classical Medicine, University of Reading
  • 1996–1998
    Sir James Knott Research Fellow, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
  • 1988–1996
    Lecturer in History, Liverpool Hope University College
  • 1983–1986
    Henry Sidgwick Junior Research Fellow, University of Cambridge Newnham College

Education

  • 1985 
    UCL, PhD/History
  • 1980 
    UCL, BA/Ancient History and Social Anthropology

Publications

  • 2024
    Immaculate Forms: Uncovering the History of Women’s Bodies , Profile
  • 2020
    Hippocrates Now: The Father of Medicine in the Internet Age, Bloomsbury
  • 2014
    ‘The Art of Medicine: Narratives of Healing: a new approach to the past?’ , The Lancet, 15 March
  • 2013
    The One-Sex Body on Trial: The Classical and Early Modern Evidence, Ashgate
  • 2011
    'Galen and the widow: Towards a history of therapeutic masturbation in ancient gynaecology’, EuGeStA: Journal on Gender Studies in Antiquity 1, 205-235
  • 2007
    Midwifery, Obstetrics and the Rise of Gynaecology, Ashgate
  • 2004
    The Disease of Virgins: Greensickness, Chlorosis and the Problems of Puberty, Routledge
  • 2001
    Greek and Roman Medicine, Bloomsbury
  • 1998
    Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece, Routledge
  • 1993
    Hysteria Beyond Freud (with Elaine Showalter, Roy Porter, George Rousseau and Sander Gilman, University of California Press

Grants and Contracts

  • 2011
    Fellowship
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Arts and Humanities Research Council
  • 1996
    University Award
    Role:
    PI
    Funding Source:
    Wellcome Trust